[JURIST] Republican leaders in the US House of Representatives [official website] announced Tuesday that they would postpone final negotiations on immigration reform legislation [JURIST news archive] until after hearings around the country in the coming months. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has told House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner to prepare for an unusual round of "field hearings" beginning in August to gauge public opinion. The delay makes the passage of a comprehensive bill before November's midterm elections unlikely, even though both chambers have approved immigration legislation -- the Senate [JURIST report] in May and the House [JURIST report] late last year. The Senate bill [S 2611 summary] would set millions of illegal immigrants on a path to potential citizenship and would authorize a temporary worker program, while the more restrictive House version [HR 4437 summary] makes unlawful presence in the US a felony subject to deportation and could punish humanitarian groups aiding illegals. In a speech earlier this month, President Bush once again urged Congress [JURIST report] to reconcile the competing versions and send him a comprehensive bill.

Additional field hearings will be scheduled by the chairmen of the House Homeland Security and Government Reform committees [official websites], and possibly others as well. AP has more. The Washington Times has additional coverage.

[JURIST] A federal judge has temporarily blocked the enforcement of Louisiana's new law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. US District Judge James Brady [official profile] of the Middle District of Louisiana [official website] in Baton Rouge granted a temporary restraining order [PDF] requested by two industry groups, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) [trade website] and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) [trade website], which sued the state [press release] last week. The statute [text, PDF], which took effect when Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) [official website] signed it on Friday, forbids the sale or rental of electronic games to anyone under age 18 if:

(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence.
(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.
(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

[JURIST] Prisoners across Nepal [JURIST news archive] are demanding general amnesty following the release of more than 1,000 Maoist rebels [JURIST report], many of whom had been detained under a royal government anti-terrorism law [JURIST report] effectively scrapped [AP report] last week by the new parliamentary government in a gesture of reconciliation. Although most of the protests have been peaceful, inmates took over Kathmandu's central prison, which houses about a quarter of Nepal's 6,500 convicts. Guards re-entered on Monday after an eight-day standoff. A spokesman for the Nepalese Home Ministry said that the remaining prisoners cannot be released and that no amnesty is planned.

The new Nepalese government, formed after a popular uprising [JURIST news archive] this past spring, has released political prisoners as part of a peace deal with the Maoist rebels [JURIST report]. Last week, the government and the Maoists reached an eight-point agreement [JURIST report; text] whose terms include drafting an interim constitution within 15 days and dissolving parliament. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The prosecutor-general of East Timor [JURIST news archive] has issued an arrest warrant for former Interior Minister Rogerio Lobato, accused of giving weapons to a rebel group that targeted opponents of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri [official website; BBC profile]. The United Nations Office in East Timor [official website] said in a statement [text] that Lobato is suspected of supplying guns to the hit squad's leader, Vincente "Rai Los" da Concecao. In the statement, Sukehiro Hasegawa [official profile], the UN Secretary-General's special representative in East Timor, said:

The action taken by the Office of the Prosecutor-General to Timor-Leste is a clear sign that the Timorese can carry out effectively their constitutionally mandated responsibility. The independence of the judiciary branch is key to re-asserting the rule of law in Timor-Leste.

[JURIST] The Barbados government [official website] on Tuesday asked the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) [official website] to overturn a legal precedent that blocks capital punishment in an effort to impose the death penalty on two convicted murderers. Jeffrey Joseph and Lennox Boyd were both sentenced to death by hanging for the 1999 murder of a 22-year old woman, but had their death sentences commuted to life in prison by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council [official website], the final UK appeals court for English-speaking former Caribbean colonies until the establishment of the CCJ in 2001. Lawyers for the government are seeking to overturn a 1993 Privy Council ruling [text, DOC] calling death row cruel and inhumane if a prisoner waited for execution for more than five years.

The CCJ, based in Trinidad, has only been formally adopted as the high court by Barbados and Guyana, but more countries may join if Barbados wins this appeal. The Caribbean region is experiencing a surge in violent crime rates, and many see the reinstatement of the death penalty as a way to crack down on violent crime. CBC News has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-Suk [BBC profile] and five colleagues went on trial Tuesday, with prosecutors calling for harsh punishment and defense lawyers responding that criminal penalties are inappropriate for academic fraud. Prosecutors charged [JURIST report] Hwang in May in the Seoul District Court with fraud, embezzlement and violating bioethics laws for his claims that he had produced stem cell lines by cloning human embryos – a breakthrough that could lead to therapies for Alzheimer's disease and other now-incurable illnesses. A report [summary] by scientists at Seoul National University discredited Hwang's claims, and the journal Science retracted Hwang's articles [statement text] about the research.

Hwang, who is accused of using some 2.8 billion won (2.91 million dollars US) in public money to buy human eggs for his project, has apologized for the false claims but said he was deceived by two subordinates. If convicted, Hwang could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for misusing state funds and up to three years for breaking bioethics laws. Reuters has more. Chosun Ilbo has local coverage.

