In Tuesday's federal courts roundup, Judge Lyle E. Strom of the US District Court for the District of Nebraska declined to enforce a jury's award of $1.2 billion against Tyson Foods Inc. stating that the judgment "clearly overstates the defendant's liability." The ruling was issued March 19 but released by Tyson Foods today. Dow Jones Newswires has the full story.... The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that police can frisk people who are behving suspiciously in high crime areas, even when if they are not aware of any particular criminal activity. The ruling overturned a lower court's ruling suppressing the evidence obtained during the frisk. AP has the full story. Read the opinion here.... Judge William Standish of the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania overturned the convictions of a couple who allegedly used counterfeit receipts to defraud a nationwide retail chain out of $25,000. The couple had been convicted under a statute that prohibited transporting counterfeit securities. Standish ruled that the statute did not apply because receipts do not meet the legal definition of securities. AP has the full story.... Community Rights Counsel (CRC), a public interest law firm based in Washington, DC, yesterday filed ethics violations charges against three federal judges who sit on the governing board of an organization that supports pro-business solutions to environmental issues. The judges, Douglas Ginsburg of the US District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, Danny Boggs of the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Jane Roth of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals, served on the board for Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. CRC wants the judges to step down from the board. AP has the full story.... The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Aetna Health Inc. v. Davilla. The main issue in the case is whether some eligibility decisions that insurance companies make are actually medical decisions. KRT has the full story. The high court also heard arguments in the case of CIGNA HealthCare of Texas, Inc. v. Calad. That case asks whether federal law essentially bars patients from suing HMO's in state courts. AP has the full story. Finally, in oral arguments in the case of Blakely v. Washington, Supreme Court justices repeatedly expressed a concern that ruling against the state might in effect overturn federal sentencing guidelines. The issue in the case is whether judges have authority to add prison time to a criminal's sentence. AP has the full story.

The Senate today debated S 1637, which would repeal parts of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to comply with the World Trade Organization, which has imposed trade sanctions against the US over parts of the Code it claims are export subsidies that illegally benefit American workers. Specifically, the sanctions target the Extraterritorial Income Exclusion, which sought to level the playing field between US exporters and their European counterparts. Unlike the American companies, European exporters are not generally required to pay taxes for sales abroad. According to Reuters, the new legislation would replace the embattled export subsidy with $130 billion in tax breaks to US businesses over ten years. The measure also attempts to slow the movement of American jobs overseas, widely seen as a root cause of continued economic sluggishness in the US. Despite bipartisan interest in ending the WTO sanctions, however, both sides disagreed over an amendment proposed by Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin. The amendment seeks to prevent Department of Labor regulatory changes that would, according to Harkin, block as many as eight million workers from overtime pay protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Those changes are supported by the White House and Republican Senators, who view them as necessary simplifications and revisions of current regulations. Senator Harkin has created a website arguing for the amendment. Another proposed amendment would give tax breaks to homeowners paying mortgage insurance. According to AP, the measure would create a tax deduction for the cost of private mortgage insurance assessed by lenders to home buyers whose down payments are less than 20% of the purchase price. This amendment, which could affect as many as twelve million homeowners, was offered by Iowa Republican Charles Grassley in part to curry Democratic support for the underlying legislation. A cloture vote on S 1637 is expected tomorrow.

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In international law news Tuesday, the UN Security Council today held an open meeting to debate Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin. During the meeting, Nasser al-Kidwa, the Permanent Observer of Palestine, called the assassination a "war crime" and accused Israel of regularly violating provisions of the UN Charter and other provisions of international law and international humanitarian law. Israel's Ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told the Council that Israel has a basic obligation to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of terrorism. The UN News Service has more.... A draft Security Council Presidential statement condemning Israel for Yassin's assassination was withdrawn by Algeria after the US insisted on changing the text to include a denunciation of Hamas for its "terrorist activities," preventing consensus on the statement. IPS has more.... The Court of Justice of the European Communities has ruled against "benefit tourism," where citizens can move around the EU in search of higher unemployment payments, holding that residence requirements for unemployment payments do not necessarily violate EU laws on the free movement of workers. Read the Court's judgment and its press release summarizing its decision. The Scotsman has more.

