[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF; merit briefs] Monday in two cases. In Alabama v. North Carolina [oral arguments transcript, PDF], the Court heard arguments on an interstate dispute over the disposal of radioactive waste. The dispute centers on an agreement, entered into by eight southern states in 1986, for the disposal of the region's low-level radioactive waste. Under the agreement, North Carolina was selected to construct a facility for waste disposal and received financial assistance to that end. However, North Carolina did not obtain a license for the facility and subsequently withdrew from the compact. The four remaining states that are still parties to the agreement brought suit against North Carolina in the Supreme Court seeking enforcement of monetary sanctions. The Court has original jurisdiction over the dispute and agreed to hear the suit in 2003. Both parties were arguing Monday for exceptions to the reports of the special master [preliminary report, PDF; second report, PDF]. Counsel for the plaintiffs argued that, contrary to the special master's reports, they should be entitled to summary judgment:

North Carolina breached the Southeast Compact in this case. Whether you examine it from the perspective of the sanctions that were imposed by the commission or whether you evaluate it from the perspective of the repeated statements by the executives of the commission that there had been a material breach and a repudiation, or whether you examine it from the perspective of the undisputed record that was collected by the special master, the conclusion it seems to me is inescapable that what North Carolina did here by taking no action between December 1997 and July of 1996 simply does not fulfill the responsibilities that they had, that North Carolina had assumed, and therefore the only issue should be what is the appropriate remedy for this extraordinary breach?

We ask the Court in this case to take no new ground beyond that established just last term in the Melendez-Diaz case, but the stakes of this case are high. If the Court were to reverse Melendez-Diaz and hold that a State may impose on the defendant the burden of calling a prosecution witness to the stand, it would severely impair the confrontation right and threaten a fundamental transformation in the way Anglo-American trials have been conducted for hundreds of years.

[JURIST] A Russian law allowing minor offenders to serve their sentences under house arrest rather than in prison entered into force on Sunday. The bill, approved [Moscow Times report] by the Russian State Duma [official website; in Russian] last month and signed [RIA Novosti report] by President Dmitri Medvedev [official profile], is aimed at reducing the number of inmates in Russia's overcrowded prison system. Individuals charged with minor offenses will be able to serve between two months and four years confined in their homes, while courts will be allowed to utilize house arrest as part of a defendant's probationary period. Individuals sentenced to house arrest will be monitored by electronic bracelets with GPS tracking devices. Among other restrictions, those convicted will have to notify authorities before changing their place of residency or job.

Russia has the second largest prison population [list, PDF] per capita in the world, superseded only by the US, where prison overcrowding [JURIST news archive] continues to be a problem. Last month, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections [official website] said that the state will begin transferring prisoners out of state to reduce the prison population. In 2006, California also began transferring [JURIST report] prisoners out of state. California is currently under a federal court order [JURIST report] to reduce its prison population from 190 percent to 137.5 percent by 2011. In November, the California government submitted a revised plan [JURIST report] for reducing its prison population that includes revisions made possible because of legislative enactments, such as summary parole for lower-level offenses to reduce the amount of inmates re-entering the prison system for parole violations and credit-earning enhancements to reduce time served.

[JURIST] A trial on the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 [text] same-sex marriage [JURIST archive] ban commenced Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website]. Proceedings included opening statements from lead attorneys and testimony [San Jose Mercury News report] from plaintiffs seeking the right to marry their same-sex partners. Judge Vaughn Walker, who is presiding over the Proposition 8 trial, ruled [JURIST report] in October that the case could be heard in federal court. Walker has said the trial is necessary to ascertain the level of constitutional protection granted to same-sex couples. Testimony is expected to continue for several weeks.

