In Wednesday's Congressional news, the Senate today failed to invoke cloture on S 2207, the Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act of 2004. The 48-49 vote fell short of the 60 votes required to end a Democratic filibuster of the medical malpractice reform bill detailed earlier today on JURIST's Paper Chase. According to today's Washington Post, the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights has asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's family connections and multi-million dollar holdings in the Hospital Corporation of America for a possible conflict of interest. Like Dr. Frist, the HCA strongly supports malpractice reform. The group challenging Dr. Frist is opposed to the malpractice legislation advocated by the White House and Senate Republicans. Reuters has more.... A separate cloture motion on S 1637, the Jumpstart our Business Strength Act, also failed today by exactly the same margin. That bill would substitute $130 tax breaks for American businesses over ten years for provisions in current law deemed illegal export subsidies by the World Trade Organization. Members of both parties hope to pass the legislation later this week in an effort to end trade sanctions imposed by the European Union. According to the Dow Jones News Service, the current delay is over assorted tax provisions added by both sides and over disagreement about overtime pay changes supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats.... Today's Washington Post reports that the transportation bill passed last week by the House contained a number of tax breaks included at the last minute and possibly unknown to the House members that overwhelmingly approved the legislation. The White House continues to criticize the transportation bill as too expensive, while the bipartisan Concord Coalition has raised concerns that the bill's accounting measures disguise its actual cost.... Finally, the Washington Post reports that in what may be a rare election-year political respite, Senate Democrats will allow a vote to proceed on the pension bill approved last week by a House-Senate conference. Senate passage is the legislation's final hurdle before almost certain presidential approval. AP has more.

click for previous Congressional news

In Wednesday's federal courts roundup, the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to review en banc the decision of a three judge panel which ordered the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from a Nebraska city park. No date has yet been set for oral arguments. AP has the full story.... The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling that a Montana county's system of electing commissioners violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The at-large system allowed white voters to effectively block election by American Indian candidates. The at-large system was scrapped in 2002. AP has the full story. Read the opinion here.... The US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments regarding Louisiana's "Choose Life" specialty license plates. Abortion rights groups have challenged the means by which the state issues specialty plates, describing the methodology as viewpoint discrimination. Louisiana law allows the legislature to decide which groups get specialty plates, rather than providing criteria that groups must meet in order to qualify. AP has more on this story.... The Cincinnati Post reports that federal district courts may face layoffs because of budget cuts. The story focuses on the district courts in Ohio and Kentucky. Chief Judge John G. Heyburn of the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky recently told Congress that the budget cuts may transform the federal judiciary into "a second-class system of justice." Read the full story.

In international law news Wednesday, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has called for states to hand over all remaining suspects who have been indicted for war crimes stemming from the Rwandan genocide. In his statement, Hassan Jallow also called for states to accept the transfer of the current detainees to their domestic jurisdictions in order to help alleviate backlog at the ICTR. The UN News Service has more. As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, today marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The UN offers recorded video of today's General Assembly meeting commemorating the 1994 genocide and a panel discussion on the UN's responsibility to protect against genocide. Panelists include Retired Ghanaian Major-General Henry Kwami Anyidoho, Canada's former Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, Samantha Power, founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun. The UN provides a compilation of panelist biographies [PDF].

click for previous international law news

In Wednesday's tax law news, the US Senate has failed to pass a bill which would have given US manufacturers a tax break. The bill also would have changed the tax laws regarding US corporations exporting goods, and ended the standoff that forced the EU to impose sanctions on the US for its failure to comply with WTO rules. AP has more. View the bill here.... The German tax authority has announced that it will now recognize the LLC for partnership tax purposes. The German authorities are using criteria similar to those the IRS used under the Kitner regulations, before the current check-the-box regs, to determine whether to tax the LLC as a partnership or corporation. Tax-News.com has more. Read Corptax.com's explanation of last week's German Ministry of Finance release here.

Here's Wednesday's legal news from the US Department of Justice. A Democratic watchdog group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has asked the Justice Department to look into a possible violation of federal bribery law. Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon (R) is accused of using his office to benefit companies for which his daughter, Karen Weldon, works as a lobbyist. AP reports that allegedly, Karen Weldon lobbies for foreign companies that Rep. Weldon has assisted and in return is highly compensated. The Justice Department has not yet received the complaint but has commented that it will review the request.... Updating a story previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Million Mom March filed papers against the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) seeking to enjoin them from allowing the manufacture of new semiautomatic assault weapons in violation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the Assault Weapons Act). The request for an injunction follows last month's lawsuit in which the Brady Campaign opposed the government's allowance of gun manufacturers to make new receivers for assault weapons possessed before the Act. US Newswire has more.... Finally, in connection with a story reported earlier today on JURIST's Paper Chase, the DOJ has issued a press release regarding the withdrawal of a plea agreement by Lea Fastow, wife of Enron's former finance chief. Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray confirmed that "[t]he plea and cooperation agreement reached with Lea Fastow’s husband, former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, is not affected by today’s rulings."

