The Mexican Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to decide whether genocide charges can be brought against former President Luis Echeverria and other top officials for a 1971 massacre of protesters. Justice Jose de Jesus Gudino, writing for the court, said there was "a national interest in resolving the possible responsibility for events of the past that profoundly affected the country's political life." In July, a lower court refused to allow the charges to be filed, ruling that the statute of limitations had run. Prosecutors argued on appeal that no statutes of limitations apply under international treaties signed by Mexico. AP has more.

The US 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that a special election was not needed to replace New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, who announced his resignation in August and will step down Nov. 15. The court held that the office was not yet been officially vacated by McGreevey. Under state law, if McGreevey left office before Sept. 3, a special interim election would be held Nov. 2 to elect his replacement. However, following the appeals court's ruling, NJ Senate President Richard J. Codey, a Democrat like McGreevey, will replace him for the duration of the term. In a per curiam opinion, the 3rd Circuit wrote:

Under New Jersey law, a resignation is not valid unless it is in writing and filed in the office of the Secretary of State. "No resignation made in any other way or pretended to be made, shall be valid." N.J. Stat. Ann. 52:14-10. Plaintiffs have cited no statutory provision to the contrary, relying instead on the argument that McGreevey’s public announcement is "functionally far more definitive and final than would be a letter of resignation quietly and privately delivered to a government official." But the New Jersey legislature has set forth what constitutes a "definitive and final" resignation. McGreevey’s announcement has not satisfied these statutory requirements. By requiring a written filing with the Secretary of State – a clear and concrete manifestation of resignation – the legislature has assured clarity in the resignation process. Because Governor McGreevey has not yet officially resigned from the office of the Governor, there is no vacancy under the New Jersey Constitution.

As reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Wednesday, one raising the constitutionality of the death penalty for juveniles and the other dealing with the detention of illegal aliens by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The ABA has briefs filed in both cases. In Roper v. Simmons (case summary from Duke Law School), the Court confronted the juvenile capital punishment question, an issue upon which it has divided. The four most liberal members of the court, Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens, have all voiced opposition to the practice of executing those convicted of killing under the age of 18, citing consensus among other countries that it is wrong. Justice Kennedy, who along with Justice O'Connor is expected to cast a key swing vote in the case, was one of the most active justices in arguments, questioning what impact the removal of a deterrent would have for future crimes. The death penalty is currently allowed for juvenile killers in 19 states. The ABA, which opposes the death penalty for minority killers, has more on the juvenile death penalty. AP has quotes from argument and more. In the consolidated case of Clark v. Martinez and Benitez v. Rozos (case summary from Duke Law School), the Court considered whether its previous case, Zadvyas v. Davis, requires the release of inadmissible aliens by the INS (now US Citizenship and Immigration Services).

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court blocked independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the state ballot Wednesday, ruling that he had significantly fallen short of the number of signatures necessary for inclusion. Noting that his court's "line-by-line review of individual signatures was both exhaustive and exhuasting" Commonwealth Court President Judge James Garner Colins held that of the 51,273 signatures that Nader's supporters had collected across the state, only 18,818 were valid, leaving his candidacy some 8000 short of the threshold of 25,697. Read the court's 444-page opinion here [PDF; with addenda] . The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more.

The Chinese government announced Wednesday that it will soon amend its Criminal Procedure Law, including its laws on the death penalty. Huang Songyou, Vice President of China's Supreme People's Court, says that changes are required in light of the fact that China has signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Political Rights and has enshrined a human rights clause into its constitution. Traditionally, death sentence cases were submitted to the Supreme People's Court for review and approval, but the review was on the basis of written reports only. In the future, the Supreme People's Court will review death penalty cases by trying the accused. China's Criminal Procedure Law was last examined in 1996. Read the Chinese government press release here. Chinese academics have estimated that China executes 10,000 convicted criminals annually, five times more than the rest of the world combined. Earlier this year Amnesty International called for a moratorium on China's death penalty under what the group calls a "dysfunctional" criminal justice system. Vice President Songyou admits that, despite the current laws' requirement that all death penalty cases be submitted to China's high court for review and approval, the court makes its decisions based on written reports without hearing the cases. IOL has more.

In Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC announced a settlement with Dutch retailer Ahold and two of its former executives over charges of fraud and other securities law violations stemming from last year's $850 million accounting scandal at the company's US unit. Read the Ahold press release here. Read the SEC press release announcing the deal here. The SEC also has a litigation release which summarizes the charges and includes the SEC complaints. The Washington Business Journal has more.

