[JURIST] The French Cour de Cassation [official website, in French] appeals court ruled Tuesday that French law precluded a woman from legally adopting her lesbian partner's biological child, who was conceived through artificial insemination. The court held that such adoption was impermissible because when a child is adopted, its biological parent must give up their legal entitlement to the child. France [JURIST news archive] does not recognize same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive], though it does permit gay unions with fewer legal entitlements. AFP has more.

Last week, the Utah Supreme Court [official website] issued [JURIST report] a similar decision [text, PDF] in the case of a child conceived in a lesbian relationship, holding that parental rights should be restricted to biological parents in the cases of unmarried parents raising children related by blood to only one partner.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] Wednesday in Claiborne v. United States [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], a case that could impact sentencing guidelines across the country. Mario Claiborne was sentenced to 15 months in jail and three years probation for possessing and distributing cocaine. The federal sentencing guidelines suggest a 37 to 46-month jail sentence for the offense, but the district court judge at trial felt that was too harsh, since only a small amount of drugs was involved. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website] in St. Louis reversed the decision [opinion, PDF], finding that a sentence substantially lower than the minimum suggested by the guidelines could only be justified by extraordinary situations. Michael Dwyer, an assistant federal public defender from St. Louis, said in court that the district court judge had arrived at that sentence by reasonably looking at the individual circumstances of Claiborne's case, but several justices said ignoring the guidelines could result in extreme sentencing disparities.

The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] Tuesday in the case of Rita v. United States [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], where Victor Rita was convicted of obstructing justice and making false statements in a federal grand jury investigation. Rita's lawyer argued that because of Rita's poor health he should be sentenced to less jailtime than the 33 to 41 months recommended by the sentencing guidelines. The trial judge refused to take Victor's individual health into account and imposed a 33-month sentence. The decision was later upheld [opinion, PDF] by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website].

In January 2005, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Booker [opinion text] that the federal sentencing guidelines set forth in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 [PDF text] were advisory, not mandatory. The Court's decision in these cases will clarify lower courts' discretionary power under the Booker holding. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Nigerian appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Vice President Atiku Abubakar [official profile] could not legally be stripped of his office after his break with President Olusegun Obasanjo [official profile]. The pair were elected in 1999 at the end of an oppressive military regime, but Abubakar was accused of corruption [JURIST report] and forced from the party after refusing to support Obasanjo's failed attempt [JURIST report] to amend the constitution and run for a third term.

Abubakar, who may have presidential ambitions of his own, is now being investigated on those corruption charges. If convicted, he would be precluded from running for the Nigerian presidency. A smooth election would mark the first time since independence in 1960 that the country has seen a peaceful, democratic handover of power. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Kansas House of Representatives [official website] on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a bill [text, PDF] making English the state's "official" language. The legislation passed 118-2, after it was amended to provide $500,000 to help adult immigrants learn English. It is expected to receive final approval on Wednesday and then move on to the state senate [official website] for consideration. If it passes, the legislation will make English the official language of Kansas, though local authorities would retain the flexibility to provide documentation in other languages. Similar "official English" laws have been adopted in at least 24 other US states [backgrounder], most recently in Arizona.

Critics such as Rep. Dale Swenson (R-Wichita) [official profile] complain that the entire Kansas act is nothing more than a distraction from larger issues such as health care. Rep. Tim Owens (R-Overland Park) [official profile] warned that the bill will send a "negative message" about the state. The Lawrence World-Journal has more.

[JURIST] A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) [JURIST news archive] has found thirteen soldiers guilty of murdering 30 civilians in the Ituri district [Human Rights Watch backgrounder]. The thirteen were sentenced Monday to life in prison, according to UN sources. Witnesses said the soldiers abducted the civilians and forced them to perform labor; in November of last year, their bodies were discovered in a mass grave. Four of the soldiers were sentenced in absentia, and all were ordered to pay over $300,000 in damages to the families. The same court also found six former members of an Ituri militia guilty of killing two UN observers in 2003. Four were sentenced to life in prison, while the remaining two received 10 and 20 years in prison.

