[JURIST] The New Jersey Senate Monday voted 21-16 to pass a bill [S171 text, PDF] that would abolish the death penalty [JURIST news archive] in the state and replace capital punishment with life in prison. The New Jersey Assembly [official website] is scheduled to vote on the bill Thursday [JURIST report], and proponents of the legislation hope it will pass both houses before the legislative session ends on January 8. New Jersey currently has eight prisoners on death row, but the state has not executed anyone since 1963. If the bill becomes law, New Jersey would be the first state to abolish capital punishment since the US Supreme Court reinstated it nationally in 1976. The Star-Ledger has more.

The New Jersey Senate Budget Committee voted 8-4 to pass the bill [JURIST report] last week. Bill proponents, including New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, argue that capital punishment spends more tax dollars than life in prison without parole [Senate report, PDF; NYT op-ed], and add that capital punishment statistically does not deter homicide. A report [PDF text; JURIST report] in January endorsed by 12 of the 13 members of the New Jersey Death Penalty Commission [official website] concluded that there was "no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent," although there was "increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency." Corzine, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, welcomed the report [statement] and said he would work with the legislature to implement it.

[JURIST] The judge presiding over the embezzlement proceedings against relatives of the late former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archive; BBC profile] stepped down from the case Monday after the defendants' lawyers accused him of bias. The Santiago Court of Appeals has not yet decided whether it will accept Judge Carlos Cerda's recusal. The accusations of bias stem from comments that Cerda made to reporters, saying he believed Pinochet had illegally obtained his fortune. Cerda's comments previously earned him rebukes from Chile's Supreme Court, which investigated him [JURIST report] but has so far declined to remove him from the proceeding. AP has more.

Cerda indicted [PDF text, in Spanish] 23 family members and former associates of Pinochet on corruption charges in October. The 23 accused [list, in Spanish] include five of Pinochet's children, his widow, his longtime secretary, and three retired army generals. Cerda said the charges stem from allegations that these individuals aided Pinochet in "the misuse of fiscal funds" during his 1973-1990 military regime. Pinochet died of a heart attack [JURIST report] in December 2006 without ever facing trial on multiple charges of tax evasion and human rights violations. Nevertheless, Chilean authorities began an investigation [JURIST report] earlier this year to determine whether Pinochet ordered state officials to murder former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva [EB profile] in 1982.

[JURIST] Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of human rights abuses for allegedly ordering the 1992 murder of 25 people, including a professor and nine students at the so-called La Cantuta massacre [backgrounder] at Lima's La Cantuta University. If convicted, Fujimori could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison and be fined $33 million. During Monday's trial proceedings, Fujimori declared his innocence in a heated outburst, saying: "I declare myself innocent . . . I don't accept the charges against me . . . I never ordered the death of anybody." AFP has more. AP has additional coverage.

Fujimori was transferred to Peru last month following the Supreme Court of Chile's decision [JURIST report] to allow his extradition from that country on human rights and corruption charges. He faces three other trials in Peru, which are a consolidation of six separate charges all stemming from his actions during three presidential terms in office from 1990-2000, including authorizing illegal phone taps, bribing key congressmen and government officials, and misusing government funds. Monday's trial began after a judge postponed it [JURIST report] last month.

[JURIST] South African Archbishop and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu [Nobel profile] Monday criticized the United States and Great Britain for detaining terror suspects without trial, describing the practice as "a huge blot on democracy". He expressed surprise at the ease with which people had accepted government assertions that the indefinite detention of suspects at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] was necessary for national security, saying that these same arguments were once advanced by the government of South Africa to defend Apartheid. Tutu made the remarks at a Cape Town event celebrating the anniversary of the 1948 passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [text].

Tutu is the head of the Global Elders [advocacy website], an international group that includes former US President Jimmy Carter and former South African President Nelson Mandela involved in a campaign asking one billion people to sign a pledge to reaffirm the principles of the Declaration. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Iraqi government is mulling pardons for several thousand convicted insurgents, Iraqi government officials said Monday. A committee is being formed to draw up guidelines for issuing the pardons, including which offenses would be eligible for pardons and whether parliamentary approval would be required; a Sunni official from the office of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani [BBC profile] noted that the country's constitution [text, PDF] requires that any pardons be approved by the Iraqi parliament. According to officials, the plan being considered now would only pardon convicted prisoners, and would not apply to detainees not yet charged. AP has more.

