In Fowler v. United States [docket], the court will determine the federal nexus required to convict a defendant under 18 USC § 1512(a)(1)(C) [text], which prohibits killing or attempting to kill a person with the intent to "prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings." The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] that Charles Fowler violated the statute by killing a police officer who had stopped Fowler and his accomplices who were planning a bank robbery in a stolen vehicle containing drugs and who had recently committed an interstate robbery. Fowler protested that prosecutors failed to establish that it was likely the officer would transfer information to federal investigators or that it was likely that a federal investigation would be opened. The court held, however, that prosecutors need only establish that the defendant killed the victim to prevent the communication of a possible federal offense and that they had met that burden.

Also Monday, the court refused to dismiss the writ of certiorari in Kentucky v. King [docket, cert. petition, PDF] as improvidently granted. The court will determine when lawful police action impermissibly "creates" exigent circumstances that preclude warrantless arrest. The case was appealed from the Supreme Court of Kentucky [official website] to determine which of the five tests currently being used by US circuit courts should be used to determine this issue. The Kentucky court held [opinion, PDF] that the officers were not in hot pursuit of a fleeing criminal and, therefore, the exigent circumstances used to validate the warrantless arrest were self-created. The court originally granted certiorari [JURIST report] in September, and the respondent had sought a dismissal because the charges against him were dropped since review was granted.

We hold, in accord with the courts below, and in line with the majority of the Courts of Appeals, that a defendant is subject to a mandatory, consecutive sentence for a § 924(c) conviction, and is not spared from that sentence by virtue of receiving a higher mandatory minimum on a different count of conviction. Under the "except" clause as we comprehend it, a § 924(c) offender is not subject to stacked sentences for violating § 924(c). If he possessed, brandished, and discharged a gun, the mandatory penalty would be 10 years, not 22. He is, however, subject to the highest mandatory minimum specified for his conduct in § 924(c), unless another provision of law directed to conduct proscribed by § 924(c) imposes an even greater mandatory minimum.

The court heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] in October when it opened its current session. In July 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website], held, in an unpublished opinion [text, PDF], that the trial court properly applied § 924(c) to Carlos Gould who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine base and possession and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. In February 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] that the trial court correctly applied § 924(c) in sentencing Kevin Abbot to twenty years in prison after police arrested him during a 2004 raid on an abandoned property that contained drugs, drug paraphernalia and two handguns.

Embarrassment suffered by public officials is the price they pay for public power. It goes with the territory, but here, their coverup is not nearly as bad as the crime, which was to shelter Nazi war criminals in the name of national security. This the public needs to know and has a right to know.

While more than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or denied entry to the US since the creation of the OSI, the Holocaust continues to affect today's legal world. In May, a German court denied a motion to dismiss [JURIST report] charges against alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile, JURIST news archive]. A year earlier, the US Supreme Court [official website] denied an application for stay of deportation [JURIST report] filed by Demjanjuk, who faces 27,900 accessory accounts stemming from his alleged involvement as a guard at Sobibor [Death Camps backgrounder] concentration camp. Also this May, the DOJ announced that the Philadelphia Immigration Court [official website] had ordered the deportation [JURIST report] of former SS guard Anton Geiser to Austria for serving as an armed guard at the Sachsenhausen and the Buchenwald concentration camps during World War II. In April, the Regensburg District Court in southern Germany convicted British Bishop Richard Williamson [JURIST report] of incitement for denying the Holocaust and ordered him to pay a 10,000 euro fine. In March, a German court sentenced [JURIST report] former Nazi SS member Heinrich Boere to life in prison for the 1944 murders of three Dutch civilians. In August, a German district court sentenced [JURIST report] former Nazi army officer Josef Scheungraber to life in prison for the 1944 reprisal killing of 10 Italian civilians.

European governments have an opportunity now to recommit to a human rights machinery at the national level that works to end impunity, not perpetuate it. The fact that European states colluded in such egregious violations - illegal transfers, secret detention, and torture and ill- treatment; crimes under international law, in fact - is sobering.

