[JURIST] Violent crime rates in the US decreased by 1.8 percent between the months of January and June 2007, according to the 2007 Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report [text; press release] released Monday by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [official website]. In addition to the overall decrease in violent crime, the report showed a 6.1 percent decrease in forcible rape, a 2.6 percent decrease in property crime, a 7.4 percent decrease in motor vehicle theft, and a 9.7 percent drop in arson. The report also showed a 4.9 percent rise in murder rates in metropolitan counties, a 3.2 percent rise in murder rates in cities with populations between 50,000 to 99,999, and a 1.3 percent rise in murder rates in non-metropolitan counties. AP has more. The Washington Post has additional coverage.

The 1.8 percent drop in violent crime rates between January and June 2007 follows two years of increasing rates of similar crimes, including a 2006 increase of 1.3 percent and a 2005 increase of 2.3 percent. [JURIST reports]

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka [official website] Monday ordered the country's government to stop cordon-and-search security operations, in which security forces cut off access to a populated area before searching and arresting residents within. Human rights groups have criticized the practice [AI backgrounder], arguing that the arrests constitute collective punishment [CW backgrounder] infringing on civil liberties and are used to punish minority Tamils for attacks by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [CFR backgrounder; LTTE website], or "Tamil Tigers." Court officials cited by AFP said that Monday's ruling by Chief Justice Sarath Silva, which also ordered the release of 198 people detained in a sweep last Sunday, was the first time that the court has moved to limit cordon-and-search efforts.

In August, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] accused the Sri Lankan government of being responsible for a dramatic increase in unlawful killings and other human rights violations [JURIST report]. In June, the government, which has been fighting the Tamil Tigers since 1972, began systematically detaining ethnic Tamils until the Supreme Court ordered an end to the practice [JURIST report]. Last week, the government announced that it will withdraw from a 2002 ceasefire [AP report] with the Tamil Tigers next week. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] that a 2005 lawsuit challenging the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) [PDF text] should not have been dismissed by a lower federal court. The National Education Association [group website] and individual school districts in Texas, Michigan and Vermont filed the lawsuit [JURIST report] in April 2005 to force the federal government to pay more for unfunded mandates created under the act. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan [official website] originally dismissed the suit [JURIST report], ruling that the plaintiffs did not have a cause of action since if Congress had intended the law to be fully funded, it would have done so in the legislation.

The majority opinion, written by Justice R. Guy Cole Jr., held that the NEA and the three states did have a cause of action since NCLB could be reasonably read to mean that a "state need not comply with requirements that are 'not paid for under the Act' through federal funds." AP has more.

[JURIST] Argentinian coast guard officer and torture suspect Hector Febres [TrialWatch profile] may have been murdered to prevent him from disclosing human rights violations committed during Argentina's Dirty War [Global Security backgrounder; JURIST news archive], according a resolution written by Argentinian Judge Sandra Arroyo reported by Reuters Monday. Arroyo has ordered that the two coast guard officials supervising Febres' imprisonment be placed under arrest for allegedly allowing Febres' killers access to him. Febres was found dead [AP report] in his military jail cell with high levels of cyanide in his blood on December 10.

Febres went on trial [JURIST report] in October on charges of kidnapping and torturing four people at the Navy Mechanics School [BBC backgrounder] during the Dirty War. He was the first person to face trial for human rights violations at the school, the largest secret prison run by the Argentinian military during the 1976-83 Dirty War campaign. The trial's verdict had been expected in December and if convicted, Febres would have faced life in prison. Argentinian coast guard chief Carlos Fernandez was fired [JURIST report] shortly after Febres' death. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday dismissed [per curiam opinion, PDF] the case of Arave v. Hoffman (07-110) [docket], where the Court first granted certiorari [JURIST report] in November to consider whether a death row inmate in Idaho should be able to accept a plea bargain after his conviction based on an argument that the deal was originally rejected because of bad advice from his lawyer. The Supreme Court's dismissal was based on the defendant's decision to abandon his ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining claim and came at the request of both the defendant and the state. A lower court order requiring the defendant to be resentenced based on a separate argument of ineffective assistance of counsel during sentencing remains in effect. The Court remanded the case to the federal appeals court with instructions that the claim be dismissed with prejudice in order to allow the defendant to proceed with the district court's resentencing order. AP has more.

