US District Judge Harold Baer Jr. Friday struck down a 1994 bootleg law banning the sale of bootleg recordings of live music. Judge Baer dismissed the indictment of a Manhattan business owner who sells bootleg recordings.

The court held that the bootleg law was written in the "same spirit" as federal copyright laws. However, while federal copyright laws protect property for a fixed period of time, the bootleg law had no such time limit, granting "seemingly perpetual protection" to the original performances, and was therefore invalid. The ruling is not yet available online. AP has more.

House Republican leaders introduced broad legislation Friday in response to the 9/11 Commission Report recommendations. Touted as the most comprehensive effort yet to respond to the report, the proposed legislation affects law enforcement, immigration, border and security, and foreign policy.

The legislation includes provisions that would make it easier to conduct surveillance on terrorism suspects without clear connections to foreign terror groups and would create a new national intelligence director. Review the proposed text of the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act [PDF] and read a statement from House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Reuters has more.

Lee Boyd Malvo, the teenager in the Washington-area "sniper" killings, plans to drop all appeals of his first conviction and will admit guilt in a second killing. The plea bargain eliminates the possibility of a death sentence for these crimes.

In 2002, Malvo and partner John Allen Muhammad killed 10 people over several weeks in the Washington, DC area in a sniper-style shooting spree. If charges are pursued, Malvo may still face the death penalty in Alabama, Louisiana, and Virginia. Prosecutors in Prince William County, VA, stated that they are waiting for the US Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of executing 16- and 17-year-old murderers, which should take place this fall. The Fairfax County Circuit Court has case records from the Malvo trial here. AP has more.

Attorneys for Governor Jeb Bush stated Friday that he may appeal Thursday's decision by the Florida Supreme Court striking down "Terri's Law" (Florida House Bill 35-E ). The case began over a bitter family dispute regarding keeping Terri Schiavo - severely brain damaged 14 years ago and in a vegetative state ever since - alive via a feeding tube.

The Florida legislature enacted "Terri's Law" to empower the Governor to effectively override the courts after a lower court decided that Terri's husband could remove the feeding tube. The Florida Supreme Court's decision focused on a separation of power issue. "It is without question an invasion of the authority of the judicial branch for the Legislature to pass a law that allows the executive branch to interfere with the final judicial determination in a case," Chief Justice Barbara Pariente wrote. AP has more. JURIST's Paper Chase reported on the Florida Supreme Court ruling here.

Yusuf Islam, the British musician formally known as Cat Stevens, has declared that he will take legal action after the US denied him entry to the country earlier this week. On Tuesday, the FBI discovered that Islam was on a terrorism "watch list" and diverted his incoming flight from London to Maine. It was then insisted that he leave. In a press release issued on his website, Islam said:

The amazing thing is that I was not given (and have still not been given) any explanation whatsoever as to what it is I am accused of, or why I am now deemed an apparent security threat - let alone given an opportunity to respond to these allegations. I was simply told that the order had come from 'on high'.

We have now initiated a legal process to try to find out exactly what is going on, and to take all necessary steps to undo the very serious, and wholly unfounded, injustice which I have suffered.

I am a man of peace and denounce all forms of terrorism and injustice; it is simply outrageous for the U.S. authorities to suggest otherwise. I have dedicated my life to promoting peace and understanding throughout the world. It would be devastating were the charity work I do through my humanitarian relief organisation, Small Kindness, which helps countless children and families, and which is accredited by the United Nations, to be undermined by what has happened.

The US Navy announced Friday that it has charged three more personnel with abusing Iraqi prisoners. Those charged are members of an elite Navy SEAL unit. Earlier this month, four other members of the SEALs were charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq.

The counts against the latest accused, as announced by the Naval Special Warfare Command, included aggravated assault with intent to cause death and serious bodily injury, assault with a dangerous weapon, maltreatment of detainees, obstruction of justice and failure to report abuse. The charges stem from the apprehension of a prisoner that occurred last November and which resulted in injuries that led to his death at Abu Ghraib prison. The NSWC press release is here. Reuters has more.

US Bankruptcy Judge Eugene Wedoff granted an emergency motion Friday in favor of union machinists and flight attendants of United Airlines who are trying to block United from eliminating their pension programs. The granting of the motion ended a procedural dispute by striking United's Thursday filing that had described improvements in the financial conditions of its pension plans and asserted that their elimination would not be as problematic as first anticipated.

The motion was strongly backed by Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which argued in court that United's motion "gives potentially opposing parties no realistic opportunity to respond and serves no legitimate purpose." If United ultimately succeeds, government agency PBGC would have to pay out billions of dollars in retirement benefits to current and former airline employees if United's own pensions were terminated. AP has more.