Last month, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] announced [JURIST report] that it would review the involvement of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the extraordinary rendition and torture of Khaled El-Masri [JURIST news archive] by the CIA. In 2003, on orders from the US, Macedonian authorities seized El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, while he was traveling in Macedonia and held him incommunicado for 23 days. He was then handed over to the CIA and transported to a secret detention facility in Afghanistan where he was held for four months in allegedly inhumane conditions, interrogated and abused. In September, Polish prosecutors announced [JURIST report] that they would investigate the alleged mistreatment of accused USS Cole [JURIST news archive] bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a secret CIA prison in Poland. The investigation was in response to a request [JURIST report] filed by human rights group Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) [advocacy website] and al-Nashiri's lawyers. The request asked prosecutors to scrutinize al-Nashiri's detention and treatment as part of their investigation [JURIST report] into the allegations of a CIA-operated secret prison in the country and to prosecute those responsible for the acts on Polish soil.

Cuba continues to face criticism for its human rights record, and the government's actions have resulted in notoriety for a number of activists. In October, dissident Guillermo Farinas was awarded the Sakharov Prize [JURIST report], given to those who work for human rights and fundamental freedoms. In March, Amnesty International called on Cuba to revoke laws that restrict freedom of expression [JURIST report]. However despite Cuba's record, reports indicated that, in 2008, the number of political prisoners in Cuba had declined from 234 to 205, although the number of brief detentions had increased, according to a report [JURIST report] issued by the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation in February 2009. The same report also charged that the decline in the number of political prisoners was due to the new practice of imposing shorter prison terms for those arrested employed since 2003.

Given the tremendous stakes involved, policymakers must develop and aggressively implement a proactive agenda that aligns Internet policy with the core principles of international trade. First, governments should not treat Internet policy and international trade as stand-alone silos, and recognize that many Internet censorship-related actions are unfair trade barriers. Second, governments should object to measures that affect information flow and that are insufficiently transparent, unreasonably administered, biased in favor of domestic players, or inconsistent with countries' WTO market access commitments, and consider appropriate trade actions. Third, governments should negotiate new trade disciplines that reflect the growing role of Internet-related trade in the global economy, to provide even stronger tools to combat measures that restrict information flow and the Internet.

In July, a Chinese government official said that Google had agreed to follow Chinese censorship laws [JURIST report] to gain a license renewal that would still prevent users from accessing sites that threatened national security, while not requiring Google to censor its China or Hong Kong based websites. This agreement was reached [JURIST report] in June after a dispute concerning Google's practice of redirecting mainland users to the Hong Kong-based website as a means of working around censorship laws. China responded by reiterating its commitment to open Internet [JURIST report], but stressing that international Internet companies must follow Chinese law. In February, China issued new regulations tightening restrictions on Internet use [JURIST report] by requiring citizens operating websites to submit identity cards and meet with regulators before their sites can be registered. The new policies came amid negotiations with Google regarding the Internet company's January threat to discontinue operations in China [JURIST report] due to the country's overarching Internet censorship.

For the last several months, the United States has worked closely with our Iraqi partners to promote a broad-based government, one whose leaders share a commitment to serving all Iraqis as equal citizens. Now, Iraq's leaders must finish the job of forming their government so that they can meet the challenges that a diverse coalition will inevitably face. And going forward, we will support the Iraqi people as they strengthen their democracy, resolve political disputes, resettle those displaced by war, and build ties of commerce and cooperation with the United States, the region and the world.

Despite uncertainty over the future of Iraq's national government, the new power-sharing agreement is a breakthrough for Iraqi lawmakers. Last month, the Iraqi Supreme Court ruled that the seven-month delay in forming a government following the March parliamentary elections was unconstitutional, ordering parliament to reconvene [JURIST report]. In August, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] called for Iraq's political leaders to work together [JURIST report] "with a higher sense of urgency" to form a new government, warning that further delays could create more instability. Ban expressed the concern that the delay could lead to a "growing sense of uncertainty in the country" and prevent the parliament from addressing pressing domestic issues, including Arab-Kurdish disputed areas revenue-sharing, the adoption of legislation related to hydrocarbons, relations among the federal and regional governments, the constitutional review process and the strengthening of institutions of governance and the rule of law.