Earlier this year, the country's largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front [BBC backgrounder], boycotted major government meetings in response to the failure of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [BBC profile] to respond to demands [JURIST report] which included pardons for uncharged security detainees. In October, Iraqi Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi urged fellow Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi and President Jalal Talabani [EPIC profiles, PDF] to press the Iraqi parliament to pardon detainees [JURIST report] not classified as "dangerous elements" linked to the insurgency. Of the 25,000 Iraqis currently being held by the US, 90 percent are believed to be Sunnis. Many Iraqi leaders have said that granting pardons to thousands of prisoners would be a major move toward national unity.

[JURIST] A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood [party website; FAS backgrounder], who is standing before a military trial in Egypt on money laundering and terror charges, Monday denounced the proceedings against him as a "farce." Deputy guide for the Brotherhood Khairat al-Shatir [BBC report] was among those Muslim Brotherhood members first arrested in a raid [BBC report] last December. They were initially acquitted of all charges in January in a criminal court in Cairo, but were rearrested shortly after their release. Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak [official profile] ordered the transfer of the cases to a military court [JURIST report] and Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court ruled in May that the military trial could proceed [JURIST report], reversing a lower court rejection [JURIST report] of the military trial. El-Shatir denied the charges, saying that they were politically motivated.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest opposition party in Egypt [JURIST news archive]. Its members run officially as independents because the Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in Egypt since 1954. Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] has criticized [press release] Egypt for repressing the group in a manner that "flouts fundamental human rights and freedoms." Human Rights Watch estimates that 223 members of the Muslim Brotherhood are currently detained for "attempting to exercise their rights to freedom of association and expression." The Egyptian government accuses the organization of trying to create an Islamic theocracy through violence. AP has more.

[JURIST] Canadian-born financier and former media mogul Conrad Black [CBC profile; JURIST news archive] was sentenced in a US federal court in Chicago Monday to 78 months in prison and ordered to pay $125,000 and forfeit another $1 million for his July conviction [JURIST report] on mail fraud and obstruction of justice charges. Former Hollinger executives and Black co-defendants John Boultbee, Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis, who were also convicted of fraud at trial [docket; USAO materials], received the same sentence Monday. US District Judge Amy St. Eve [official profile] of the Northern District of Illinois [official website] released Black on bail with orders to report to prison on March 3.

Originally accused [indictment, PDF] by the US government of diverting more than $80 million from Hollinger International and its shareholders [JURIST report] during the company's $2.1 billion sale of several hundred Canadian newspapers, Black was found not guilty in July on separate charges of racketeering, wire fraud, and tax evasion. In August, Black and his three co-defendants filed concurrent motions [JURIST report] requesting either new trials or acquittals after their July convictions. Last month, St. Eve rejected the motions [ruling, PDF; JURIST report], overturning one of Kipnis' mail fraud convictions while affirming all of the other convictions against the four. AP has more. The Globe and Mail has additional coverage.

[JURIST] A German state court in Hesse on Monday upheld a ban on religious headscarves for public school teachers and civil servants. The government in Hesse [government website], which includes Frankfurt, passed the headscarf ban [JURIST news archive] in 2004. The ban includes other items of clothing which could be seen as religious or political, but has an exemption for Christian symbols. The ban was challenged as unconstitutional under the state constitution, but the court ruled Monday that the government has the authority to ban garments worn by public servants.

Headscarf bans have been upheld in other German state courts, including in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria [JURIST reports]. In 2006, however, a court in Baden-Wuerttemberg struck down a 2004 ban [JURIST report], ruling that the ban was being enforced in a discriminatory manner. AP has more.

[JURIST] A defense lawyer for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] said Monday that the former vice presidential chief of staff will drop his appeal of his conviction [JURIST reports] in the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive]. Libby was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection to the investigation into the leak of former undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison [JURIST report] and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. US President George W. Bush commuted Libby's prison sentence [JURIST report] in July, noting that the jury sentence was "excessive." Libby is still required to pay the fine and is also subject to two years of probation.

