Despite a 7-0 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court, a spokeman for Florida governor Jeb Bush said Monday that the governor plans to ask the court to reconsider its finding that a law designed to keep a brain-damaged woman, Terri Schiavo, alive is unconstitutional.

The court held in September that the law violated the separation of powers doctrine, as a lower court had already ruled that the woman's husband could have her feeding tube removed so she could die. Bush argues that the Supreme Court holding violates the due process rights of lawmakers. The FL Supreme Court holding is here [PDF]. "Terri's Law" is here [PDF]. AP has more.

US Brigadier General Martin Lucenti, the deputy commander of the unit that runs the Guantanamo Bay military base, is quoted in Tuesday's Financial Times as saying that the United States does not have enough evidence to prosecute all of the prisoners at the facilty and that he expected most to be released or extradited.

More than 150 prisoners have been released or extradited for further detention since the first arrived in early 2002. There remain 550 prisoners at the base. The FT article is here.

Judge Philippe Kirsch, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan signed an agreement Monday governing the relationship between their institutions. The agreement provides for an exchange of representatives, gives the ICC observer status in the UN General Assembly, allows the use of the UN free pass as a valid travel document by some ICC officials, and defines the level of cooperation by the UN in ICC judicial prosecutions.

The ICC press release is here. The agreement is here: part 1; part 2. [PDF].

In Monday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC is considering bringing charges against American International Group, Inc. (AIG) over three company press releases which included false and misleading statements about the company's involvement with PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. AIG is already facing a possible lawsuit by the SEC and Justice Department over helping PNC in hiding bad loans. Read the AIG press release announcing the SEC notification here. Read the press release announcing the Justice Department notification here [PDF]. Reuters has more.

In other news...

• Former Enron accountant, Eric Boyt, testified that he thought the Nigerian barge deal was wrong from the beginning. In more news from the trial, defense lawyers are contemplating calling former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow to testify. Fastow is now a government cooperating witness after agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy in January. AP has more.
  
  
• In a follow-up to a story I reported last week on JURIST's Paper Chase, former PeopleSoft Inc. Chief Executive Craig Conway was fired last week after PeopleSoft's directors learned that Conway testified that he intentionally misled investors when he told analysts in September 2003 that Oracle's $7.7 billion hostile takeover bid was no longer chasing away customers. Bloomberg has more.
  
  
• The US Supreme Court, without comment, rejected appeals by Visa and MasterCard from a ruling which said the credit card associations violated federal antitrust law by barring their member banks from issuing credit cards to its main rivals. View the Appeals Court decision in this case here [PDF]. The Financial Times has more.
  
  
• In moves which should tighten its accounting controls, Freddie Mac announced that it is shutting down some of its debt-securities sales division. Read the Freddie Mac press release here. AP has more.
  
  
• Office Depot Inc. has announced the resignation of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bruce Nelson. Read the Office Depot press release here. Reuters has more.

US authorities Monday announced charges against Saajid Badat, a British citizen who allegedly conspired with al-Qaida member Richard Reid to use shoe bombs to blow up airplanes. A federal grand jury indictment charges Badat with attempted murder, trying to destroy an aircraft and other counts related to the alleged conspiracy with Reid.

According to the indictment, Badat "admitted that he was asked to conduct a shoe bombing like Reid." Badat faces a trial on similar charges in Britain beginning February 28, 2005. Badat faces life in prison if convicted on all the charges. The US Attorney's press release is here. AP has more.

UPDATE: Findlaw has now posted the indictment [PDF]

Nine foreign terrorist suspects being held indefinitely without charge in Britain challenged the UK's Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act in the House of Lords Monday. The suspects, who have been held for up to three years, say that it is illegal under European human rights standards for the British government to hold them without charge when Britain's own nationals cannot be treated in this fashion.

The British government enacted the anti-terror law following the September 11th attacks in the United States. The act allows the home secretary to designate a foreign national as a threat to national security and imprison him or her without trial. The Home Office issued a statement earlier today saying the measure was a "necessary and proportionate response to the threat we continue to face". Read the full Home Office statement here. Scholars are calling this case one of the most important constitutional law cases ever to come before the nine law lords. BBC has more information on detainees in Britain here. JURIST's Paper Chase has background on the case and BBC News has more.