Because of the explosive impact the trial could have on same-sex marriage rights in the US, the start of the trial has engendered controversy over the broadcast of the proceedings. Earlier Monday, the US Supreme Court temporarily blocked [JURIST report] the broadcast of the trial on the video-sharing site YouTube. The Court's decision overruled Judge Walker's earlier deicision [JURIST report] to allow the trial to be recorded and posted on the District Court's YouTube channel. Proposition 8's supporters have argued that the trial's broadcast could lead to witness intimidation. Proposition 8 was approved [JURIST report] by California voters in November 2008.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday temporarily blocked [order, PDF] an order allowing delayed video coverage of the Proposition 8 trial on the constitutionality of California's same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive] ban to be posted on YouTube. The court's decision to grant the stay overrules an order by Judge Vaughn Walker of the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website], who last week ruled [JURIST report] the trial could be recorded and posted on the court's YouTube channel. The block on posting coverage of the trial, which begins Monday in federal court in San Francisco, will remain in place until Wednesday, giving the justices additional time to weigh the issue. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented, writing that he "would undertake that consideration without a temporary
stay in place."

Supporters of Proposition 8 have objected to the controversial decision to broadcast the trial proceedings, claiming it would result in witness intimidation. The YouTube broadcast of the case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger [case materials], is allowed under an experimental program approved by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] last month that allows cameras in civil, non-jury cases. Also last month, the Ninth Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that same-sex marriage proponents cannot access Proposition 8 supporters' internal campaign communications. The court denied disclosure of the documents on First Amendment [text] grounds, reversing a decision by Walker. Proposition 8 was approved [JURIST report] by California voters in November 2008.

[JURIST] Danish prosecutors on Monday brought an additional charge of terrorism against the Somali man already charged with the attempted murders of Kurt Westergaard, illustrator of the controversial 2005 cartoon depicting Prophet Muhammad [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] as a suicide bomber, and a police officer. The man, who remains unnamed, is said to have broken into Westergaard's home with an axe and a knife, in what is believed to be an assassination attempt [Reuters report]. Police on the scene shot and wounded the man and arrested him after he threw the axe, narrowly missing an officer. Westergaard remained unharmed. Denmark's police intelligence suggest the attempted murder was terror-related and claim the man has ties [Times report] to al Qaeda [JURIST news archive] and the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab [CFR backgrounder]. Danish law permits certain crimes carried out with the intent of terrorism to carry a penalty of life in prison. The terrorism charge is yet to be heard by a court. The man has denied the charges of attempted murder.

Westergaard's 2005 picture of the Muhammad was one of a series of caricatures published by a Danish newspaper that infuriated Muslims around the world. Many Muslims consider depictions of Muhammad offensive, and when other newspapers reprinted the caricatures in 2006 it triggered violence in several countries, leading to multiple deaths, the burning of Danish embassy buildings [JURIST reports], and boycotts of Danish goods. In 2006, a Danish court dismissed [JURIST report] a lawsuit filed by Muslim organizations against the two editors of the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of Muhammad. The plaintiffs sued Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste and Culture Editor Flemming Rose for defamation and sought more than $16,000 in damages. The City Court in Aerhus held that while some Muslims may have been offended by the cartoons, there was no reason to believe the editors intended to "belittle Muslims."

[JURIST] The Rwandan government [official website] released a report [text, PDF] Monday concluding that the 1994 assassination of then-president Juvenal Habyarimana [Britannica profile] was the work of Hutu extremists. An independent committee of experts found that Hutu extremists, including members of the president's own family, were opposed to the 1993 Arusha Accords [text, PDF], a power-sharing agreement supported by Habyarimana, designed to end his 20-year monopoly on power. The report asserts that Hutus used the assassination as a pretext for the 1994 genocide [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] in which more than 800,000 people, primarily Tutsis, were killed in the span on 100 days. The report states that:

Members of the president's inner circle ... viewed the Accords as an existential threat to a Hutu-dominated Rwanda as well has their own political and economic standing. These men were not simply opposed to a reconciliation process; they were committed to the wholesale extermination of Tutsis. By the spring of 1994, they had the means, motive and opportunity to act ... and they did.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] in McDaniel v. Brown [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report] that a federal district court may not consider non-record evidence when conducting a sufficiency review of evidence during federal habeas corpus proceedings. In a per curiam opinion, the Court found that the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit erred when it allowed consideration [opinion, PDF] of a report detailing statistical errors [NYT backgrounder] in DNA evidence against the defendant submitted 11 years after the trial as part of a habeas petition under the sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard announced in Jackson v. Virginia [opinion text].