click for previous Department of Justice news

In environmental law news for Wednesday, The New York Times reports that in attempts to pass regulations which would permit a "cap and trade" approach for curtailing mercury emissions, White House staff members deleted or modified information drawn from a 2000 report by the National Academy of Sciences on the effects of mercury. While 6 out of 10 members of the academy's panel on mercury contend that the changes did not introduce any technical inaccuracies, they said they were concerned because the White House almost uniformly minimized the health risks in instances where there could be disagreement. The allegations come after an outcry last Thursday by attorneys general from 10 states and 45 senators who asked the EPA to scrap the proposed rules, saying they were not strict enough... In other news, AP reports that a Senate panel is set to hear testimony from the EPA, the DC Water and Sewage Authority, and the Army Corps of Engineers concerning Washington DC's water contamination problem. The hearing comes a day after disgruntled residents presented a petition signed by over 1,300 people demanding a speedy solution to lead contamination in the District's drinking water supplies... Houston based ConocoPhillips has agreed to a $70 million settlement with property owners in Pensacola, Florida after it was alleged that an underground toxic plume devalued property and may have caused health problems. The proposal would divide $65 million in varying amounts among up to 7,000 people who now or previously owned about 3,000 homes and other properties in Pensacola. It also would allocate $3.6 million for medical monitoring of about 3,000 residents and $750,000 for administering the settlement. AP has more... The Defense Department is asking Congress for exemptions for 525 of the military's live firing ranges. Although the military has received exemptions to federally mandated environmental statutes in the past, the current request would grant them leniency under the Clean Air Act, CERCLA, and RCRA. GovExec.com has more.

click for previous environmental law news

Practicing what he preaches, Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School has made his newest book available for free download [PDF] online. In Free Culture, Lessig decries current legal trends and argues for a rebalancing of copyright values that maximizes the Internet's creative and innovative potential. Relying on a Creative Commons license, he allows readers to download the book in its entirety and even make and distribute copies for noncommercial purposes, so long as they credit him as author. Professor Lawrence Solum of the University of San Diego School of Law has taken up the offer and fulfilled the book's intentions, offering "a sort of blogospheric book club" on his excellent Legal Theory Blog. Lessig tells the Stanford Daily today that in addition to contributing to the culture that he advocates, he expects online availability to increase sales of physical copies.

In other law school news, Harvard Law School announces today that a team of HLS students took first place at the National Criminal Justice Trial Advocacy Competition in Chicago last weekend. The competition site offers a brief release.

In family law news for Wednesday, the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that parents do not have the right to refuse life-saving medical treatment for their children. While the justices recognized that parents do have a strong interest in their children, they found the state also has an interest as well as the right to limit the interests of the parents. Yesterday's decision [PDF] came after a Jehovah's Witness couple refused a blood transfusion for their son who was born premature. The hospital performed the transfusion anyway and was then named as temporary gaurdian of the child by a Clark County district judge. AP has more.... An Alabama Senate committee has unanimously approved an amendment to the state constitution that would prevent the issuing of a marriage license to a couple of the same sex. The bill, SB433, now goes before the full Senate. A House committee has already approved a similar bill which is now waiting consideration by the full House. has more.

IBM has announced it will buy Daksh, India's third-largest technical and customer support services firm, for $150 - $200 million. The deal will be one of the biggest foreign acquisitions in India and is the biggest acquisition in the nation's booming $3.5 billion outsourcing sector. Outsourcing has become a hot-button topic in the United States where both candidates in the presidential campaign have debated the consequences of jobs being moved abroad. The deal, expected to go through in May, will give IBM access to over 6,000 employees. Click for more about outsourcing here. AP has more.

A delegation of Illinois officials led by Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn apologized Wednesday to leaders of the Mormon Church for the 1844 murder of the church founder Joseph Smith and the expulsion of Mormons from Illinois. The trip to Utah comes a week after the Illinois House approved a resolution expressing regret for the murder of Joseph Smith and other violence against Mormons. Illinois hopes to welcome more Mormons to the state. Read the Illinois House bill here. Read the press release from Lieutenant Governor Quinn about the trip here. AP has more.

In Utah, Melissa Ann Rowland, charged with murder for allegedly delaying a Caesarean section that could have saved one of her twins, has agreed to a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to child endangerment. Prosecutors will drop murder charges and ask for no more than five years in prison. Rowland said she was not informed she needed immediate surgery to save the child but did admit to using cocaine only weeks before undergoing the C-section. The National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and the American Civil Liberties Union have protested the charges saying the case is a back-door effort to undermine abortion rights. AP has more.