The US Supreme Court heard two hours of arguments Monday afternoon on whether federal sentencing guidelines that allow judges to impose harsher penalties on criminals without jury involvement should be upheld as constitutional. Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement argued that criminal defendants' constitutional rights were not breached because judges are constrained by a sentencing range set by Congress. In June, the Court stunned the legal community when it ruled in Blakely v. Washington [PDF] that a similar sentencing guideline in Washington state gave judges too much leeway in sentencing. Since Blakely case, judges have either delayed sentencing or gave lighter penalties because of the confusion. The two cases before the court are

• United States v. Booker [PDF], a Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals case from Chicago in which the panel threw out Freddie Booker's sentence because a Wisconsin federal judge, acting alone, decided how much drugs were involved and that the man had obstructed justice; and
• United States v. Fanfan, a Massachusetts case where Ducan Fanfan received a lighter prison sentence for a conviction in Maine of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, because of the court's ruling in the Washington state case.

Poland's defense minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski announced Monday that his country will withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of 2005 on the expiration of authorizations granted by UN Security Council Resolution 1546 [PDF]. However, Prime Minister Marek Belka said he had not been consulted on the remarks and would have to meet with Szmajdzinski.

Polish forces currently oversee security in south-central Iraq. Resolution 1546, passed unanimously by the Council in June, stated the end of the occupation of Iraq but authorized multinational forces to stay in Iraq until the end of next year, at which time a permanent Iraqi government is supposed to be in place. The International Herald Tribune has more.

While a federal judge reviewed evidence behind a conspiracy charge in the case, jury selection was delayed Monday in the trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who is facing charges that he tried to defraud Medicaid with others in 1999, his first year in office. Siegelman, whose re-election bid was defeated in 2002, has called the charges politically-motivated attacks by Republican opponents.

Siegelman, former chief of staff Paul Hamrick, and Phillip Bobo, a physician, are charged with trying to fix bids so that Bobo's company could secure contracts to provide health care to poor pregnant women in rural areas of the state. The Montgomery Advertiser has more on the delay, and provides background information on the case.

Four US soldiers were charged Monday with murder and dereliction of duty in the death of an Iraqi general during questioning last November. The four Army soldiers face life in prison if convicted.

Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush was asphyxiated by chest compression on November 26, 2003, around the time of his interrogation by the soldiers. Read a US military press release from November 27, 2003, indicating that Mowhoush had "died of natural causes". AP has more.

The prosecution of a Dutch soldier charged with negligently causing the death of an Iraqi civilian ended Monday with the prosecutor requesting a six month suspended sentence for Sergeant Major Eric Overvoorde. Overvoorde reportedly fired three warning shots when he believed his unit to be in jeapordy from an increasingly hostile crowd that had come to pick up aid from supply containers. Overvoorde is the first Dutch soldier court-martialed in relation to Iraq, and is believed to be the first Dutch soldier ever to be court-martialed for offences commited on foreign soil. The Khaleej Times has more.

In other international law news...

• A defense panel in Japan recommended Monday that the Japanese government pursue options for making itself capable of pre-emptive attacks, a radical shift in the country's defense-only policy in place and enshrined in the Japanese constitution since the end of Allied occupation after World War II. The recommendation came from a panel composed of academics and businessmen with heavy political weight in the Japanese political system. The report stated that recent action in the world had shown pre-emptive strikes to be a valid extension of the customary international law on self-defense. The recommendation comes just one day after Taiwanese Premier Yu Shyi-kun stated his belief that Japan, Taiwan, and the US should create a defense alliance to deal with possible threats in the area, such as North Korea and mainland China. The Kyodo News has more on the Japanese panel here. The Taipei Times has more on Yu's statement here.
  
  
• Kenyan officials have suspended Meru Prison Warden Silas M'tambu and Deputy Warden Benedict Mutunga Monday after autopsies revealed that five inmates that died in September were beaten to death. At first, the government claimed the men died from suffocation, due to the extreme overcrowding of Kenyan prisons that often have dozens of men sharing a cell meant for two. But post-mortem exams revealed that the men suffered extreme amounts of damage to their bodies consistent with being beaten. The government has promised to proceed with full investigations and prosecutions, and a local NGO, the Independant Medico-league Unit has promised to sue the government on behalf of the victim's families. From Nairobi, Kenya's Daily Nation has more (registered site).
  
  
• The UN Security Council will meet later Monday to discuss the current situation in Gaza. The request came from current Council member Algeria, following a request presented to the Algerian representative by the Arab League. Israel maintains that its military action in the region is a response to continuing suicide bombing attacks carried out by Hamas and other terrorist organizations that use the Gaza region as a planning and staging area. UN Observer has more.