In a much-anticipated vote webcast live a few minutes ago on JURIST, California regulators have unanimously approved sweeping new rules designed to reduce auto emissions that create greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.

The new regulations passed by the California Air Resource Board are expected to be adopted in many other states who follow California environmental standards in this area. JURIST's Paper Chase carried this background story on the vote earlier this afternoon.

Li Guoju, a Chinese gang leader convicted of selling more than 200 baby girls, has been executed in the city of Puyang, according to a story in China's Beijing Times. A Chinese court sentenced Guoju, along with other gang leaders, to death last July.

Read about related death sentencings for the same crime here from Xinhua. Guoju's gang was captured last March after authorties discovered 28 baby girls being smuggled on a bus. Chinese hospitals had been illegally selling the babies for under $24 US. CBC News has more.

A sex trial of seven men slated to start Monday on Britain's remote Pacific colony of Pitcairn Island (official government website) is said by islanders and observers to have the potential to destroy a settlement first established over 200 years ago by mutineers from the ill-fated ship HMS Bounty, captained by William Bligh. After the 1789 mutiny, mutineers led by Fletcher Christian settled on the tiny island outcrop with a group of Tahitian women and girls. The settlement was undiscovered until 1808. Eventually brought under British jurisdiction, it survives today with a permanent population of under 50.

Although public details are sketchy and the accused have not been named, the trials are for multiple sex offenses, some of which date back decades, and were instigated after an islander complained to a visiting British policewoman several years ago. Special judges and lawyers to try the case arrived from New Zealand earlier this week (more than doubling the island's population), and a special courthouse has been constructed for the proceedings. Many islanders are concerned because the seven accused are needed to man longboats that go out to meet ships that deliver supplies to the island, which has no port. Herbert Ford, an academic who directs the California-based Pitcairn Islands Study Center issued a statement Friday saying "There has been so much irregularity. . . so much that smacks of possible illegality demonstrated in documented form, that any trial conducted before these very serious matters are carefully studied and resolved would be a gross miscarriage of justice." BBC News provides background on the proceedings in a story from earlier this month (when the trial date was originally expected to be September 23).

Berlin officials Friday banned a march through the city by the extreme-right National Democratic Party (website in German; the German acronym for the party is NPD) that was scheduled for Saturday. According to a city interior minister, the party was being barred due to its use of "incitement to separate people." Recent electoral gains by the party in Saxony state elections, in which the NPD gained seats in a state assembly for the first time since 1968, have raised concern among some politicians in the country.

Attempts by the government to ban the party were thrown out by courts last year. The press release from the Berlin city government announcing today's demonstration ban is here (in German). From Germany, Deutsche Welle has more on the NPD. BBC News has more.

In Friday's corporations and securities law news, the European Commission is set to approve the $7.7 billion hostile takeover bid by Oracle for rival software group PeopleSoft by next month. The Commission is still concerned about the impact of the takeover but felt it could not win a legal challenge in the European Court. Earlier this month, a US District Court in San Francisco ruled the merger to be legal. Read more about Oracle's proposed offer for PeopleSoft here. Read the decision by the US District Court here. The Financial Times has more.

In other news...

• Morningstar Inc., an investment research firm, announced it has received a Wells Notice from the SEC for failing to properly correct inaccurate data it published about a mutual fund. Read the Morningstar press release announcing the investigation here. AP has more.
  
  
• As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, extradition proceedings are to begin next week in the case of three British bankers accused of involvement in a deal with former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow to skim millions off a deal with British bank NatWest. Read the indictment here [PDF]. BBC has more.
  
  
• SEC corporation finance division director Alan Beller told the House Financial Services subcommittee that securities regulators are considering a number of ways to help small businesses cope with the new corporate accounting and internal control rules. Read Beller's prepared testimony here [PDF]. AP has more.
  
  
• Freddie Mac announced it has revised its 2003 net income downward by $75 million to provide for a reserve for legal expenses. This revision follows last year's restatement of $6 billion in income. Read Freddie Mac's press release announcing the change here. Read the 2003 annual report here [PDF]. Reuters has more.
  
  
• According to a report in BusinessWeek magazine, Citigroup executives are being investigated by the SEC and NASD for failing to adequately supervise analysts and investment bankers to prevent conflicts of interest during the technology boom of the 1990s. Reuters has more.
  
  
• Alitalia has reached an agreement with eight unions to split the troubled airline into flight and ground operations in an effort to save the nearly bankrupt airline. AP has more.
  
  
• Airbus has withdrawn its challenge to a European Union antitrust ruling against Microsoft Corp. which ordered Microsoft to make changes to its software to create a more level playing field for rivals. Airbus argued the ruling might affect its business making it harder to innovate. Reuters has more.
  
