[JURIST] Seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] sent a letter [text, PDF] to President Barack Obama Friday urging him to suspend Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] investigation into allegations of prisoner abuse by CIA interrogators. The letter, signed by former directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, R. James Woolsey, William Webster, and James Schlesinger, urged Obama to halt the investigation [JURIST report], announced last month by Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile]. In the letter, the former directors wrote:

The post-September 11 interrogations for which the Attorney General is opening an inquiry were investigated four years ago by career prosecutors. The CIA, at its own initiative, forwarded fewer than 20 instances where Agency officers appeared to have acted beyond their existing legal authorities. Career prosecutors under the supervision of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia determined that one prosecution (of a CIA contractor) was warranted. A conviction was later obtained. They determined that prosecutions were not warranted in the other cases. In a number of these cases the CIA subsequently took administrative disciplinary steps against the individuals involved. Attorney General Holder’s decision to re-open the criminal investigation creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute. Moreover, there is no reason to expect that the re-opened criminal investigation will remain narrowly focused.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Friday filed a motion to dismiss [text, PDF] a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [text; JURIST news archive]. The suit was filed [JURIST report] in March in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts [official website] by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) [advocacy website] on behalf of a group of plaintiffs who are or have been married under the state's same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive] law. In its motion, the DOJ argued that it should be up to Congress to decide whether to repeal the law:

Congress is entitled under the Constitution to address issues of social reform on a piecemeal, or incremental, basis. Congress is therefore permitted to provide benefits only to those who have historically been permitted to marry, without extending the same benefits to those only recently permitted to do so. Its decision to maintain the federal status quo while preserving the ability of States to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples is rational. Congress may subsequently decide to extend federal benefits to same-sex marriages, and this Administration believes that Congress should do so. But its decision not to do so to this point is not irrational or unconstitutional.

[JURIST] A Spanish judge on Thursday indicted three alleged former Nazi guards for crimes against humanity and genocide. Judge Ismael Moreno issued arrest warrants for US residents Johann Leprich and Anton Tittjung and Austrian resident Josias Kumpf. The three allegedly participated in the torture and disappearance [El Pais report, in Spanish] of more than 4,300 Spaniards at the Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen and Flossenburg concentration camps. A Spanish prosecutor asked in May that arrest warrants be issued [JURIST report] under Spain's universal jurisdiction [AI backgrounder] doctrine, which gives Spain jurisdiction over foreign torture, terrorism, and war crimes only if the case is not subject to the legal system of the country involved. The prosecutor did not seek a warrant for a fourth suspect, John Demjanjuk [JURIST news archive], who is currently awaiting trial as an accessory to murder [JURIST report] in Germany for his involvement at the Sobibor camp [Death Camp backgrounder].

The suit was initiated in June 2008 by rights group Equipo Nizkor [advocacy website], which petitioned [press release, in Spanish] Spain's National Court to press charges against the four accused guards. Demjanjuk, 89, has fought a lengthy legal battle [AP timeline] over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. He was deported to Germany [JURIST report] earlier this month, after the US Supreme Court [official website] denied his stay of deportation [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The Spanish Council of State [official website, in Spanish] unanimously approved on Thursday the proposed law [text, DOC in Spanish; summary, in Spanish] to reform the existing framework [text, in Spanish] that governs abortion in Spain, finding that proposed reforms constitutional. The proposed law would allow women to seek abortions voluntarily until the fourteenth week, and until the twenty-second week if there is risk to the mother's health or severe fetal malformation. The bill would allow women 16 years and older to elect to have an abortion. The Council of State, the highest advisory organ in the executive branch, approved [El Pais report, in Spanish] the project in its entirety making only the recommendation that women ages 16-17 should have to notify their parents about the procedure unless they have compelling reasons not to. The Council's approval is the final consultation in the executive branch before the bill, called the Law on Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy and Sexual and Reproductive Health, undergoes a final review by the Council of Ministers [official website, in Spanish]. The proposal will then be submitted to the legislative branch, the General Courts [official website, in Spanish], which will have final say over the terms of the law. Current Spanish abortion law dates from 1985, after the end of the Franco regime. It stipulates that abortions may be permitted only in cases of pregnancy from rape, severe fetal malformation, or if the pregnancy would imperil the mother's physical or mental health within the first 12 weeks of the pregnancy.