The Justice Department released a report Monday from the Inspector General's office providing the first detailed account of the allocation of FBI resources following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The report generally shows the FBI's movement of resources toward anti-terrorism efforts, while cutting back on drug enforcement and the prosecution of organized crime and white-collar crime. AP has more. Read the full DOJ report.[PDF]

The first page of what is believed to be the draft of the original 1836 Texas constitution went on display Monday at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.

The document was found three years ago, hidden among papers in a box labelled "miscellaneous 19th-century papers." Read the full text of the 1836 Texas constitution as approved here. AP has more.

In Monday's environmental law news, the EPA has removed the infamous Love Canal site in Niagara County, New York from the Superfund National Priorities List. The Love Canal area was a site for hazardous waste dumping from 1942-1952, after which the waste was covered by dirt and houses were constructed in the area. After residents complained of odors, studies in the 1970's showed that toxic chemicals were contaminating the local water supply. By 1980 over 950 families had been evacuated from homes around the site, and problems there were one of the main factors leading to passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund, which serves to handle abandoned hazardous waste sites. The EPA has completed cleanup work at the Love Canal site and monitoring studies show that the cleanup goals have been reached. The press release is here. Details on cleanup at the site is here [PDF]. The University of Buffalo has additional Love Canal documentation here.

In other environemental law news...

• The India Supreme Court has directed that about 105,000 survivors of one of the world's worst industrial disasters each receive between US$545 and $1200. On December 3, 1984 more than 40 tons of poisonous gases escaped from a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal instantly killing 8,000 people. The case was settled by Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) in 1989 through a survivor payment fund set up by the Indian government. However, litigation has persisted for years regarding how the money should be disbursed. The Calcutta Telegraph has more.
  
  
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) conference began on Saturday in Bangkok, Thailand and runs though October 14th. This meeting of 166 member nations will update trade regulations on plants and animals, and will include taking action on some 50 proposals. A press release on the conference and the proposals is here [PDF]. Daily news coverage from the conference can be found here.

According to Iraqi intelligence documents obtained by CNSNews.com, Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties with several terror organizations. The group of documents were confiscated by US forces and, according to the source of the documents, have not been made public yet due the government's translation backlog (previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase).

The documents reportedly show that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both weapons of mass destruction, during the period when UN weapons inspectors did not have a presence in Iraq. The documents also contain a 1993 order from Saddam for his intelligence service to "hunt the Americans who are on Arabian land, especially in Somalia." CNSNews.com has more. Monday's CNSNews.com report comes two weeks after the US weapons inspector in Iraq issued a report concluding that Iraq's pre-war government did not possess any actual WMDs, but maintained plans to restore weapons programs after UN sanctions ended. Paper Chase has more on the weapons inspector's report.

An estimated 100,000 protestors gathered in central Seoul Monday to rally against calls for the abolition of South Korea's National Security Law. President Roh Moo-hyun, a former human rights lawyer, has called for the abolition of the law, which bans praise for, or open sympathy with, anti-state groups (an offense which carries a penalty of up to seven years imprisonment) and provides for jail time for failing to notify authorities about other anti-state crimes.

Conservatives say the law is vital to the country's security in light of North Korea's suspected efforts to develop nuclear weapons. As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, South Korea's Constitutional Court upheld the controversial law in August. AP has more. The Korea Times has local coverage.

The US Supreme Court refrained from granting certiorari in any new cases on the first day of its 2004 term Monday. Prominent among the cases the Court declined to hear were American Teleservices Association v. FTC, where telemarketing groups challenged the federal do-not-call registry (AP has more) and Moore v. Judicial Inquiry Commission of the State of Alabama, where former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore challenged the state court's decision to remove him from office for defying a federal order to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument (AP has more).

The Court also declined to waive its rules to allow a challenge to the US detention of Saddam Hussein based on international law and the Fifth Amendment right not to be arbitrarily detained (AP has more) and let stand a ruling that Visa and MasterCard violated antitrust law by barring their member banks from issuing credit cards to rival credit card networks (Reuters has more). Read the Court's full Order List [PDF].

Three Saudi advocates of democratic reform refused to participate in a Monday court hearing after the hearing was closed to the public. The three men were arrested in March and face charges of sowing dissent, creating political instability, printing political leaflets and using the media to incite people against the government.

As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, the defendants' first hearing was held in open court, a departure from Saudi Arabia's usual practice. AP has more.

The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, a group of lawyers, jurists and legal researchers, has said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan violates Israel's Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom, and infringes on property rights, freedom of movement and freedom to demonstrate.

The group is attempting to keep the Knesset from passing the disengagement plan, which it says violates human rights continuously upheld by Israel's Supreme Court in the last 12 years. BBC News has background on the disengagement plan. Haaertz has more.