  
• US Airways will ask a bankruptcy court to impose emergency pay cuts of 23 percent on unionized workers saying the cuts are absolutely necessary for its survival. Reuters has more.

Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, one of four suspects at Guantanamo Bay charged with war crimes and the alleged accountant of Osama bin Laden, skipped a hearing Friday to review his detention status, which his attorney was barred from attending. It was not clear whether al Qosi's boycott was related to his attorney's restriction. Al-Qosi, who has been charged with working as an accountant for the al-Qaida chief and is scheduled for trial in December, was the 30th detainee to skip the proceedings, which have been criticized by some as unfair.

Al-Qosi's attorney, Air Force Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, said she was not informed when the hearing would take place and that she was kept from Guantanamo Bay for the past two weeks. The Department of Defense has more on the detainee review process. Charges against Al-Qosi can be viewed here [PDF]. JURIST's Paper Chase has additional coverage on proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. AP has more.

The California Air Resources Board is scheduled to vote Friday on controversial regulations aimed at reducing vehicle emissions responsible in part for global warming. Many other states have pledged to follow California's lead if it adopts the tighter standards. California is the only state that can set its own emissions regulations since it began doing so before federal standards were set. Other states must adopt federal standards or California standards.

The proposed regulations aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2009. A report by the Board supporting the proposed changes can be viewed here [PDF], while the proposed changes can be viewed here [PDF] and here [PDF]. The hearings are currently being webcast by the Board and can be viewed here. The San Francisco Chronicle has more.

UPDATE [3:19 PM ET]: The Board has voted unanimously to approve the stricter emissions regulations.

• The Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Bulent Arinc, has made the official call for an emergency session, scheduled to begin on Sunday. The call was expected following Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's assurances to the EU Commission that the hotly contested penal reform bill that the Parliament has been considering would be adopted. JURIST's Paper Chase has background here. Turkish Press has more.
  
  
• The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said in a BBC interview Friday that the Sudanese government should consider granting regional autonomy to the Darfur area in an effort to end the violence there. The proposal for a loosely-based federal system has been advocated by rebels in the Darfur region for years. Some criticism was aimed at Lubbers, who as UN High Commissioner usually avoids political questions, but the Sudanese ambassador to London said that the remark was entirely appropriate as the Sudanese government was already considering the proposal. JURIST's Paper Chase has background here. BBC has more.
  
  
• Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir (BBC profile here) will be charged next week in connection to the terrorist bombing of the Jakarta JW Marriot Hotel in August 2003. Prosecutors have finished drafting charges under the relatively new terrorism law (read a synopsis of the law here). Ba'asyir was also to be charged with involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings, but the Indonesian Supreme Court held the retroactive application of the terrorism law to be unconstitutional. JURIST's Paper Chase has background on Ba'asyir here. The Jakarta Post has local coverage.
  
  
• Today Tunisia has become the 24th African nation to ratify the UN Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (text here). Tunisia's ratification makes it the 117th nation to agree to the treaty, but the treaty won't go into effect until all 44 nations with nuclear power or research facilities have ratified the provisions. So far, only 32 of those nations have done so. The Guardian has more.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency adopted Friday a resolution urging North Korea to give up its nuclear program as tensions in the region escalated in the wake of signs that the reclusive nation planned to test a ballistic missile.

The agency's General Conference, made up of 137 member nations, unanimously adopted the resolution, which also encouraged negotiations with the US, China, Russia and other countries in the region. IAEA has updates on the conference and more on North Korea. Reuters has more.

A Muslim lecturer in Virginia has been indicted based on alleged links to a jihad network broken up last year and his supposed support for violence against the US. Ali al-Timimi was charged Thursday by the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia with telling a group of followers at a meeting that attacks on civilians were justified and providing information on how to reach a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

A group of eleven men were arrested last year as part of an alleged jihad network charged with aiding a Pakistani terrorist group and training through paintball games. Nine of the 11 have since pleaded guilty or been convicted. Al-Timimi's lawyer disputed the charges and said the lecturer had a record of preaching non-violence. Al-Timimi is expected to be arraigned Oct. 1. The US Attorney's office has a press release on the al-Timini indictment here [PDF]; the indictment itself is online here [PDF]. CNN has more.