Thirteen same-sex couples today sued the state of New York seeking to have the state law that denies gay and lesbian couples the right to marry declared unconstitutional. A state Assembly member and his partner are among the plaintiffs who will be represented by the NYCLU and the ACLU. The lawsuit charges that state health regulations defining marriage as being between a man and woman violates the equal protection, privacy, and due process provisions of the State Constitution. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has indicated that the law is open to constitutional challenges even though he prohibits clerks from issuing marriage licenses. The complaint of Samuels and Gallagher, et. al., v. New York Department of Health can be read here[PDF]. Read the ACLU press release announcing the suit here. AP has more.

In Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, Lockheed Martin Corp. has announced a lowering of its buyout offer for Titan Corp. by $200 million to $2.2 billion. Under this new agreement, Titan must present proof that the US Justice Department has cleared the company of all alleged illegal overseas payments. Read the Lockheed Martin statement here. AP has more.

In other corporations and securities law news, as previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, Lea Fastow today withdrew her guilty plea for filing false tax returns and now faces a trial expected to begin June 2. US District Court Judge David Hittner decided not to accept the plea bargain arranged by prosecutors and Fastow. The dismissal of the plea arrangement with Lea Fastow will have no effect on the plea bargain gained by her husband, former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow. Watch video of reaction from Fastow's attorney here [Real Player]. Read the plea agreement here[PDF]. Read the indictment against Lea Fastow here[PDF]. The Houston Chronicle has more.... Former HealthSouth Corp. Chief Executive Richard Scrushy's attorneys filed motions to reduce the 85 criminal charges brought against their client calling it overkill by prosecutors. The attorneys are also challenging charges brought under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act calling the act vague and its use unconstitutional in this case. Read the Scrushy indictment here[PDF]. Reuters has more.... New York State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus has postponed the start of the trial of Tyco's former top lawyer, who is accused of accepting a $12 million bonus in exchange for allegedly thwarting a federal investigation, for two weeks as a result of the unexpectedly long trial of Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Schwartz. AP has more.

In other news, the SEC announced settlement of insider trading charges against E. Garrett Bewkes, Jr., a former director of Interstate Bakeries Corp, for giving his son, a broker, non-public information about the company. Read the SEC release announcing the deal here. Reuters has more.... The SEC has subpoenaed the personal stock-trading records of four executives at MarketWatch.com Inc., as part of its probe into illegal trading activities by co-founder Thom Calandra. AP has more.... General Mills Inc. indicated the SEC probe into the company is focusing on its practice of "loading" to meet quarterly sales targets. "Loading" is "the use of discounts or other promotional programs to encourage retailers and wholesalers to increase their purchases of company products." Read General Mills SEC filing here[PDF]. AP has more.... China Life Insurance announced its parent company will pay $8.2 million in back taxes and fines following the Chinese government's audit of the company's books in 2003. Last week, the SEC began an informal probe into the company's IPO offering in December. The Financial Times has more.... In a historic vote, shareholders of Eurotunnel voted to oust its top managers which could push the Channel Tunnel operator close to failure as the company already has over 9 billion Euro of debt. Reuters has more.

click for previous corporations and securities law news

The US Senate continues debate Wednesday on the Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act of 2004, which includes a $250,000 limitation of non-economic damages awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits. Supporters of the legislation, including the American Medical Association and the Alliance of American Insurers, say that such a cap could help reduce unnecessary lawsuits that drive up insurance premiums for emergency room doctors and obstetricians. The AMA has this press release on an earlier version of the medical liability reform bill; the Alliance of American Insurers has this press release. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America, opposed to the bill, says that state-imposed caps on damages do not lead to drops in insurance premiums. AP has the full story.

AP is reporting that Lea Fastow, wife of Enron's former finance chief, has withdrawn her plea agreement after a federal judge balked at a deal which would have sent her to prison for five months and confined her at home for an additional five months.

The international community Wednesday joined Rwandans to mark the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, which began on April 7, 1994, touched off by the downing of a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu.

In the next 100 days some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed in a revenge-driven bloodbath. The South African Press Association offers a chronology of key events. Thousands of Rwandans gathered in a packed sports stadium Wednesday morning observed three minutes of silence, but Western leaders whose countries have been widely blamed for doing nothing to stop the killings were largely absent from ceremonies, according to AP. Meanwhile in Geneva, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, addressing the UN Commission on Human Rights, outlined a five-point plan to orevent future genocides. The full text of his speech is here. UN News has more. More information and resources on the 1994 Rwandan genocide are available from the UN on a special remembrance website (imaged above). The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set up to try some of the perpetrators of the massacres, offers its own commemorative website here.