In announcing Libby's decision to drop his appeal, defense lawyer Theodore Wells cited the burden on Libby and his family, as a successful appeal would lead to a retrial. Wells said he did not know whether Bush would grant a full presidential pardon for Libby, though Bush has previously said that he may pardon Libby [JURIST report] before he leaves office. AP has more.

[JURIST] Thousands of lawyers and judges in Turkey [JURIST news archive] protested a new law Sunday that they believe will undermine judicial independence by changing the appointment process for judges and prosecutors. The new law requires a justice ministry interview as part of the appointment process, which critics believe will politicize the selection process. Protesters also condemned Turkish President Abdullah Gul [official website; JURIST news archive] for his quick approval of the legislation, just days after he received the legislation from parliament.

Television footage indicated that the demonstrators numbered between 5,000 to 10,000, though no official numbers have been released. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A majority of members of the Bolivian Constitutional Assembly [official website] on Sunday approved a new draft constitution [JURIST news archive] Sunday, despite a boycott by members of the main opposition party. Only 153 of 255 assembly members voted in favor of the new constitution, falling short of the two-thirds majority the opposition says is necessary to approve changes to the draft. The new constitution, supported by President Evo Morales [official website; BBC profile], would gives the president more power over natural resources, collapse Bolivia's legislature into one body, and allow the president to seek election to two consecutive five-year terms. The Constitutional Assembly first gave preliminary approval [JURIST report] to the new constitution draft last month amid protests that the constitution gave the president indefinite power; the current constitution [text] prohibits a president from seeking election to consecutive terms. The new constitution must still be approved in a national referendum.

The Constitutional Assembly was suspended in September after violent protests by students and opposition parties, and governors from the country's six wealthiest provinces have consistently opposed the reforms [JURIST reports]. Opponents of the new constitution, including provincial governors and indigenous leaders, claimed that the vote violated a requirement that two-thirds of the assembly approve the changes. Last week, Morales proposed a national referendum [JURIST report] on whether he and the country's nine provincial governors should remain in office in response to accusations that the process of creating the new constitution has been illegitimate. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] handed down decisions in three cases Monday, including Kimbrough v. United States [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], where the Court overturned a federal appeals court ruling on whether a federal judge has discretion to sentence a defendant to a prison term less than what is recommended by federal guidelines when the lower sentence "is based on a disagreement with the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine offenses." US District Judge Raymond A. Jackson sentenced crack and powder cocaine dealer Derrick Kimbrough to 15 years in prison, despite the 19- to 22-year standard found in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines [USSC materials]. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, one gram of crack cocaine is treated the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine, leaving crack cocaine dealers to face much harsher sentences. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated Kimbrough's lesser sentence [opinion, PDF] and remanded for resentencing, holding that the lower than recommended sentence was per se unreasonable as it was based on the judge's disagreement with the sentencing disparity. The Supreme Court reversed, writing:

We hold that, under Booker, the cocaine Guidelines, like all other Guidelines, are advisory only, and that the Court of Appeals erred in holding the crack/powder disparity effectively mandatory. A district judge must include the Guidelines range in the array of factors warranting consideration. The judge may determine, however, that, in the particular case, a within-Guidelines sentence is "greater than necessary" to serve the objectives of sentencing. 18 U. S. C. §3553(a) (2000 ed. and Supp. V). In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the Guidelines' treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses.

We now hold that, while the extent of the difference between a particular sentence and the recommended Guidelines range is surely relevant, courts of appeals must review all sentences - whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range - under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. We also hold that the sentence imposed by the experienced District Judge in this case was reasonable.

Given ordinary meaning and the conventions of English, we hold that a person does not "use" a firearm under §924(c)(1)(A) when he receives it in trade for drugs.

[JURIST] A Canadian jury convicted Robert William Pickton [CBC case backgrounder] Sunday of second degree murder for the deaths of six women in the 1990s. He was found not guilty of first degree murder, with the jury concluding that the killings were not planned. Pickton, accused of murdering 26 women [indictment text] he had lured from Vancouver's seedy Downtown Eastside, pleaded not guilty to all murder charges when his trial began in January [JURIST report]. British Columbia Supreme Court Justice James Williams decided last year to divide the counts [CBC report] to avoid overburdening the jury. A second trial on further first degree murder charges could begin early next year, although BC Attorney General Wally Oppal said Sunday that no official decision on that had been made [CBC report]. Pickton was arrested in 2002 after remains were discovered on his pig farm.

