Earlier this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACH) [official website] released a report [JURIST report] arguing that US immigration enforcement agencies are overly reliant on a flawed detention system. The IACH investigated six immigrant detention centers based throughout Arizona and Texas. The report expressed concern over increased use of detention by the US government, citing a doubling in detention of non-citizens by ICE. It criticized the US government for viewing detention as a necessity and not as an exception in its enforcement. Absent comprehensive reform at the federal level, illegal immigration continues to be a concern for local governments as well. There are currently federal court challenges over preemption of state immigration bills passed by Arizona and Georgia [JURIST reports]. Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Supreme Court [official website] upheld an immigration law [JURIST report] authorizing law enforcement to use concurrent authority with the federal government to control illegal immigration, preventing illegal immigrants from receiving drivers' licenses or state-issued ID cards, making illegal immigrants ineligible for state assistance, and requiring employers to check the immigration status of its employees. Last month, the US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] ruled in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting [Cornell LII backgrounder] to uphold an Arizona immigration [JURIST report] law that imposes penalties on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

Articulation of a separate test for the Petition Clause would aggravate potential harm to the government's interests by compounding the costs of compliance with the Constitution. A different rule for each First Amendment claim would require employers to separate petitions from other speech in order to afford them different treatment; and that, in turn, would add to the complexity and expense of compliance with the Constitution.

Justice Antonin Scalia disagreed with the majority with respect to the "public concern" requirement, stating that the doctrine "frustrates the principal purpose of the Petition Clause." Scalia also would have held that the Petition Clause does not apply to petitions directed to the government acting as the petitioner's employer.

Quite obviously, the mere claim by employees of the same company that they have suffered a Title VII injury, or even a disparate-impact Title VII injury, gives no cause to believe that all their claims can productively be litigated at once. Their claims must depend upon a common contention—for example, the assertion of discriminatory bias on the part of the same supervisor. That common contention, moreover, must be of such a nature that it is capable of classwide resolution—which means that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, along with Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, concurred in part and dissented in part. Ginsburg argued that the majority conflates the 23(a) commonality requirement with the 23(b)(3) "predominance" criteria, a much higher standard to satisfy. She wrote that the class does in fact satisfy 23(a)'s threshold requirements but fails to meet the 23(b)(2) certification category. The issue of whether the class satisfies 23(b)(3), Ginsburg said, is a matter that should be left to the lower court on remand.

It is altogether fitting that Congress designated an expert agency, here, EPA, as best suited to serve as primary regulator of greenhouse gas emissions. The expert agency is surely better equipped to do the job than individual district judges issuing ad hoc, case-by-case injunctions. Federal judges lack the scientific, economic, and technological resources an agency can utilize in coping with issues of this order. Judges may not commission scientific studies or convene groups of experts for advice, or issue rules under notice-and-comment procedures inviting input by any interested person, or seek the counsel of regulators in the States where the defendants are located. Rather, judges are confined by a record comprising the evidence the parties present. Moreover, federal district judges, sitting as sole adjudicators, lack authority to render precedential decisions binding other judges, even members of the same court.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in 2009 that states can sue power companies for emitting carbon dioxide, reversing a district court decision [JURIST reports] that found the plaintiffs' claim was a non-justiciable political question. The lawsuit was brought by eight states—California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin—as well as New York City and three land trusts, against coal-burning utilities American Electric Power, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, Cinergy Corporation [corporate websites] and the TVA]. The Obama administration sided with the power companies.

The "private interest that will be affected" argues strongly for the right to counsel that Turner advocates. That interest consists of an indigent defendant's loss of personal liberty through imprisonment. The interest in securing that freedom, the freedom "from bodily restraint," lies "at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause." And we have made clear that its threatened loss through legal proceedings demands "due process protection."

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, stressed that neither the Fourteenth nor Sixth Amendments [text] confer the right to counsel in civil cases. He also pointed out that the court should not have reached the issue of whether Turner's contempt hearing violated Due Process because that issue was never raised by either party prior to the filing of amicus briefs. Finally, Thomas noted that he would not engage in the majority's balancing test because state legislatures have made their own policy judgments regarding the enforcement of child support laws.

The people are the most capable of maintaining security. ... I say that based on experience and reality. ... The one who protected the country during the critical years and who are protecting it now are the people. ... They are the youths who confronted, initiated and implemented. ... [A] state's strength lies in the strength of the people and their strength lies in their dignity and their dignity lies in their freedom and their freedom lies in the power of their country.