The Ituri area has long been plagued by violence; longstanding conflicts between ethnic Hema and Lendu factions were exacerbated by the Second Congo War [Wikipedia backgrounder], when militia groups received support from the DRC government and from neighboring countries. Violence in the Ituri district has also led the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] to bring charges against Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo [Trial Watch profile; JURIST report]. As founder of the militant Union of Patriotic Congolese [Global Security backgrounder], Lubanga is accused [indictment, PDF; case materials] of enlisting child soldiers [BBC report] in the region. While Lubanga is the only person to be charged internationally with war crimes in the DRC, a Congolese military court recommended in October that three ex-employees of Anvil Mining [corporate website], an Australian company, be tried for complicity [JURIST report] in war crimes committed by Congolese government soldiers in 2004. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The prime ministers of Spain and Italy have pledged to support Germany in reviving the European Constitution [JURIST news archives]. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero [official website, in Spanish; BBC profile] and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi [official website], whose countries both ratified the Constitution, made the announcement Tuesday after an annual summit on the island of Ibiza.

In 2005, the constitution was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands [JURIST reports]. After assuming the six-month EU Presidency on January 1, German Chancellor Angela Merkel [official website, in German; BBC profile] promised to put the constitution back on the EU agenda and encouraged EU member nations to ratify the charter [JURIST reports] before the next round of European Parliament elections scheduled for June 2009. Last week, French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy [official website, in French; BBC profile] proposed adoption of a limited constitution [JURIST report]. EU Business has more. El Pais has local coverage [in Spanish].

[JURIST] The Sacramento County Superior Court [official website] Tuesday struck down a plan by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website; JURIST news archive] to transfer prisoners to private out-of-state facilities in order to reduce prison overcrowding. The ruling by Judge Gail Ohanesian held that an emergency declaration [JURIST report] issued by Schwarzenegger in October violated the California Emergency Services Act [PDF text] and the state constitution [text], which prohibits contracting with private companies to perform jobs usually held by state workers. Schwarzenegger announced his intent to appeal [press release] what he called the "disappointing ruling," warning that it could cause some prisoners to be released prematurely.

California has an estimated 174,000 prisoners held in facilities designed for 100,000. Last year, a federal judge ordered California [JURIST report] to solve the crowding problem, vowing to release prisoners early if an adequate solution was not reached. Schwarzenegger issued the emergency proclamation in response. The California Department of Corrections [official website] began out-of-state transfers [JURIST report] in November. NBC11 has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers made their final arguments in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] Tuesday, with the defense arguing that Libby was a scapegoat for presidential aide Karl Rove's disclosures. In its final remarks, the prosecution argued that Libby was merely trying to a cover up a potentially illegal intelligence leak. In response, the defense said the government's witnesses were not credible and to accept the testimony of Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert [profile] as truth "would just be fundamentally unfair."

Libby's defense team rested [JURIST report] last week, one week after the prosecution finished presenting [JURIST report] its evidence against Libby. Also last week, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak testified [JURIST report] that Libby did not leak Plame's identity to him. It was Novak's July 2003 column that publicly outed Plame, thus igniting the CIA leak scandal [JURIST news archive]. Libby is not charged with leaking Plame's identity, but instead faces perjury and obstruction of justice charges [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] in connection with the investigation into the leak. The Los Angeles Times has more.

[JURIST] The French parliament [official website, in French] voted Monday to amend the French Constitution [text] to include an explicit ban on the death penalty. In a special joint session of both the National Assembly and the Senate [official websites, in French] at the Palace of Versailles, the amendment [text, in French] passed with a vote of 828-26 [voting record]. While the death penalty [JURIST news archive] has been outlawed in France since 1981, Monday's vote officially revised the constitution to reflect this.

