[JURIST] Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Senator Patrick Leahy released a statement Monday criticizing the secrecy that has apparently surrounded the US Justice Department's drafting of a sequel to the 2001 USA Patriot Act, tentatively entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 [HTML version of PDF document released Friday by the Center for Public Integrity].

[JURIST] UNLV law professor Keith Rowley tells JURIST that "the ABA House of Delegates voted earlier today [Monday] to grant full accreditation to UNLV's William S. Boyd School of Law [official website], which opened its doors in August 1998." Read a background report in Monday's Las Vegas Review-Journal.

UPDATE: A UNLV press release is now available.

[JURIST] Senator John Breaux (D-La.), ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation [Hatch press release] Monday to address elder abuse and crimes against seniors. Learn more from the National Center on Elder Abuse [advocacy website].

[JURIST] One of the three men charged in the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 which exploded off the coast of Ireland en route from Montreal to New Delhi killing 329 people pleaded guilty Monday in British Columbia Supreme Court [official website]. The placement of the bomb on board prior to departure was the most serious act of terrorism perpetrated on Canadian soil in the history of the country. Learn more about the Air India Bombing Disaster, the investigation and the charges from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

[JURIST] An English translation of Monday's joint communique by UN Security Council veto-holders Russia, Germany and France insisting that all the avenues opened by UN Security Council Resolution 1441 have not yet been explored, calling for more time and support for UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, and labeling war a "last resort" is now online from Reuters. The original French version is posted on the website of the French Presidency. In a related development Monday, France, Belgium and Germany vetoed NATO plans to prepare to defend Turkey in case of war with Iraq. Listen to the NATO Secretary-General's press conference [recorded audio] from Monday afternoon.

[JURIST] Attorney General John Ashcroft talked about international aspects of the war on terror Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations. Watch recorded video via C-SPAN.

[JURIST] Should damages for medical malpractice be capped, as President Bush [White House medical liability backgrounder] and other have recently suggested? University of Oregon law professor and torts scholar Caroline Forrell says "no."

[JURIST] Dr. Leon Kass, Chair of the President's Commission on Bioethics, delivered [Duke Law press release] the 2003 Siegel Lecture on Medical Ethics at Duke Law School on February 4. Watch recorded video of Preventing a Brave New World: Why We Should Ban Human Cloning [recorded video], now online from Duke.

[JURIST] A US Department of Justice security audit released Monday documents numerous "significant vulnerabilities" in the Warrant Information Network (WIN) operated by the US Marshals Service [official website]. WIN contains the warrant, court records, internal correspondence related to the warrant, and other information on individuals for whom federal warrants have been issued. WIN is used to track the status of all federal warrants to aid in the investigations of all federal fugitives. Review the full report [text] recommending immediate corrective action; an executive summary [text] is also available.

[JURIST] A sharply-divided US Eighth Circuit ruled Monday that Arkansas may forcibly administer antipsychotic drugs to a prisoner whose date of execution has been set, and the State does not violate the Eighth Amendment when it executes a prisoner who has become incompetent during his long stay on death row but who subsequently regained competency through appropriate medical care. Read Singleton v. Norris [PDF text].

[JURIST] "As a cyberlaw professor and a professor of constitutional law, I can unequivocally state that one of the biggest dangers to democracy right now is electronic voting machines." Yale Law's Jack Balkin has more... [Balkinization post].

[JURIST] The American Bar Association's House of Delegates meets Monday and Tuesday during the ABA midyear meeting in Seattle, Washington, to consider a wide range of policy recommendations from ABA Committees. Key recommendations pertain to the legal status of enemy combatants (watch a statement by ABA President Alfred P. Carleton, Jr.; review the ABA Task Force Report on Enemy Combatants [PDF text] and the response from the Department of Defense [PDF text]), the appointment and performance of defense counsel in death penalty cases, oversight of the government's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, incorporation of domestic violence education in law school curricula, and "best practices" for legal information websites. Review the ABA press release and the full Preliminary Agenda [PDF].

[JURIST] The February 2003 issue of Criminology, the journal of the American Society of Criminology, will feature a new national study conducted by two professors at Ohio State University indicating that African Americans who are stopped for traffic violations are less likely than whites to believe the police had a legitimate reason to stop them, and more likely to believe they were mistreated. Details from Ohio State University, via Ascribe.

[JURIST] The American Judicature Society has posted a brief summary of its recent conference on Preventing the Conviction of Innocent Persons, which brought together teams from eleven states to discuss the causes of and solutions to wrongful convictions.

[JURIST] The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled two hearings for this week. On Tuesday, February 11 at 2:30 it will hold a hearing on the Patient Access Crisis: The Role of Medical Litigation [hearing notice], and on Wednesday February 12 at 9:30 AM it will hold a hearing on judicial nominations [hearing notice]. JURIST will carry live webcasts of both hearings.

[JURIST] Yale law professor Jack Balkin writes: "I’m currently working on a scholarly article on how social movements succeed or fail in shaping American constitutional law. As I thought about the recent Eldred case, which refused to hold the Copyright Term Extension Act unconstitutional, I was struck by the similarities to Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 case in which the Supreme Court refused to hold that same sex sexual relations were constitutionally protected." Read parts one and two [Balkinization posts] of Professor Balkin's analysis.

[JURIST] Elections of 18 judges to the new International Criminal Court ended at the UN late Friday after 33 ballots over four days, with 21 ballots on the last day of voting. Read the UN press release. The new judges will be sworn in at The Hague on March 11.