There has been a major struggle to put an end to Syrian violence since the protests began earlier this year. In June, Syrian and international human rights groups urged [JURIST report] the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] to investigate the hundreds of civilian deaths during protests against al-Assad. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website], in an emergency special session in April, publicly condemned [text, PDF; JURIST report] the violence used by Syrian authorities against peaceful protesters. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for Syria to immediately halt the killings [JURIST report] and violence against civilian protesters in response to the fatal shootings of peaceful anti-government protesters. Also in April, al-Assad ended [JURIST report] the country's 48-year-old state of emergency, but protests have continued. Earlier in the same month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported [text] that Syrian security forces have stopped medical personnel [JURIST report], sometimes violently, from attending to injured protesters. Pillay urged the Syrian government [JURIST report] in March to ensure protesters' rights to peaceful expression and to work toward addressing their concerns instead of responding with violence. As demonstrations continued throughout the country in March, the government freed 260 political detainees [AFP report] in an overture to the protesters.

In First American Financial v. Edwards [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the court will decide whether a plaintiff has standing to sue, on behalf of a nationwide class, claiming a real estate company violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 [text] without claiming that the violation affected the services rendered. RESPA makes it illegal for settlement service companies to receive a kickback involving any federally related mortgage loan. The plaintiff argues that her title agent improperly referred her to First American Financial [corporate website] in violation of RESPA seeking to recover settlement service charges despite not showing that First American Financial was more expensive or provided inadequate service. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held [opinion, PDF] that the payment of he service charges established an injury in fact sufficient to satisfy Article III standing because RESPA's text does not limit liability to cases where the plaintiff is overcharged.

In Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the court will here a case over the ability to patent under 35 USC § 101 [text] the observed correlations between natural metabolite reactions of the body to different dosages of a certain type of drug. Prometheus Labs [corporate website] patented the tests doctors use for determining the appropriate dosage of drugs for treating Crohn's disease and other autoimmune diseases. Mayo Collaborative argues that the tests look at "natural phenomenon" and that doctors violate the patents simply by mentally recognizing the correlation regardless of what the doctor does with this knowledge. The Supreme Court accepted a case on this issue before in Laboratory Corp. of America v. Metabolite Laboratories [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report] but dismissed it as "improvidently granted" because the petitioner had not adequately preserved the question.

In Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the Supreme Court will decide whether a pilot who lost his license for a failure to disclose he had HIV can sue the federal government for mental and emotional damages. The pilot, Stanmore Cooper, did not tell the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that he had HIV but did disclose it to the Social Security Administration (SSA) [official websites] in order to receive disability benefits. This fact was discovered during a government investigation to streamline agencies. Coopers pilots' license was revoked after a determination that he would not have been medically certified to fly if it was known he had HIV. Cooper admitted to delivering a false writing and was sentenced to a fine and probation. Cooper is suing the government claiming that the sharing of documents between the two agencies during the investigation violated the Privacy Act of 1974 [5 USC § 552a] seeking "actual damages" for mental and emotional distress. But the government claims the Privacy Act's "actual damages" does not cover such distress. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held [opinion text] the SSA violated the Privacy Act and that the Cooper could sue for emotional distress damages. Justice Elena Kagan, former solicitor general for the US, recused herself from consideration of this case.

Liechtenstein joins a growing contingent of countries and US States that recognize same-sex partnerships as either full marriage or civil unions and partnerships. The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil [official website, in Portuguese] unanimously recognized legal rights [press release, in Portugese; JURIST report] for partners in same-sex civil unions [JURIST news archive], though Hungary added a prohibition against gay marriage [JURIST report] to its Constitution one month earlier. Ireland, which legalized homosexuality in 1993, passed a civil partnership bill [JURIST report] in 2009 extending rights to same-sex couples. Although a Greek court invalidated in May 2009 the first same-sex marriages performed in country, the Swedish parliament passed a same-sex marriage law in April [JURIST reports]. In December 2008, Hungary struck down [JURIST report] a same-sex partnership law by alleging that it would diminish the importance of marriage. In November 2008, the Australian Senate approved [JURIST report] a same-sex equal rights law but did not grant the right to marry.

Chebbi announced that Ben Ali had been charged with 18 offenses in April. The announcement came a little over a month after Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy websites] called for the Tunisian transitional government to investigate incidents of police violence against protesters and end police brutality [JURIST reports]. In January, the Tunisian Constitutional Council officially announced that Ben Ali had permanently left the office of the presidency after he declared a state of emergency [JURIST report] amid nationwide protests, banning public gatherings and allowing police to fire on anyone refusing to obey orders, and fled the country. The leader of the lower house of parliament, Foued Mebezza, assumed power as interim president [JURIST report] and is expected to remain in power until elections are held, which Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi [Reuters profile] has indicated will be within the next several months.