Also Monday, the joint session voted 449-203 [voting record] to approve a constitutional amendment [text, in French] guaranteeing the French president sovereign immunity while in office but also introducing the possibility of impeachment [IHT report]. The measure previously approved by the National Assembly [JURIST report] calls for US-style impeachment procedures to check the powers of France's presidency. Under the new provisions, the president can refuse to testify while in office; however, in case of a "neglect of his duties manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate," a two-thirds majority of either house of parliament can authorize impeachment proceedings. The bill had languished in parliament after being approved by the French cabinet three years ago; it came forward as current President Jacques Chirac [official profile, in French; BBC profile] approached the end of his second term with a number of corruption cases [JURIST news archive] looming over him. The International Herald Tribune has more.

[JURIST] Federal investigators and prosecutors fudged data on the number of anti-terrorism investigations and cases for the four years after 9/11, according to an audit [PDF] by US Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine [official profile] released Tuesday. In a report on terrorism-related incidents and case-loads, the inspector general found that "some of these statistics were significantly overstated or understated." According to the audit, DOJ officials used non-terror-related immigration violations and drug trafficking to inflate the number of anti-terror cases reported.

The data was collected from multiple DOJ divisions, including the FBI, the Executive Office of US Attorneys, the Criminal Division, and the US Attorney's Office [official websites], and is used to monitor the DOJ's efficiency in fighting terrorism. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] agreed to hear two cases Tuesday, including one dealing with the procedure the state of New York employs to choose trial judges. In NY Board of Elections v. Torres, state election officials join both the Democratic and Republican parties in an appeal of a Second Circuit decision [PDF text; JURIST report] that the current process that picks judicial candidates for the general ballot at political conventions violates the First Amendment rights of both candidates and voters. In the case [Brennan Center materials], the lower courts ruled that New York's system of nominating its elected state trial court judges in political conventions [NY Election Law s. 6-106, PDF] rather than through primaries for trial level judges resulted in only friends of political powers having their names placed on the ballots. AP has more.

In Logan v. US, the Court will review the threshold for when repeat criminals can be treated as career criminals for sentencing purposes, when the convictions are for misdemeanor crimes. SCOTUSblog has more. Read the Court's full Order List [PDF text].

[JURIST] Lawyers for the Australian government argued that control orders do not violate the country's constitution during a Tuesday court hearing in the case of an Australian man convicted [JURIST report] in February 2006 of receiving money from an al Qaeda associate. Joseph Terrence "Jihad Jack" Thomas [advocacy website] successfully appealed [JURIST report; judgment] the conviction in August 2006, but the Australian government issued a control order [JURIST report] limiting his freedom of movement. The control order was the first such order administered under a controversial new anti-terror law [ANS backgrounder]. Thomas appealed [JURIST report] the issuance of the control order and during Tuesday's hearing, lawyers for the Commonwealth argued that the government's right to defend the nation gives it the power to issue control orders.

Thomas was the first Australian incarcerated under the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism Act 2002 [text] after being found guilty of receiving $3,500 from a senior al Qaeda member and carrying a fake passport. His conviction was overturned on all counts because authorities interviewed Thomas against his will and denied him access to a lawyer when he was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. The control order against Thomas, which in part bans him from contacting people such as Osama Bin Laden, was deemed "farcical" by an Australian judge [JURIST report] in August 2006. Australia's ABC News has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled [PDF text] Tuesday that provisions in the Military Commissions Act [PDF text; JURIST news archive] stripping foreign nationals held as "enemy combatants" of the right to file habeas corpus petitions challenging their detentions do not violate the Suspension Clause [Art. I, §9, cl.2 text] of the US Constitution. The ruling came in the consolidated cases of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees. The court also held that Congress was clear in its intent to strip federal courts of habeas jurisdiction even in pending challenges. The DC Circuit vacated the lower court decisions in the cases and dismissed the detainees' petitions for lack of jurisdiction.