The changes were proposed [JURIST report] in March by a panel of legal and medical experts led by the Minister of Equality Bibiano Aido [official website, in Spanish], eliciting widespread protests [JURIST report] throughout Spain. The panel was formed [JURIST report] last September at the request of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero [official profile, in Spanish] as part of a series of social reforms including same-sex marriage [JURIST report] and streamlined divorce proceedings. The conservative Popular Party [official website, in Spanish] has repeatedly expressed the opinion [El Pais report, in Spanish] that relaxed abortion laws would stand in opposition to Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution [text, in Spanish], which guarantees the right to life. Spanish abortion laws [BBC backgrounder] are among the most restrictive in European nations.

[JURIST] The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted 95-58 [roll call] Thursday in favor of a bill [text, PDF] to allow the governor to appoint a temporary replacement for the late Edward Kennedy (D-MA) on the US Senate [official websites]. The bill would allow Governor Deval Patrick [official website] to appoint an interim senator to serve until a special election scheduled for January 19. The bill originally included a provision requiring that the appointee be of the same party as Kennedy, but that provision was removed [Boston Globe report] after strong Republican opposition. The bill will now go before the Massachusetts Senate, where supporters hope it will be approved next week.

Kennedy passed away late last month, leaving his Senate seat vacant. Democrats hope to fill his seat with another Democrat as soon as possible in order to regain 60 seats, making them filibuster-proof. This is viewed as particularly important in the ongoing health care reform debate.

[JURIST] A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Thursday granted [order, PDF] the habeas corpus petition filed by Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Fouad Al Rabiah, ordering his release. Al Rabiah, a Kuwaiti national, had been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly eight years under suspicion of aiding al Qaeda and the Taliban. There has been no official response from the Obama administration, but a Department of Justice [official website] spokesperson has said that the order, issued by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is under review [Reuters report]. An unclassified version of the memorandum opinion accompanying the release order is expected to be available next week.

Al Rabiah is one of several Kuwaitis remaining at Guantanamo. Last month, Kollar-Kotelly denied [JURIST report] the habeas petition of Kuwaiti Guantanamo detainee Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad Al Odah. She found that the government had shown that it was more likely than not that he "became part of Taliban and al Qaeda forces" after traveling to Afghanistan and attending a terrorist training camp. In July, she ordered the release [JURIST report] of Kuwaiti detainee Khaled Al-Mutairi.

9/28/09: A partially redacted memorandum opinion [text, PDF] has been released.

[JURIST] The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that the state's voter identification requirement is unconstitutional. The provision, section IC 3-11-8-25.1 [text] of the Indiana Code, required individuals who wished to cast an official ballot in person to show identification prior to doing so. The challenge was brought by the League of Women Voters [advocacy website] following a 2008 US Supreme Court decision upholding the law [JURIST report]. The three-judge panel reversed a dismissal at the trial court level, holding that presentation of photo identification was a procedural regulation, rather than an impermissible voting qualification, but that the law violated the Indiana constitution's Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause [text] by not requiring those who submit mail-in ballots, or those who reside at state-licensed care facilities that also happen to be polling places, to present identification:

It seems that the inconsistent and impartial treatment favoring voters who reside at state care facilities which also happen to be polling places could be excised from the Voter I.D. Law without destroying the primary objectives of the Law. However, the same cannot be said for the inconsistent and partial treatment favoring absentee voters who choose to mail their votes without destroying the opportunity for mailing votes.