Cambodia's National Assembly voted unanimously Monday to set up a UN-backed tribunal that will put leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. Five judges, three of whom will be Cambodian legal experts, will sit in the trial court and cases will be decided by majority.

Plans for the tribunal have received criticism, with analysts saying that the tribunal will not be free of interference from the Cambodian government and that lower-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders will be allowed to escape justice. BBC News has more. Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program has background on the Khmer Rouge Genocide Tribunal, including the text, in draft form, of the UN-Cambodia Tribunal Agreement [DOC]. BBC News has additional background on the agreement, which was formally signed in 2003.

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Monday, October 4.

The US Supreme Court's 2004 term begins today with 10 AM ET oral arguments in Kansas v. Colorado (case summary from Duke Law School), where the court will consider exceptions filed by Kansas to the Court-appointed Special Master's report investigating allegations that Colorado violated the Arkansas River Compact. The ABA provides merit briefs filed in the case.... The Court will also hear arguments in Kowalski v. Tesmer (case summary from Duke Law School), where the court will decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees an indigent criminal defendant, convicted by a guilty plea, the right to appellate attorney in a discretionary appeal and also whether attorneys have third-party standing to challenge the constitutionality of state statutes prohibiting such appointments. The ABA provides merit briefs filed in the case.... Finally, the Court will two-hour arguments in the consolidated cases of United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan (case summary from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism), where the court will consider the constitutionality of the federal sentencing guidelines in light of its decision last term in Blakely v. Washington [PDF]. The ABA provides merit briefs. The Washington Post has more on the sentencing cases and a preview of the new term. The National Chamber Litigation Center of the US Chamber of Commerce offers an additional preview of business cases on the Court's docket, featuring former Solicitor General Theodore Olson and former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger. Watch recorded video of the press briefing.

In other US courts, the trial of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman begins with jury selection Monday. Siegelman faces federal charges for conspiracy, health care fraud and theft for allegedly trying to rig bids on contracts to provide medical care to pregnant women in rural Alabama. AP has more.

On Capitol Hill, the US Senate will meet at 10 AM ET and will resume consideration of the Intelligence Reform Bill (S 2845). Watch a live webcast (via C-SPAN).... The US House Rules Committee will meet at 5 PM ET to discuss a bill to create additional federal court judgeships (S 878).... A US Senate-House Conference Committee will meet at 7 PM ET to discuss the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (HR 4520).

The UN Security Council will hold closed consultations at 10 AM ET to discuss the Council's program of work for October and threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. The Security Council President will hold a 12:30 PM ET press conference on the October work program. Watch a live webcast.

In Warsaw, the Organization for Security and Cooperation's Human Dimension Implementation Meeting opens Monday and continues for two weeks. Key issues to be discussed include the promotion of non-discrimination, freedom of assembly and association, right to a fair trial, trafficking in human beings, and cooperation between international organizations promoting human rights. Read the conference's agenda [PDF].

Also abroad today, nine British law lords will consider whether the UK anti-terror law under which foreign suspects can be held indefinitely without charge is contrary to the European convention on human rights, guaranteeing a right to trial within a reasonable time. JURIST's Paper Chase has background and the Guardian has more.... In Fiji, a court-martial of 64 soldiers is scheduled to resume Monday. The soldiers face trial for their part in a May 2000 coup. Former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is scheduled to appear as a witness.... In Nigeria, the country's largest-ever fraud trial will begin as three defendants face 98 counts of "advance fee fraud" for allegedly duping a corrupt Brazilian bank official into sending them $242 million dollars from his employer's accounts.

In Monday's US law and business press, the New York Law Journal reports that federal judges, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys will be closely watching the US Supreme Court as arguments begin today on the future of the federal sentencing guidelines.... The Texas Lawyer reports on a snag in a proposed $75 million class action settlement between Dallas-based law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist and approximately 1,100 disgruntled former clients who received tax advice from the firm.... The Kansas City Business Journal reports that a Washington interest group has sued the Federal Election Commission seeking access to Westar Energy Inc.'s confidential report on the company's political donations during its former chairman's tenure.... The ABA Journal reports that domestic violence activists are calling for more lawyers to represent domestic violence victims.... Law.com features an Associated Press story on US Chief Justice William Rehnquist's 80th birthday and his influence on the Court.... FindLaw's Writ has Brooklyn law professor Anthony J. Sebok's column on the federal government's RICO suit against big tobacco.

click for the previous US law and business press review