[JURIST] A federal judge has ordered the Los Angeles County jail system [official website] to create an expert panel to oversee reform at Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail [official website], one of seven LA country jails that was marred by racially-motivated riots [JURIST report] by inmates earlier this year. US District Judge Dean Pregerson toured Men's Central in May, prompting his order, released Monday, that a comprehensive reform plan be created and implemented within two months. Pregerson called conditions at the jail inconsistent with "basic human values." The expert panel will include representatives from the ACLU of California [advocacy website], the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department [official website], the Los Angeles County administrative office and a criminal justice planning firm. Recognizing issues of overcrowding and lack of exercise that the ACLU has repeatedly denounced, ACLU of Southern California jails project coordinator Jody Kent noted that the conditions likely contributed to the violent riots in February.

After several riots [JURIST report] in various jail facilities left two inmates dead and many others injured in February, county officials began transferring inmates to the state corrections system [JURIST report] and placed all seven jails on lockdown. The Los Angeles County jail system also segregated inmates to keep prisoners from acting on gang rivalries [JURIST report]. AP has more. The Los Angeles Times has local coverage.

[JURIST] David Safavian [Wikipedia profile], former head of procurement for the US government, was convicted Tuesday of four of five felony charges stemming from the scandal surrounding former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive]. After five days of deliberations, a federal jury in Washington, DC, found Safavian guilty of obstructing an investigation by the General Services Administration [official website], two counts of making false statements to GSA officials, and making a false statement to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee [official website]. He was found not guilty of obstructing the Senate committee's investigation. Safavian, former administrator of the White House Office of Procurement Policy [official website] and chief of staff at the GSA, was under investigation [JURIST report] for a 2002 golf trip to Scotland that he took with Abramoff, who was allegedly trying to buy GSA property.

In their indictment [JURIST report], prosecutors accused Safavian of concealing the fact that he was helping Abramoff deal with the GSA and that Abramoff had done business with the GSA before the trip. Separately, Abramoff pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to conspiracy and fraud charges for falsifying documents to procure a loan for a casino purchase. He was sentenced to nearly six years in prison [JURIST report] and is cooperating with prosecutors in other government corruption investigations, including that of US Rep. Robert Ney (R-OH) [official website]. Safavian's trial is the first to result from the Abramoff scandal. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 12. AP has more. The Washington Post has local coverage.

[JURIST] Two UK law enforcement associations denounced parts of the pending Police and Justice Bill [parliamentary materials] on Tuesday and called on the House of Lords [official website] to amend it. In a press release [text], the Association of Chief Police Officers [group website] and the Association of Police Authorities [group website] said it would shift power to the Home Secretary, allowing him to direct local chief constables and to alter the membership and role of police authorities:

The Police and Justice Bill has much to commend it but contains some elements which cause us considerable concern and raise issues of significant constitutional importance. Effective policing is dependent on the consent and support of the public. This support is conditional on the demonstrable independence of policing from partisan political interests. It is essential that the local nature of policing is preserved, as it is here that policing has its roots, and that is why local accountability between Police Authorities and Chief Constables is crucially important and should not be undermined by greater central control.

[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Arizona [official website] has rejected a bid by Latino and voter-advocacy groups to temporarily halt a requirement that voters show government-issued identification to prove that they are US citizens when they register to vote. The measure, which was approved in 2004 [JURIST report] in an effort to stop voter fraud, is part of Arizona's Proposition 200 [PDF text], which also denies some state public benefits to illegal immigrants and makes it a crime for public employees to fail to report undocumented immigrants who seek benefits outlined in the legislation. Judge Roslyn Silver sided with the government, writing that "determining whether an individual is a United States citizen is of paramount importance when determining his or her eligibility to vote." Several advocacy groups, including the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Valle Del Sol [advocacy websites], had argued [press release] that requiring identification effectively creates a poll tax on Arizona residents that cannot afford proper identification.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last year refused to block the implementation [JURIST report] of Proposition 200 in a separate lawsuit. Tuesday's Arizona Republic has more.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• Federal court declines to block AZ Proposition 200 implementation
• Arizona's Proposition 200 hold lifted
• Groups challenge Arizona AG's limited implementation of Proposition 200
• Arizona AG rules Proposition 200 applies only to welfare programs
• New AZ law striking fear among immigrants

[JURIST] A former federal civil servant found guilty [JURIST report] earlier this month of defrauding the Canadian government of more than $1.6 million in the so-called sponsorship scandal [JURIST news archive] that helped bring down Canada's Liberal Party government in January was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison Monday. After seven days of deliberations, a jury in Montreal convicted Chuck Guité [CTV profile], a former bureaucrat in the Department of Public Works and Government Services [official website], of all five charges against him. Justice Fraser Martin of the Quebec Superior Court [official website] expressed disappointment that Guité did not show any remorse and said that he deserved a stiff sentence because he was in a position of trust when he committed fraud.