Friday's New York Times includes features about the Florida Supreme Court declaring that Gov. Jeb Bush violated separation of powers when he signed a law to keep Theresa Schiavo alive, the sticky problem of illegal immigration, Ali al-Timimi's indictment on charges that in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks he urged a group of Muslim-American men to join a holy war against the United States, the House approved a measure barring federal courts from ruling on the text of the Pledge of Allegiance, while critics call the measure unconstitutional, US Airways planning to ask a bankruptcy court judge today to impose emergency pay cuts of 23 percent on its major unions, which have refused the company's demand for $800 million in contract concessions, and ex-executives of Computer Associates International pleading not guilty yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn to charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice.

The Washington Post highlights a growing market for illegal ivory in the US, despite harsh penalties, CA Gov. Schwarzenneger vetoeing driving rights for illegal immigrants in the US, scientists at the NIH being banned from any new outside collaborations with pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies for at least one year after the conflict of interest inquiry from last December, and Microsoft filing nine new lawsuits against spammers who send unsolicited e-mail.

The Bush and Kerry campaigns have sought clarification from the Federal Election Commission on fund-raising rules to prepare for a potential ballot recount in the November elections. The Bush campaign, in a letter made public Wednesday, argued that fund-raising laws allowed unlimited contributions by individuals to a recount fund, as was the case in 2000. The Kerry campaign sought clarification on the issue earlier, and the FEC is expected to issue its opinion Sept. 30.

In 2000, both Bush and Gore raised money to cover recount costs from individual donations, while corporate gifts were barred. Since then, major reforms to campaign finance laws have taken effect, blocking unlimited donations to the campaigns. The FEC has more on campaign finance laws. AP has more.

CBC News is reporting that the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia has ruled that same-sex marriages are legal, making it the sixth province to do so. CBC News has more on the case and background on same-sex marriage in Canada.

UPDATE: A CBC News story on the ruling is now online.

Extradition proceedings are to begin next week in the case of three British bankers accused of involvement in a deal with former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow to skim millions off a deal with British bank NatWest. The three men, David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby, have disputed the US charges and have not been charged in the UK. They called on the UK Financial Services Authority to bring charges or NatWest to begin civil proceedings.

The case has drawn attention because it is the first to proceed under the revised Extradition Act 2003, which allows for fast-track proceedings with the US using a lower burden of proof. View the US indictment here [PDF]. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of the Enron case. BBC News has more.

Human Rights Watch called on the Indian government Friday to offer protection for witnesses and lawyers involved in a trial of Hindu extremists accused of killing 12 Muslims in a 2002 riot. According to a report by the human rights group, witnesses and lawyers in the trial have been threatened, and the Gujarat state government, which has been accused of inaction in the aftermath, has used tax pressure on Muslim groups to push for the withdrawal of charges. The Gujarat government disputed the allegations.

After many charged in the riots were initially acquitted, the Supreme Court ordered the first retrial of suspects outside Gujarat on Wednesday. Review the full HRW report [PDF]. HRW has background and previous reports here. AP has more.

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Friday, September 24th.

On Capitol Hill, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing at 9:30 AM ET to examine tax treaties with the Netherlands and Barbados.

At the United Nations, the 59th session of the General Assembly reconvenes at 10 AM ET with remarks by multiple heads of state and other high-level ministers, which will continue into the Assembly's 3 PM ET afternoon session. Read the schedule of speakers and watch a live webcast of both sessions.... The Security Council will meet at 10 AM ET and will be briefed by the President of Nigeria and current Chairman of the African Union on the situation in Africa, including the Abuja Peace Process on Darfur, Sudan. Watch a live webcast.... An 11:15 AM press conference is scheduled with the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1540 (on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction). Mihnea Ioan Motoc will brief on the work of the committee. Watch a live webcast.... At 12 PM ET, the Chief of the UN Treaty Section will brief on the treaty event, "Focus 2004: Treaties on the protection of civilians." Watch a live webcast.

Abroad today, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia is expected to rule on whether that eastern Canadian province will join Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba and the Yukon Territory in allowing same-sex marriages. From Halifax, CBC News has more.

In Friday's US law and business press, the Legal Intelligencer notes that the PA Commonwealth Court has denied Ralph Nader's motion to be placed on the PA presidential ballot.... The Charlotte Business Journal reports that Wachovia Corp. will pay $5.5 million to settle allegations of compensation discrimination against female employees.... Law.com features an Associated Press report on a PA Supreme Court ruling that PA's drunk driving law is unconstitutionally vague and cannot be enforced against horseback riders.... The Recorder reports on a Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that a WA man involved in a bar fight with British soldiers cannot sue the British government under a "noncommercial tort" exception.... FindLaw's Writ has former White House counsel John W. Dean's column on the possibility that the next president may appoint at least three US Supreme Court justices, as well as DC attorney Matt Herrington's book review of University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein's The Second Bill Of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution And Why We Need It More Than Ever.

Click for the previous US law and business press review