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Tuesday's Los Angeles Times reports that John C. West, the former governor of South Carolina, passed away Sunday at the age of 81. West was a graduate of the University of South Carolina's law school and set up the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission amid civil unrest in the state. After serving in the state Senate and as both lieutenant governor and governor, he was appointed by President Carter to serve as ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The Boston Globe has more.

Here's Tuesday's legal news from the US Department of Justice. The DOJ, along with the Federal Trade Commission, announced the end of an identity theft scheme which used emails to falsely lead people to believe it was part of PayPal or America Online, Inc. in order to obtain credits card numbers. Zachary Keith Hill of Houston has been ordered to cease the operation and is now awaiting federal trial. This is not the first time that Hill has been charged by the DOJ or the FTC, however, he may receive a lenient sentence due to his cooperation with the government. Read the DOJ-FTC announcement and a related civil lawsuit [PDF]. Computerworld has the full story.... Updating a story reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, Royal Dutch/Shell Group has decided to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation into the company's reduction of oil and natural gas reserves. Shell has reduced its proved reserves twice this year, causing investor concern over the company's growth in the oil and gas division. Shell has agreed to meet with the US attorney's office in Manhattan to discuss the situation. Bloomberg has more.... Also in the Justice Department, a $13.3 million check was given to the government of Colombia in order to benefit law enforcement programs there. The money was forfeited from deceased drug kingpin, Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, who had previously been indicted on heroin trafficking charges in 1989, but died before he was extradited to the US. The US and Colombian government agreed to share Gacha's assets which were seized during the investigation. Read the DOJ press release.

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In environmental law news for Tuesday, AP reports that the Bush administration is considering a plan [PDF] which would reduce mercury emissions through a market based "cap and trade" approach rather than relying on technology for quick cuts. Although the EPA had considered tightening the cap and trade proposal, which may miss target dates for mercury reduction by almost a decade, studies have indicated that required technology does not exist to remove mercury equally well from various types and grades of coal. The EPA will be allowed to turn to the cap and trade approach as the Bush administration reclassified mercury as a substance which is not subject to the strict pollution controls the Clean Air Act places on toxic substances... In other news, AP reports that Colorado Congressman, Mark Udall, has asked the EPA to investigate allegations that the Justice Department covered up environmental crimes at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The scandal is purported to have involved a deal between Rockwell Corporation and the Justice Department in which the company paid a fine to avoid indictments of corporate and Energy Department officials for covering up illegal waste dumping, falsification of records, and illegal burning... The New York Times notes that concerns over the rising cost of gasoline have prompted New York politicians to press the EPA to relieve the state from requirements that mandate the use of ethanol as an antipollutant in its fuel. The effectiveness of ethanol in preventing air pollution has been questioned by both environmentalists and the EPA. Recently, it has indicated that new technology can take the place of ethanol for purposes of complying with the federal Clean Air Act. Some New York officials believe that the decision to use ethanol may also be part of a political ploy to gain votes from Midwestern farmers as ethanol is made from corn generated in the region.

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Phoenix, AZ may have its first law school by the first of next year. Chicago-based Sterling Capital Partners hopes to open a new, for-profit institution, tentatively called the Phoenix International School of Law, there by January of 2005. According to today's Arizona Republic, Sterling plans to expand enrollment from an initial 75 to a fuller 300-400, and aims to take the school from the fourth to the second tier in the space of just "a few years." But Phoenix International will not have the city to itself for long, as the Arizona State University College of Law in Tempe has intentions of adding a Phoenix campus in coming years. The Republic has the full story here, and JURIST has an earlier report here.

Meanwhile, from cooler climes, Dean Robert V. Ward, Jr. of the Southern New England School of Law makes the case for corporate reparations for slavery in today's Providence Journal. Dean Ward calls the dismissal of a lawsuit against major American corporations a "setback" to the reparations cause. Read the complaint in that suit here [PDF]. He argues, however, that having profited from "wealth secured on the backs of others," such corporations have a moral, if not legal, imperative to disgorge some of their profits to help empower present African-American communities. Ward's call upon corporations, available from the Journal here, follows a recent call upon his university by Professor Alfred Brophy (see JURIST's report here), and may signal the resurrection of reparations discourse in legal academic circles.

