JURIST - Paper Chase: Saturday, December 13, 2008

[JURIST] The Russian Duma [official website, in Russian] Friday approved by 355-85 a bill that would end jury trials on charges of terrorism and treason [JURIST report]. Ostensibly directed against lenient juries [Moscow Times report], the bill is excepted to be quickly approved in the Federation Council [official website], the upper house of the Russian parliament. The measure may have only limited effect given the relative rarity of jury trials in Russian criminal procedure already - in 2006 only about 700 of more than 1.2 million criminal trials [AP report] in Russia were tried by juries - but it has prompted criticism by opposition parties and rights groups and seems to cut against a recent proposal [transcript, in Russian] by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev [official profile; JURIST news archive] to make Russian courts more transparent [JURIST report].

The bill follows a general Russian trend towards increased government power. In July 2007, then-President Vladimir Putin approved tough amendments to Russia's law against extremism [JURIST report]. An international panel of jurists reported earlier that year that expanded Russian anti-terrorism laws were leading to human rights abuses [JURIST report]. In 2006, Putin signed a bill [JURIST report] giving Russian police and military broad authority to tap telephone conversations and control electronic communications in the vicinity of counter-terror operations, shoot down hijacked planes threatening public places or strategic facilities, and deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks.

[JURIST] A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] 2-1 Friday that Seattle's parade law is unconstitutional. The court was asked to decide whether the Seattle Municipal Ordinance [text] violates the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment [text] by granting a city licensing official unduly broad discretion. Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the majority:

The Parade Ordinance’s open-ended standard, combined with the absence of a requirement that officials articulate their reasons or an administrative-judicial review process, vests the Seattle Chief of Police with sweeping authority to determine whether or not a parade may utilize the forum of the streets to broadcast its message. The First Amendment prohibits placing such unfettered discretion in the hands of licensing officials and renders the Parade Ordinance constitutionally defective on its face.

The case involved the Seattle affiliate of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation [advocacy website] (“Coalition”), an unincorporated association dedicated to raising awareness of the problem of police brutality. The Coalition had applied for and received a parade permit from the Seattle Chief of Police and claimed that over the past few years these permits were subjected to conditions that the Coalition found objectionable. The Coalition argued that the Ordinance violated the First Amendment because it failed to provide sufficient guidance to the police on when they might require marchers to use the sidewalks and deny them access to the streets, thus creating an unacceptable risk that officers would arbitrarily modify certain groups’ permits by prohibiting them from marching in the streets based on the content of their speech.

Parade laws in a number of US cities have been successfully challenged by activists in recent years. In 2006, New York City Criminal Court Judge Gerald Harris ruled [opinion, PDF] that the City’s parade permit law was “hopelessly overbroad” and “constitutes a burden on free expression that is more than the First Amendment can bear.” In 2003, a federal court judge ordered the city of Pittsburgh [JURIST report] to revise its parade permit issuing ordinance after three civil rights organizations and the ACLU filed suit against the city alleging it discriminated against certain groups when issuing parade permits. In 2001, Honolulu amended its parade permit system [ACLU press release] to avoid a similar ACLU suit.

[JURIST] A Superior Court of Georgia [official website] jury Saturday sentenced [Atlanta Journal-Constitution report] Brian Nichols to consecutively serve seven life terms, four terms of life without parole, and 485 years following his conviction [CNN report] last month for the murders of court and law enforcement personnel [JURIST report] committed in a March 2005 escape from Atlanta's Fulton County Courthouse [official website], where he was in the midst of a retrial [USA Today report] for rape. While being escorted to court, he overpowered a Fulton County Sheriff’s Deputy and took her gun. Nichols proceeded to search for and kill Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, Sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, and US Customs agent David Wilhelm. He was taken into custody after what was described as the largest manhunt in Georgia state history. He later pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the charges against him.

US judges and court administrators have been increasingly focused on security issues [NCSC materials] following a spate of attacks, bombings and threats [JURIST reports] directed at judges, their families, and their workplaces in recent years. In April 2008 Ohio resident David Tuason was indicted for allegedly threatening to blow up the US Supreme Court building [JURIST report] and attack black men, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Other death threats [JURIST report] have been reported against Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and now-retired Justice Sandra Day O'Conner.