We have stated before that "DNA testing can provide powerful new evidence unlike anything known before." ... Given the persuasiveness of such evidence in the eyes of the jury, it is important that it be presented in a fair and reliable manner. The State acknowledges that [the prosecution witness] committed the prosecutor's fallacy ... and the Mueller Report suggests that [the witness's] testimony may have been inaccurate regarding the likelihood of a match with one of respondent's brothers. Regardless, ample DNA and non-DNA evidence in the record adduced at trial supported the jury's guilty verdict under Jackson[.]

[JURIST] Iran's Prosecutor-General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei [GlobalSecurity profile] on Monday called for sedition trials against leaders of protests following last June's contested presidential election [JURIST news archive]. In a statement to Tehran prosecutors [Reuters report], Ejei said that he supported calls by religious and civil authorities to try those who led anti-government protests for "mohareb,"or warring against God, which is punishable by execution. In a letter [text, in Persian] addressed to the Iranian people, opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi [NYT profile] said that he would not be deterred [AFP report] from continuing to push for reform by threats of prosecution. On Sunday, an Iranian parliamentary committee released [Mehr report] the results of an investigation into claims by Karroubi that those arrested during the protests were subject to sexual abuse while in custody. Although the committee found no convincing evidence of sexual abuse, it did fault former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi for sending detainees to Kahrizak prison, where they were subject to beatings, cramped conditions, and ill treatment that resulted in the deaths of at least three detainees.

The Iranian government has faced significant international scrutiny for its handling of the post-election protests and treatment of thousands arrested as a result. Last month, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] labeled [JURIST report] human rights violations committed by the Iranian government following the election among the worst of the past 20 years. In September, human rights groups called for [JURIST report] the UN General Assembly [official website] to appoint a special envoy to investigate allegations of rights violations. Alleged human rights abuses of detainees include sexual assault, beatings, and forced confessions [JURIST reports].

[JURIST] Police in the southern Italian town of Rosarno began evacuating hundreds of African immigrants Saturday, following three days of violence that began Thursday when a group of immigrants was attacked while returning from the farms where they worked. The attack sparked rioting [NYT report] among the immigrant population and resulted in property damage as well as injuries to more than 50 immigrants and police officers. The evacuated immigrants were sent to detention centers around Italy and face deportation if they lack regular residence permits [Reuters report]. Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni [official profile, in Italian] praised the police response in returning order to the area. A spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration in Italy [advocacy website] indicated that the events had pulled the issue of illegal immigration into the forefront.

Illegal immigration is a growing problem [BBC report] in Italy, where about 36,000 illegal immigrants arrived by boat in 2008. In July, Italy's Senate passed a law [JURIST report] making illegal immigration a crime. Italy's Chamber of Deputies approved the bill [JURIST report] in May. The law has been opposed by both the Catholic Church and Human Rights Watch [advocacy website]. In November 2008, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention [official website] expressed concern [JURIST report] about Italy's treatment of migrants and asylum seekers.

[JURIST] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [official website; BBC profile] on Sunday announced [press release] the construction of 70 miles of fence along Israel's border with Egypt in order to combat terrorism and illegal immigration. In explaining the purpose for the barrier, which has an estimated cost of more than $400 million USD, Netanyahu explained:

I decided to close Israel's southern border to infiltrators and terrorists after prolonged discussions with Government ministries and professional elements. This is a strategic decision to ensure the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel. Israel will remain open to war refugees but we cannot allow thousands of illegal workers to infiltrate into Israel via the southern border and flood our country.