In Tuesday's rights and liberties news, several dozen black pastors have gathered in Atlanta to protest the gay rights movement and to dispel comparisons drawn between the push for same-sex marriages and the civil rights movement. The pastors met in an Atlanta-area church Monday and signed a declaration detailing their beliefs on marriage and religion while advocating a ban on same-sex marriages in Georgia. The declaration described the lobby for same-sex marriage as "wrong" and as redefining marriage to suit those who chose alternative lifestyles. Bishop Donn Thomas of Messiah's World Outreach Ministries contrasted the civil rights movement with the gay rights movement by saying the former was a positive freedom, while the latter is "a negative freedom rooted in the sexual revolution...from the restraint of morality." Same-sex marriages are already illegal in Georgia, but those in opposition to same-sex marriages find that the language could allow a judge to rule that Georgia must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The Georgia House may revisit the issue this week. AP has more.

In other rights and liberties news, Cincinnati prosecutor Michael Allen has cleared six policemen of any wrongdoing in the beating death of 350-pound Nathaniel Jones last November 30th. The police were recorded by a police cruiser camera striking and jabbing a dozen times Jones until he was handcuffed after he knocked on officer down. Since 1995, 19 black men have died in violent altercations with the police. Calvert Smith, Cincinnati chapter president of the NAACP, says the organization is planning an independent investigation. AP has the full story.... In New York, Judge Richard Casey of the Southern District of New York has ruled that a pediatrician who says that a fetus can feel pain will be allowed to testify in a case challenging a ban on some types of late-term abortions. The ACLU representing the National Abortion Federation, argues that the doctor will only testify that it is likely rather than definite that a fetus can feel pain. Three trials are set to challenge the law in New York, Omaha, and San Francisco. AP has more.

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In Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, a report by Putnam Investments' board of trustees indicates the former CEO of the company knew about improper trading at the firm several years ago but failed to stop it. However, the report stated the company did an overall good job at policing improper behavior. Read the report here[PDF]. Reuters has more.

In other corporations and securities law news, Janus Capital Group Inc. may reach an agreement to settle allegations of improper mutual fund trades with the SEC and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as soon as next month. Sources indicate Janus will probably fines similar to the amount paid by Alliance Capital Management Holding LP - $600 million. Spitzer and the SEC, who have already received nearly $1.6 billion from companies involved in the mutual fund scandals, refused to comment on the prospective settlement. Bloomberg.com has more.... Royal Dutch/Shell announced that it may face a criminal probe by the US Department of Justice over its cutting of oil and gas reserves. Reuters has more.... As reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, the European Union is set to fine Microsoft $616 million as well as set limits on its practice of bundling software and services with its Windows operating system as part of the penalties related to the company's antitrust violations. BBC has more.... Jones Apparel Group Inc. has proposed to buy Maxwell Shoe Co. for $297 million and will seek to replace the Maxwell board that rejected Jones' hostile takeover bid just two weeks ago. Read the Jones press release announcing the bid here. AP has more.... Outdoor specialty store giant Cabela's Inc. has filed for an IPO registration of its common stock with the SEC. AP has more.... Michael Ofstedahl, a former vice president of original equipment manufacturer sales at Adaptec, Inc., was sentenced to five years of probation for obstructing a federal investigation of insider trading at the company. The San Francisco Business Times has more.... As reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, the US Supreme Court will allow the IRS to collect the tax debts of business partnerships from individual members of the ventures within a ten year deadline. Read the opinion here[PDF]. Bloomberg.com has more.

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The Recording Industry of America (RIAA) announced Tuesday that it was suing 532 more people for illegally swapping music over the internet including, for the first time, student users from 21 university networks. Read the RIAA press release here. CNET has more.

US military officials announced Tuesday that they had released 494 prisoners from detention centers in Iraq, including 272 from Abu Ghraib prison in west Baghdad. Most of the detainees had been held for three to six months, and were released because they no longer posed a security threat. Some 5500 detainees are still held at Abu Ghraib, which was a notorious institution during the regime of Saddam Hussein (see a Newsday photo essay from April 2003). Aljazeera has more. On Saturday, the US Army announced it was charging six of its military police with abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib facility, as previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase.