Under the Canadian Criminal Code [text], second degree murder carries an automatic life in prison sentence, but allows convicts to be eligible for parole after 10 years. Pickton had originally been charged with first degree murder, which would have made him ineligible for parole for 25 years. At a sentencing hearing Tuesday, Williams will decide whether Pickton will be eligible for parole at all. If convicted of all 26 murders, Pickton would be the most deadly serial killer in Canadian history. AP has more. The Globe and Mail has local coverage.

[JURIST] Three new judges were appointed to the reconstituted Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] Monday, bringing the regular membership of the court up to 14, including Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar. Pakistan's Law Ministry said in a statement that the new judges are Justice Mian Hamid Farooq and Justice Syed Sakhi Hussain Bokhari of the Lahore High Court and Justice Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, a retired judge of the High Court of Sindh. Last week Pakistani Attorney General Malik Qayyum confirmed he had reversed an earlier decision [JURIST report] to cut the size of the high court from its pre-emergency quorum of 17 to 12 after Dogar told him that a reduced bench would be unable to keep up with the court's workload. The pre-emergency Supreme Court judges led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry were effectively dismissed under the declaration of emergency issued November 3 and have since been formally retired [JURIST report] by the government. Dawn has more.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview [transcript] broadcast on CNN's Late Edition Sunday that he was not reinstating Chaudhry or the other ousted judges and that Dogar would remain in place:

He [Chaudhry] is no more the chief justice of Pakistan. The chief justice of Pakistan is Mr. Dogar now, and he remains there. And there are judges in the Supreme Court, they are the judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts. Nobody is being allowed to go back.

[JURIST] Lawyers for several detainees at Guantanamo Bay filed an emergency motion [PDF text] Sunday asking a federal judge to look into the CIA's destruction of videotapes [JURIST report] showing the interrogations of terror suspects. CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged [statement text] last week that the CIA had videotaped the interrogation of two suspects in 2002, but said that the tapes had been destroyed in 2005 amid concerns that they could be leaked to the public and compromise the identities of the interrogators. In the case of Abdah v. Bush, currently before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, lawyers for 11 Yemeni detainees asked presiding judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. to determine whether the CIA's actions violated a June 2005 order in that case where Kennedy directed the government to "preserve and maintain all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." SCOTUSblog has more.

Existence of the videotapes was verified in November after the CIA admitted it had mistakenly denied [JURIST report] that it had recorded interrogations in a court declaration during the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. Since Hayden announced that the videotapes had been destroyed, several investigations have been launched, including a joint DOJ-CIA preliminary investigation [DOJ letter; JURIST report] and multiple congressional inquiries. Though Hayden said last week that the CIA acted "in line with the law," but the New York Times reported over the weekend that the DOJ advised against destroying the tapes [JURIST report].

[JURIST] A Chadian judge has determined that 10 defendants will stand trial in criminal court in connection with the abortive effort by French charity Zoe's Ark [advocacy website, in French; BBC backgrounder] to airlift so-called "Darfur orphans" out of Chad [JURIST news archive], a lawyer told AFP Monday. The investigative judge said that six French Zoe's Ark workers should be tried in criminal court on kidnapping, fraud, and forgery charges, and that three Chadians and one Sudanese national will face trial for complicity in kidnapping and fraud. Charges were dropped against another suspects, including several French journalists, the Spanish crew and Belgian pilot of the plane to be used during the airlift, and a local Chadian official from the border town of Tine. If convicted, the defendants could face between five to 20 years of hard labor.

The announcement of charges came two days after the French charity workers went on hunger strike [JURIST report] in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena to protest the way the Chadian legal probe into their case has been conducted. A lawyer for the group told AFP that the workers felt they had been abandoned by the French government; last month, French President Nicholas Sarkozy flew to Chad and brought out a number of freed journalists and flight crew [JURIST report] allegedly involved in the airlift. AFP has more.