In other news, at a meeting today, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, who proposed a new standard by which companies will have to deduct from profits the value of stock options, will delay action on the new rule for six months to allow companies more time to come into compliance. Read the Board meeting handout from today's meeting here [PDF]. Listen to the meeting on Windows Media. AP has more.... The SEC unanimously proposed stricter rules to stop firms from artificially boosting demand for shares in initial public offerings in its open meeting today. Read the agenda of the open meeting here. Listen to the meeting in RealPlayer or Windows Media. Reuters has more.... As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, the European Commission is challenging the German government over a law aimed at preventing any takeover of Volkswagen. Read an EU press release here. The Commission has more on its monitoring of common-market laws. AP has more.... Following up on a story I reported on yesterday on JURIST's Paper Chase, the SEC has launched an informal civil probe into flu vaccine maker Chiron to determine whether the company adequately disclosed manufacturing problems at a British vaccine plant. CNN has more.... Canada's Competition Bureau has approved the merger between Molson Inc. and Adolph Coors Co. which still needs approval from its shareholders. Read more about the merger here. Bloomberg has more.... According to sources, the FCC voted to conditionally approve Cingular Wireless' proposed acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. Reuters has more.

Florida's Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on the validity of the state's provisional ballot law, Section 101.048 of the Florida Statutes, which reads in its material parts:

101.048 Provisional ballots.--

(1) At all elections, a voter claiming to be properly registered in the county and eligible to vote at the precinct in the election, but whose eligibility cannot be determined, and other persons specified in the code shall be entitled to vote a provisional ballot. Once voted, the provisional ballot shall be placed in a secrecy envelope and thereafter sealed in a provisional ballot envelope. The provisional ballot shall be deposited in a ballot box. All provisional ballots shall remain sealed in their envelopes for return to the supervisor of elections. The department shall prescribe the form of the provisional ballot envelope.

(2)(a) The county canvassing board shall examine each provisional ballot envelope to determine if the person voting that ballot was entitled to vote at the precinct where the person cast a vote in the election and that the person had not already cast a ballot in the election.

(b)1. If it is determined that the person was registered and entitled to vote at the precinct where the person cast a vote in the election, the canvassing board shall compare the signature on the provisional ballot envelope with the signature on the voter's registration and, if it matches, shall count the ballot.

2. If it is determined that the person voting the provisional ballot was not registered or entitled to vote at the precinct where the person cast a vote in the election, the provisional ballot shall not be counted and the ballot shall remain in the envelope containing the Provisional Ballot Voter's Certificate and Affirmation and the envelope shall be marked "Rejected as Illegal."

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic, which had resumed at The Hague Tuesday after a month-long break, was adjourned again on Wednesday, due to defense counsel Steven Kay's lack of witnesses. Some defense witnesses who were willing to appear when Milosevic was defending himself have since withdrawn in protest after the court appointed defense counsel. Radio B92 in Belgrade has more. JURIST's Paper Chase has extensive coverage of the Milosevic trial.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit denied on Wednesday a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc in the federal government's case against alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. The order is available here.[PDF] Moussaoui faces the death penalty if convicted on charges of conspiracy involving the September 11, 2001 attacks. In September, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit held that Moussaoui could not directly question three al Qaeda captives being held by the US, and would have to use substitute depositions. The opinion is available here.[PDF] Moussaoui, who may appeal to the Supreme Court, or begin trial in a district court in Virginia, is the only person who has been charged in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Reuters has more. The DOJ indictment against Moussaoui is available here.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has vacated the non-disclosure order on the 1995 indictment of Miroslav Bralo, a member of a special forces group of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO). Bralo is accused of numerous counts of using rape as a weapon against civilians (violations of the customs and laws of war) and multiple counts of grave breaches of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of civilians. Read the official ICTY press release here. Read the offical indictment (text in French) here.... A French appeals court issued a ruling Wednesday confirming the order of extradition issued for Cesare Battisti, a former member of the Armed Proletariat for Communism, a terrorist group active in the 1970s and 80s. Battisti has been living openly in France after a sanctuary deal from former president Mitterand. Italy has issued charges against Battisti on four counts of murder and requested extradition, which was granted by the lower court. With the appellate court ruling, Battisti is subject to immediate extradition, although he can appeal to the Council of State (official site in French), France's highest court. On the official website for his crime novels, Battisti protests his innocence of any killings. Battisti has been missing since Saturday, when he failed to check in as required by the terms of his parole. Read an online petition against his extradition here. Reuters has more. Liberation provides local coverage from Paris.... The International Criminal Court has received a provisional agreement from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the standard Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court (text here [PDF]). The Memorandum of Understanding from the Congolese government ensures that ICC investigators will be able to operate freely and safely in the field while investigating the current case of war crimes before the ICC Office of the Prosecutor. The Memorandum serves in place of an official ratification of the APIC while that ratification is being processed by the DRC government. Read the offical ICC press notification here.... Russian and Kyrgyzstan Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov (Russian site here) and Askar Aitmatov (Kyrgyzstan government site (in Kyrgyz) here) exchanged documents Tuesday that will eventually lead to Kyrgyzstan signing the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (text here). The Kyrgyzstan Foreign Ministry says that the document will be signed and ratified as soon as possible, making it easier for that country to work together with other nations on the development and use of micro-organisms for such things as medicine, food treatment, and business spheres. Itar-Tass has more.