The Supreme Court also issued a second per curiam opinion [PDF text] Monday, holding in the case of Wright v. Van Patten (07-212) [docket] that the participation of the defendant's counsel at a court hearing through speakerphone does not presumptively constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Van Patten appealed his sentence on charges of first degree murder arguing that his lawyer's physical absence amounted to a denial of counsel in violation of the Constitution. The court wrote that "even if we agree with Van Patten that a lawyer physically present will tend to perform better than one on the phone, it does not necessarily follow that mere telephone contact amounted to total absence or "prevented [counsel] from assisting the accused." AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments Monday in Baze v. Rees (07-5439) [docket; merit briefs] on whether the three-drug lethal injection cocktail [DPIC backgrounder] now used in over 30 states violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The petitioner, Ralph Baze, who was sentenced to death by lethal injection for admittedly killing two Kentucky police officers, argues in part that the Eighth Amendment is implicated in his case because lethal injections can be carried out with other drugs that may pose less risk of pain and suffering. He believes that the first drug fails to make the subject fully unconscious, thereby making the subject suffer excruciating pain when the heart-stopping drug is injected. During Monday's arguments, Justice Scalia indicated that he was in favor of allowing Baze's execution to proceed, saying that the Constitution did not require that the death penalty be "painless." Other justices, however, seemed in favor of blocking the method or allowing the lower courts to spend more time studying the specific lethal injection method.

Since the US Supreme Court accepted the Baze case in September, courts have stayed executions in Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida [JURIST reports]. AP has more.

2:59 PM ET - The transcript [PDF text] of Monday's oral arguments is now available.

[JURIST] Three Indonesian Islamic militants sentenced to death for their roles in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings [BBC backgrounder] will seek a religious opinion on the legality of execution by firing squad from the Indonesian Council of Ulema, their lawyer said Monday. The three militants - Mukhlas, Amrozi, and Imam Samudra [BBC profiles] - are seeking an execution by beheading rather than by firing squad.

In a ruling made public last month but not officially handed down until last week, the Indonesian Supreme Court rejected the final appeal [JURIST report] of the three militants, giving the defendants one month to seek clemency from the Indonesian president. The militants say they will not seek clemency, and their lawyer said Monday that another attempt for a rehearing will be filed. Earlier this year, Indonesia reduced the sentenced [JURIST report] of 10 other Islamic militants convicted for their roles in the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings [BBC report]. Originally serving between eight to 18 years, six of the militants received a sentence reduction of five months, while the other four received a reduction of two months. Terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah [MIPT backgrounder; JURIST news archive] has been blamed for both Bali bombings. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website] on Monday resumed the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor [SCSL case materials; JURIST news archive] with testimony from the prosecution's first witness, a Canadian expert on so-called "blood diamonds" who told the court that the diamond trade prompted Liberia's role in Sierra Leone's civil war. Proceedings had been delayed since August in order to give Taylor's new defense team [JURIST reports] more time to prepare. The trial, which first began in June 2007, is expected to last another 18 months.

Taylor faces eleven charges [indictment, PDF], including murder, rape, and the recruitment and use of child soldiers during the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. He has previously complained that his single-court appointed defense lawyer was unfairly outnumbered [JURIST report] by the prosecution team. The criticism prompted the SCSL to add four people to Taylor's defense team and increase funding available to Taylor [JURIST report] to approximately $100,000 per month, despite a UN report that concluded Taylor may control millions of dollars [JURIST report] held in bank accounts worldwide. The trial has been moved to The Hague [JURIST report] for security reasons. BBC News has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The military court system [IDF backgrounder] administered by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) often fails to provide full due process rights to Palestinian defendants, according to a report [PDF text; summary, PDF] released Sunday by an Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din. An IDF spokesperson dismissed the report, saying that its methodology, in which researchers attended 800 hearings and interviewed court staff and lawyers, led to erroneous conclusions. The Yesh Din report found that only .29 percent of defendants are found entirely not guilty, which implicates the presumption of innocence; that severe restrictions are placed on lawyers attempting to speak with their clients; that 95 percent of all cases are resolved through plea bargains; and that only 1.42 percent of all trials involved the presentation of all evidence in the case.

Yesh Din [advocacy website] receives funding from the British and Dutch governments. Former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben Yair sits on its board. AFP has more. AP has additional coverage.