The Federal Communications Commission is joining cable companies seeking a stay of a federal appeal court ruling from last October (the so-called Brand-X case [PDF]) that would likely require the companies to offer competing ISPs access to their broadband lines, just as telephone companies are required to allow access to competing providers. At issue is the classification of cable companies as "telecommunications services" rather than exempt information services. The Ninth Circuit last week denied an application for rehearing of the case; the motion stay for stay requests a delay in the application of the original ruling until the US Supreme Court rules on a petition for certiorari. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association has a press release on the stay application here. Reuters has more.

Scottish press sources are reporting that Lord Bonomy, a Scottish judge now sitting on the judicial panel of the House of Lords in London, the UK's highest court, will replace UK jurist Richard May on the bench of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. May was the presiding judge at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, but announced his retirement earlier this year for health reasons. The Milsoevic trial has been going on for some two years and is scheduled to begin its defense phase in June. The nomination of a new judge may prompt a postponement of the defense case, and could even prompt Milosevic to call for a retrial. Bonomy's appointment has been mooted by the UK Foreign Office but has not been formally confirmed; technically, his nomination must be approved by the UN Secretary General before any appointment becomes official. The UK Press Association has more.

In what observers consider a remarkable ruling, a Japanese district court has ruled that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visits to a Shinto shrine honoring Japan's World War II war dead are unconstitutional as a violation of the constitutionally-mandated separation of the state and religion. Article 20 clause 3 of Japan's post-WW II US-style constitution says: "The State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity." The war shrine visits have been criticized by the Japanese opposition and some of Japan's neighbors who were invaded by Japanese troops in the 1930s as glorifying Japan's militarist past. Koizumi insists, however, that he will continue to make the visits as a part of his effort to advance his vision of a world without war. South Korea's Chosun Ilbo has extensive regional coverage in English. VOA has more.

Russian arms control specialist Igor Sutyagin was sentenced in Moscow City Court Wednesday to 15 years in prison for passing Russian military secrets to Western intelligence agents. The prosecution had argued for a 17-year prison term. Sutyagin had been convicted by a jury on Monday, as previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase. His lawyer said he would appeal to Russia's Supreme Court and would file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. His case has been closely followed by scientists and human rights activists (see, for instance, this alert from from the London-based Network for Education and Academic Rights) who fear that it protends a return to close monitoring of Russian scientific contacts with the West. From Moscow, MosNews has local coverage of this morning's sentencing in English. AP has more.

A German court in Hamburg has order the temporary release on bail of Mounir El Motassadeq, a Moroccan who earlier this year had his 2003 conviction for conspiracy to murder over 3000 people in the September 11 attacks set aside pending retrial after a judicial determination that new evidence made the original conviction unreliable. El Motassadeq must report to German police once a week and is not allowed to leave Hamburg until his retrial starts in June. From Germany, Deutsche Welle offers local coverage in English. Reuters has more.

In Wednesday's US law and business press, the Recorder reports that the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to hear en banc a case that would have allowed it to revisit whether the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns.... The Legal Intelligencer reports that a PA federal judge has rejected a plaintiff antiques dealer's argument that the court should refuse to enforce an insurance exclusion barring losses incurred in a "former Iron Curtain country".... The New York Law Journal reports that the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a heroin conviction because a drug agent was wrongly allowed to testify as an expert on drug lingo.... The Dallas Business Journal reports that Radio Shack Corp. is suing InterTAN Inc., a Canadian electronics chain, over an agreement allowing InterTAN to use Radio Shack's name for branding and marketing purposes.... FindLaw's Writ has Rutgers law professor Sherry F. Colb's column on National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's upcoming testimony under oath before the 9/11 Commission.

click for the previous US law and business press review

In Wednesday's foreign press, the Straits Times reports that a backlash may be in the offing after China's parliament passed an interpretation of two clauses in Hong Kong's Basic Law authorizing Beijing to make decisions about needed political changes.... The Moscow Times says that Russian prosecutors are recommending a 17-year sentence for Dr. Igor Sutyagin, an arms control researcher found guilty of treason Monday for collecting and selling classified information to a foreign company.... The Scotsman reports that in the UK campaigners have lost a High Court battle seeking judicial review of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's decision to build an accommodation center for asylum seekers near their homes in Bicester, Oxfordshire. The judge has refused council permission to appeal stating that intense public feeling about this case is not in itself good reason.

On April 7, 1969, the US Supreme Court ruled in Stanley v. Georgia that laws prohibiting private possession of obscene materials were unconstitutional.