Swaziland Court of Appeals judges may return to work soon, ending a two-year hiatus. The appellate judges resigned en masse in 2002, to protest the Swaziland government's defiance of a court judgement which ordered the government to restore certain evicted communities to their homes. SABC News in South Africa has more. The Swaziland Times reports that lawyers in that country oppose the return of the judges. The Law Society of Swaziland claims that the issues regarding the government's respect for the rule of law have not been adequately addressed. The UN has more on the rule-of-law crisis in Swaziland.

Financial disclosure statements and Senate confirmation questionnaires from federal judicial nominees put forward by President Bush reveal strong ties to the energy industry, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that has posted the material online, marking the first time that it has been made readily accessible to the public. CIR concluded from the data that:

more than a third of President Bush’s nominees to the federal district courts – 21 of 59 nominations since 2001 – have a history of working as lawyers and lobbyists on behalf of the oil, gas and energy industries. Twenty of the 21 have been nominated to the Appellate Courts in the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th and District of Columbia circuits where those same industries frequently battle over cases with huge financial interests at stake. These five circuit courts are at the forefront of establishing judicial precedent on matters involving conflicts over natural resources. The placement of the nominees suggests an administration strategy of nominating corporate friendly judges in circuits where they will make the greatest impact. In many cases, these same corporations and industries are also major campaign contributors to the Bush Administration and the Republican Party.

The first open-court proceedings in habeas corpus challenges brought by Guantanamo Bay detainees since the Supreme Court upheld their rights to bring suit in federal court against their detentions were held Wednesday morning before District Judge Joyce Hens Green of the the US District Court for the District of Columbia. About a dozen habeas challenges have been filed with the court since June, when the Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush [PDF], that US courts have jurisdiction to hear challenges brought by foreign-born detainees. JURIST's Paper Chase has background on the Court's decision. View the District Court's schedule [PDF]. Paper Chase has extensive coverage of events at Guantanamo Bay. US Newswire has more.

UPDATE: An AP story on the hearings is now available.

The Department of Justice has filed suit against Pennsylvania election officials, seeking to allow voters overseas an additional two weeks to cast ballots. The DOJ argued in the suit, filed Tuesday, that PA election officals had missed a Sept. 19 deadline to mail ballots to absentee voters due to a dispute over whether to include candidate Ralph Nader. PA officials said they would oppose the suit and argued that they would ensure the ballots were returned by the existing deadline. Eight of 15 swing states have missed the deadline to mail absentee ballots due to legal challenges for ballot access by Nader or late primaries, and two, Ohio and Washington, have extended their deadline for returning the ballots by 10 days. The PA Department of State has more on voting in the state. The New York Times has more.

An Islamic militant was charged with treason Wednesday in Istanbul for allegedly plotting an attack on the mausoleum of the founder of the secular Turkish state. Metin Kaplan (BBC profile here), known as the "Caliph of Cologne," was extradited by Germany Tuesday to face charges in Turkey. German courts had previously refused to grant the extradition due to concerns over alleged torture by Turkish authorities of members of Kaplan's group, the Caliphate State, which urges the overthrow of the secular government in Turkey. The group has been banned in Germany, and Kaplan served a four-year sentence in Germany for inciting the killing of a rival cleric in Berlin. He has been free since May 2003. Turkish officials allege that Kaplan masterminded plans to fly an aircraft into Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's mausoleum during ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the secular state. AP has more.

The German government faces a legal challenge by the European Commission to a law aimed at preventing any takeover of Volkswagen (site in German), Europe's largest car company. The law, aimed at protecting jobs in Germany, grants a controlling minority share in the company to the German state of Lower Saxony and also prevents more than 20 percent of voting rights from going to any single investor. However, the Commission argues that the restrictions prevent jobs from migrating in violation of EU single-market laws, and it previously requested that Germany amend the law. Read an EU press release. The Commission has more on its monitoring of common-market laws. Deutsche Welle has coverage from Germany. BBC News has more.