The constitutional chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court overturned its own electoral chamber Tuesday in holding that the country's opposition did not obtain the 2.4 million signatures required for a recall vote on controversial President Hugo Chavez. Read the judgment here (in Spanish). Reuters has more, and from Caracas the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional has local coverage in Spanish. An initial ruling to the same effect by Venezuela's National Electoral Council on March 2 led to three days of rioting in the country which claimed 9 lives and resulted in hundreds of injuries.

A preliminary staff report released Tuesday by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States said diplomatic and legal counter-terror strategies embraced by the Clinton and Bush administrations prior to 9/11 allowed terrorists to avoid capture. It noted that the US tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Taliban government in Afghanistan to hand Osama bin Laden over to another country to face justice, and that it had pursued an unsuccessful indictment against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in co-operation with Qatari authorities, who later said that he had disappeared (he has since been captured in Pakistan). Read the report here [PDF]. AP has more.

Board of Trustees annual reports released today on the status of the federal government's Medicare and Social Security programs says that Medicare spending will exceed income in 2004, and that the Medicare trust fund will be insolvent by 2019. The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2042. Read an official summary of the reports here; the full text of the Medicare report is here. An official summary of the HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and Treasury Secretary John Snow, speaking today at a press briefing, emphasized that the Medicare cost overrun was not a consequence of new prescription drug legislation passed late last year. Secretary Snow's statement is here. Recorded video of the press briefing will shortly be available here. The Treasury Department also provides a fact sheet [PDF]. Reuters has more.

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that the IRS can act within a 10-year deadline to collect taxes from partnership members without first filing individual assessments. Bloomberg has more. Read the Court's opinion here [PDF].

The US Supreme Court Tuesday sent a potentially-major case involving the legality of dumping polluted runoff from suburban water districts into the Everglades back to the 11th Circuit. Read the Court's opinion here [PDF]. AP has more.

In prepared testimony for the 9/11 Commission, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright asserted Tuesday that the Guantanamo detentions may be helping Al Qaeda to recruit terrorists. Bloomberg has more. Prepared testimony from today's hearing will eventually be available here on the website of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

The US Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing today on A Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Preserve Traditional Marriage. Scheduled witnesses include law professors from St. Thomas (Minnesota), Louisiana State University, and the University of Chicago. Watch the proceedings live here beginning at 10 AM ET.

Microsoft lawyers balked Tuesday at a reported proposed fine of some $615 million against the computer giant which will become official on Wednesday if the European Commission adopts the recommendation of EU competition czar Mario Monti. A Microsoft representative suggested the fine was out of line with European Commission guidelines, especially when the behaviors censured had been ruled permissible in the US. AP has more. Last minute settlement negotations between Microsoft and European officials failed last week, as noted in this Microsoft press release.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States holds a public hearing Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington DC on the formulation and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy, with particular emphasis on the period from the August 1998 embassy bombings to September 11, 2001. Today's witnesses include former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. The full agenda of today's hearing is here. Watch the proceedings here via C-SPAN.

A draft of the new Kenyan constitution [DOC] was presented to the country's Attorney General in Nairobi today notwithstanding a court order to stop the constitutional review process to give three delegates who opposed some of the provisions time to mount a judicial challenge. Controversy has swirled around proposed terms that would reduce the powers of Kenya's President, terms that led last week to the Government's formal withdrawal from the constitutional process. The draft document will now be debated in Parliament. BBC News has more, and the East African Standard provides local coverage. Visit the website of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission.

US Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the officer in charge of the Gunatanamo Bay detention camp, found US Army Muslim chaplain James Yee guilty Monday of adultery with a female officer at Guantanamo and of storing pornographic images on his computer. The Army had dropped its criminal charges [PDF] against Yee Friday, who had originally been accused of espionage-related activities and improperly handling classified documents while ministering to Muslim prisoners at the camp; yesterday's proceeding was an administrative "Article 15 hearing" under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to a Department of Defense webpage on military justice:

The commander may dispose of the offense with nonjudicial punishment. Article 15, UCMJ, is a means of handling minor offenses requiring immediate corrective action. Nonjudicial punishment hearings are non-adversarial. They are not a "mini-trial" with questioning by opposing sides. The commander conducts the hearing. The service member may request an open or closed hearing, speak with an attorney about his case, have someone speak on his behalf, and present witnesses who are reasonably available. The rules of evidence do not apply. In order to find the service member guilty, the commander must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the service member committed the offense. The maximum punishment depends on the rank of the commander imposing punishment and the rank of the service member being punished. The service member has a right to appeal the imposing commander's decision to the next higher commander.

Yee did not speak in his own defense, and his civilian attorney objected that he had had just three days notice of the hearing and had only been allowed to see the evidence against Yee 20 minutes beforehand. Yee was issued a reprimand. An appeal is expected. Reuters has more.

China announced Tuesday that it was suspending its human rights dialogue with the United States after the US announced that it would propose a resolution critical of China's human rights record at the current meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Reuters has more. This is the first time the US has proposed such a resolution since 2001; a State Department human rights report released earlier this year had accused China of "backsliding" in the area. For more information on the US plan, see Tuesday's State Department briefing.

In Tuesday's media and information law news, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) kept Canadian journalist Julie O'Neill under surveillance, tracking her e-mail and searching her garbage, before raiding her home earlier this year in a search for classified documents, CanWest News Service reports. The RCMP actions became known after Superior Court of Justice judge Lynn Ratushny released affidavits used by the RCMP to obtain sealed search warrants for O'Neill's residence in January. O'Neill came under suspicion after reporting on US deportation proceedings of a Canadian citizen. O'Neill has challenged the legality of the search and demanded the return of the seized property. CanWest has more.... The Financial Times reports that two senior staff members of a prominent Chinese daily known for its reports on sensitive subjects have been convicted on corruption charges. The Southern Metropolitan Daily former GM was sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzlement, while its former editor-in-chief was sentenced to 11 years for bribe-taking. Critics claim the Chinese government targeted the newspaper for its reports on the Sars virus outbreak and government corruption. Reporters Without Borders condemned the authorities' actions. The Financial Times has more.

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BBC News is reporting that a Swedish court has sentenced Mijailo Mijailovic to life in prison for the murder of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh last September. Mijailovic stabbed Lindh while she was out shopping in a Stockholm department store.

In Tuesday's US law and business press, the National Law Journal reports that two losing parties in a civil tax fraud case are asking the US Supreme Court to hear their claims that secret trial reports by trial judges in the US Tax Court violate due process and federal laws governing it.... The Legal Intelligencer reports that a federal jury has found that The New York Times defamed a pharmaceutical sales firm, but the jury awarded no damages because the firm suffered no "actual harm".... The Boston Business Journal reports that Hale and Dorr LLP senior partner Kenneth H. Slade drowned Sunday while visiting his parents in Florida for their 50th wedding anniversary.... The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that InKine Pharmaceutical Co. Inc. has received a summons for a class action suit filed in Philadelphia for breach of contract.... FindLaw's Writ has Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman's column on claims of "constructive discharge" by sexual harassment victims.

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Some of the legal stories running in Tuesday's foreign press... Japan Today reports that a Sapporro District Court declined to hear a suit over forced labor during WWII. The suit was filed by 43 Chinese against the Japanese government and six companies. The defense argued that the statute of limitations had expired.... The International Herald Tribune covers an upcoming International Court of Justice ruling in a case filed by Mexico against the US. Mexico wants the US to retry 52 Mexicans sentenced to death by US courts because they were not informed of their right to consult consular officials upon arrest.... The Moscow Times features a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) appeal filed by attorneys for jailed Yukos executives. Though a court back log would require nearly two years before the case is heard, the ECHR is authorized to order interim measures, such as the immediate release for health reasons requested by Lebedev's attorneys.

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On March 23, 1918, 101 leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World union ("The Wobblies") were put on trial in Chicago for conspiracy to obstruct America's participation in World War I. Learn more about the Wobblies from the Constitutional Rights Foundation.