President Bush signed the MCA into law [JURIST report] last October and shortly thereafter the the US Justice Department sent letters [JURIST report] to the DC district and appeals courts, notifying the lower court that it no longer had jurisdiction over some 200 pending cases filed by Guantanamo detainees, and urging the appeals court to reach the merits in the present cases. Tuesday's appeals court ruling is expected to be appealed to the US Supreme Court. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] handed down decisions in three cases Tuesday, including Philip Morris USA v. Williams [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], where the Court overturned a $79.5 million punitive damages verdict against Philip Morris USA [corporate website]. The Oregon Supreme Court last year upheld a jury award of nearly $80 million [opinion text; JURIST report] in punitive damages against the company because it found the marketing tactics of Philip Morris were "reprehensible." The Supreme Court ruled 5-4, however, that a punitive damages award based "in part on [a jury's] desire to punish the defendant for harming persons who are not before the court (e.g., victims whom the parties do not represent) ... amount[s] to a taking of "property" from the defendant without due process." The Court did not decide whether the damages award was constitutionally "grossly excessive," but instead vacated the Oregon decision and remanded the case for further proceedings. Read the Court's opinion [text] per Justice Breyer, along with a dissent [text] from Justice Stevens, a second dissent [text] from Justice Thomas and a final dissent [text] from Justice Ginsburg. AP has more.

In Lawrence v. Floria [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court ruled 5-4 that 28 USC 2254 [text] does not suspend the one-year statute of limitations for seeking federal habeas corpus relief from a state court judgment while a certiorari petition is pending before the Supreme Court. Read the Court's opinion [text] per Justice Thomas, along with a dissent [text] from Justice Ginsburg. AP has more.

Finally, in Weyerhaeuser v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber [Duke Law case backgrounder], the Court held that the same standard applies to predatory-bidding claims under Section 2 [text] of the Sherman Act as to predatory-pricing claims. The Court addressed predatory pricing - reducing the price of a product to put competitors out of business - in its 1993 decision in Brooke Group v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. [text]. In its Tuesday decision, the Court overturned a lower court ruling [PDF text] from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and ruled that Brooke Group's standard should also be applied to predatory bidding - the practice of buying goods at higher prices to put them out of a competitors' reach. Read the Court's unanimous opinion [text] per Justice Thomas. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Meshrano Jirga [Wikipedia backgrounder], the upper house of the Afghanistan parliament [IRIN backgrounder], Tuesday approved a resolution calling for amnesty from war crimes prosecution for leaders of the Afghan mujahedeen resistance who fought against Soviet forces in the 1980s and later engaged in murder and torture during the country's civil war [CNN backgrounder]. Both houses of parliament are dominated by alleged warlords and Tuesday's 41-16 vote followed the lower house's approval [JURIST report] of the measure earlier this month. The resolution calls for war criminals to be "included in the national reconciliation process," rather than face prosecution.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai [BBC profile] must sign the bill before it becomes law and a spokesman for the president said he will refuse to do so. The Afghan Constitution [PDF text] allows a presidential veto to be overridden if the lower house of parliament does so by a two-thirds vote. The resolution has been strongly criticized by the United Nations [JURIST report], human rights groups, and some Afghan legislators who contend that war criminals should only be forgiven by their victims and should therefore be brought to justice. RFE/RL has more.

[JURIST] Authorities in Bangladesh [JURIST news archive] plan to publish a list of several hundred people who are suspected of graft, following the Sunday arrests of 50 high-profile suspects, according to a government official. Delowar Hossain, secretary of the Anti-Corruption Commission [LCG backgrounder; BBC report], said the list will include former ministers of the Bangladesh government, politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats. The 50 individuals arrested over the weekend were detained because their incomes did not match their current wealth value, and they were ordered to come forward with their financial records within 72 hours or have their finances temporarily confiscated.

Earlier this month, eight former Bangladeshi ministers were accused of corruption [JURIST report] and 13 other former ministers and senior politicians were arrested in raids on their homes [JURIST report]. Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed [Wikipedia profile] declared a state of emergency [JURIST report] in the country on January 11 and later cancelled a review of disputed results from the most recent election. The interim military-backed government has promised to hold new elections, but no date has yet been set. AFP has more.