A man arrested in the wake of Sept. 11 and convicted on terrorism charges has been released from prison several weeks after a judge overturned his conviction due to a mistake-riddled case. Karim Koubriti, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant, was released to a halfway house Tuesday, where he will remain pending another prosecution for document fraud. Koubriti was arrested along with three others in the week after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in a case championed by the government as a leading terrorism case. Three of the four were ultimately convicted, two on terror charges, but the convictions unraveled after mistakes were revealed in the prosecution and the Department of Justice admitted doubts about the strength of the case. US District Judge Gerald E. Rosen threw out the convictions earlier this month. Documents in the case against Koubriti are available here. The Detroit News has local coverage, as well as background on the case. The New York Times has more.

Previously on JURIST's Paper Chase….

• Law profs say DOJ should share blame in collapse of Detroit terrorism case
• DOJ agrees to dismiss Detroit terror convictions
• DOJ admits doubts over crucial evidence in Detroit terror case

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Wednesday, October 13.

The US Supreme Court will hear 10 AM ET oral arguments in Roper v. Simmons (case summary from Duke Law School), where the Court will consider whether the death penalty for someone who commits murder as a juvenile at age seventeen is "cruel and unusual" and thus barred by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and whether, after the Supreme Court has held that a punishment is "cruel and unusual," a lower court can reach a contrary decision based on an analysis of evolving standards. The ABA provides merit briefs filed in the case. Cornell's Legal Information Institute has additional background and the Washington Post has more.... The Court will also hear arguments today in the consolidated cases of Clark v. Martinez and Benitez v. Rozos (case summary from Duke Law School), where it will decide whether its 2001 decision in Zadvyas v. Davis compels the release of an arriving alien who was apprehended at the border of the US, denied admission and ordered removed from the US. The ABA provides merit briefs filed in the case. Cornell's Legal Information Institute has additional background.

Florida's Supreme Court will hear 9 AM ET oral arguments in a case challenging limitations on the use of provisional ballots. Watch a live webcast of the arguments. The court has case briefs and JURIST's Paper Chase has background.... Louisiana's 1st Circuit Court of Appeal will hear 10 AM ET oral arguments on the state's constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman and banning same-sex marriage and other civil unions. Paper Chase has background and the New Orleans Times-Picayune has more.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will meet at 10 AM ET to discuss amendments to Regulation M (the anti-manipulation rule concerning securities offerings). The proposed amendments would prohibit the acceptance of additional consideration beyond what is stated in the offering document in connection with a securities offering, extend the restricted period for IPOs, enhance the transparency of syndicate covering activity, adjust certain dollar value thresholds for inflation, and institute a recordkeeping requirement with respect to the de minimis exception. Read the meeting agenda and listen to a live webcast.

At the United Nations, the General Assembly will meet at 11 AM ET to resume discussion on the Security Council's report on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council. The discussion will continue into the General Assembly's 3 PM ET session. Watch a live webcast of both sessions.

At the Hague, the Asser Institute will hold a colloquium entitled The EU Constitution: The Best Way Forward? Read the colloquium's agenda [PDF].

In Wednesday's environmental law news, the US Forest Service has signed an agreement to work with The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) to return American chestnut trees to the eastern US ecosystem. The tree had once comprised nearly one-fourth of the trees in the eastern US before being struck by a blight and mostly destoyed by 1950. The agreement will work to introduce blight-resistant trees to the landscape. The press release is not yet online. Background on the trees and the restoration can be found on TACF's website.... In other news, 5 executives of the Newmont Mining Company continue to be jailed in Indonesia facing pollution charges despite a WHO study (reported earlier in JURIST's Paper Chase) that showed no abnormal pollution levels in the Buyat Bay. AP has the story.... The US Fish and Wildlife Service seeks comments on a petition to delist the Ute ladies'-tresses orchid (Spiranthes diluvialis) from the Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants list (the list created by the Endangered Species Act). The orchid was listed as a "threatened" species in 1992 and there is substantial information that the population size and distribution is greater and the threats to the plant are neither as great nor as imminent as known at the time of the original listing. The press release is here. Comments can be made until December 12 here.... US government officials announced that federal land management agencies have exceeded the yearly target goal for hazardous fuels treatment to reduce wildfires as per the President's Healthy Forest Initiative (and paired with the Healthy Forest Restoration Act [PDF]). More on the project can be found here.