Over the last several years there have been a number of high-profile arrests of police and military officials over alleged coups in Turkey. The trial for 33 Ergenekon defendants opened [JURIST report] in June. In March, the Turkish government indicted the 33 defendants [JURIST report] on charges of attempting to overthrow the government and establish military rule. Earlier that week, Turkish police detained 20 people [JURIST report] in connection with the Ergenekon plot. In early March, Turkish prosecutors charged [JURIST report] an army general and a state prosecutor with belonging to Ergenekon and plotting to overthrow the AKP. In February, more than 40 military officers were arrested and charged in a separate coup attempt [JURIST report], the so-called Sledgehammer plot [Al Jazeera backgrounder], to provoke a military confrontation with Greece and take advantage of the ensuing chaos. Trials against the Ergenekon group started [JURIST report] two years ago and nearly 200 people have been charged in connection with it.

Although introduced in the California legislature last year, the passage of the resolution follows the recent ruling [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that Proposition 8, the state's ban on same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional. Last month, the DOMA was struck down [JURIST report] by a Massachusetts federal judge in two separate cases. In one case, Judge Joseph Tauro held that the DOMA violated the principles of equal protection [opinion, PDF] embodied in the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause as a matter of law In the other case, Judge Tauro found [opinion, PDF] that the DOMA violates states' Tenth Amendment right to define marriage.

As we look to the future, the United States stands committed to the enduring promises of protecting individual freedoms, fairness and equality before the law, and human dignity promises that reflect the inalienable rights of each person. Our commitment to the rights protected in our Constitution is matched by a parallel commitment to foster a society characterized by shared prosperity. Finally, we are committed to the idea that the values behind the domestic promises articulated in our Constitution should also guide and inform our engagement with the world.

One area cited by the DOS as needing improvement was immigration [JURIST news archive]. The report specifically addressed the need for comprehensive immigration reform, as well as steps being taken by the federal government to oppose the controversial Arizona immigration law [SB 1070 materials; JURIST news archive]. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] filed a lawsuit against the law last month, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST reports] against several of its provisions. The DOJ argues that the Constitution and federal law "do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country." The DOJ also claims that the federal government has preeminent authority to regulate immigration matters and that the enforcement of the Arizona law is counterproductive to the national immigration policy and will interfere with foreign relations with Mexico and other countries. The law has been widely criticized as unconstitutional and allegedly legalizing racial profiling. Also in July, the American Bar Association (ABA) [official website] filed an amicus curiae brief [JURIST report] in support of the DOJ lawsuit, following the submission of another amicus curiae brief [JURIST report] in support of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. In the brief filed in support of the US, the ABA also argues that the Arizona law would interfere with law enforcement officers' public safety functions and infringe on both citizens' and noncitizens' constitutional rights by placing upon them the burden of proving their citizenship.

Despite the continued use of the death penalty in some countries, there is a growing movement toward international abolition. Earlier this year, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported [JURIST report] the number of countries using the death penalty dropped [report, PDF] in 2009. According to the report, more than 700 people were executed last year in 18 countries, with the most executions carried out in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US. AI's figures exclude the estimated thousands of executions conducted in China [press release], where the government refuses to release death penalty statistics. AI challenged China and other nations to disclose information about executions and condemned all forms of capital punishment. More than two-thirds of the world's countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

The case had originally been dismissed for lack of standing last October but was reinstated [JURIST reports] in June with only plaintiffs who claimed their their ability to obtain funding for adult stem cell research was harmed by increased competition for federal funds after they were permitted to also be used for embryonic stem cell research. Those new guidelines reversed previous rules that limited government funding of embryonic stem cells to only cell lines that were in existence as of August 2001. Despite pressure from the scientific community, the previous administration refused similar changes to funding guidelines. In 2007, then-president Bush vetoed [JURIST report] the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 [S 5 materials], which was intended to relax funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The administration rejected the bill, saying it would compel taxpayers to support the destruction of human embryos. In 2006, Bush vetoed a previous version [JURIST report] of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which was passed by the Senate to remove restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, saying he would not provide federal funding for stem cell research because many consider the destruction of embryos to be murder.