Guité was in charge of the sponsorship program [CBC backgrounder] established to raise the profile of the Canadian federal government after voters in Quebec narrowly defeated a 1995 referendum [CTV backgrounder] to declare the province sovereign. The program allegedly awarded lucrative contracts to ad agencies in the province in return for little or no work. In April, advertising executive Paul Coffin received an 18-month prison sentence [JURIST report] after pleading guilty to 15 counts of fraud. CBC News has more. From Montreal, the Gazette has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Federal Bureau of Investigation encountered "numerous systemic problems" during its investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive], "ranging from poor individual performance to more substantial systemic deficiencies that undermined the FBI's efforts to detect and prevent terrorism," according to a report [PDF text] first written in 2004 but released publicly Monday by US Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine [official website]. Moussaoui had been briefly detained in August 2001 on immigration law violations after he sought flight training in Oklahoma and Minnesota, but the Minnesota investigators failed to properly support their terrorism case against Moussaoui. Investigators learned from French authorities that Moussaoui was connected to an Algerian terrorist group and sought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [text] warrant to search Moussaoui's computer, but attorneys at the FBI headquarters denied the request for lack of probable cause.

Fine's report praised and criticized former FBI agent Colleen Rowley [campaign website; Wikipedia profile], the agent who brought national attention to Moussaoui in 2002 when she sent a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller alleging that senior FBI investigators blocked the investigation [TIME report] into Moussaoui because they did not understand the significance of Moussaoui's connection to terrorism. Though Fine praised Rowley, who is currently running for Congress, for heading up the Minneapolis investigation, he criticized her for seeking a FISA warrant instead of a criminal warrant because a FISA warrant requires connecting the suspect to a "recognized foreign power."

Moussaoui pleaded guilty [JURIST report] in April 2005 to conspiracy charges [indictment] in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, including conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to destroy aircraft and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He received a life sentence [JURIST report] last month after one juror refused to agree to the death penalty [JURIST report]. Parts of the 2004 report, which is a broad review of the FBI's handling of Sept. 11 intelligence, have previously been released, but portions of the report covering the Moussaoui investigation were suppressed until the conclusion of court proceedings. Jerry Markon and Dan Eggen of the Washington Post have more.

[JURIST] Newly released Pentagon documents [ACLU list] provide evidence of "desperate and immoral conditions" [press release] at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] prior to the three suicides [JURIST report] there earlier this month, according to ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] on Monday released over 1000 pages of documents obtained from the military last week through a Freedom of Information Act [text; DOJ materials] request, which detail operations at Guantanamo. The documents include a 2003 medical report [PDF, see page 5] conducted after a suicide try, saying the detainee was in a "vegetative state" after an attempted hanging, and noting that he had a history of depression and should be returned to his home state. Other documents indicated that one detainee wrote his will, implying that death entered his thoughts frequently.

The documents also include a report [PDF text] written by Brigadier General Richard Formica on detainee treatment by Special Operations units in Iraq finding unauthorized interrogation methods [JURIST report] and a report [PDF] on detainee treatment in Afghanistan, as well as several court martial records. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The Israeli government said Monday that it will review the path of the West Bank security barrier [official website; JURIST news archive] after the High Court of Justice [Judicial Authority website] last week ordered the state to take down a five-kilometer section of the barrier [JURIST report]. The court ordered that the section surrounding the illegal Israeli settlement of Tzofit be dismantled because the route was motivated by political reasons. The Court added that only security concerns should determine the route of the barrier, not efforts to expand settlements.

Palestinian village leaders brought the High Court petition, and opponents of the barrier's route believe that the government's loss may be a signal that the state will lose 10 to 15 other pending appeals. However, the High Court on Sunday rejected two other petitions [Jerusalem Post report] filed by Palestinians opposing the barrier, as well as a request for a temporary injunction on construction of the inner barrier located in the south Hebron hills. The security fence, derided by Palestinians as an "apartheid wall," has been an object of much contention. In 2004 the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding advisory opinion [ICJ materials] at the behest of the UN General Assembly [PDF request; JURIST report] recommending that it not be built after the UN General Assembly requested an ICJ hearing on the issue. The Globe and Mail has more.

[JURIST] Former Liberian President Charles Taylor [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] was transported out of Sierra Leone to the Netherlands Tuesday to await trial by the Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website], according to Sierra Leone Vice-President Solomon Berewa [Wikipedia profile]. Taylor's transport comes just one day after the SCSL authorized the transfer [AP report]. The UN Security Council [official website] on Friday unanimously agreed to a resolution [summary and text] authorizing the pending war crimes trial to be shifted from the facilities of the SCSL in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to the facilities of the International Criminal Court [official website] in the Netherlands. The SCSL will control the trial and use SCSL prosecutors and judges. A trial date has not been set yet.

In March the SCSL said it wanted to move Taylor's trial to The Hague [JURIST report] for security reasons, but the Netherlands said that it would only agree to host the trial on its territory if the tribunal found a country willing to imprison Taylor if he is found guilty [JURIST report] and a country that will grant him asylum if he is acquitted. Britain offered to take custody [JURIST report] of Taylor last week, after several other countries refused [JURIST report]. Taylor has been indicted [PDF text] for crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law, including murder, rape and the recruitment and use of child soldiers during the war in Sierra Leone. AFP has more.