JURIST - Paper Chase: Saturday, July 28, 2012

[JURIST] Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt [official website] on Friday filed a motion [text, PDF; press release] asking the US District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma [official website] to lift a stay on the state's challenge to the federal health care law, despite last month's US Supreme Court [official website] ruling [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that the act is constitutional. Oklahoma filed its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [text; JURIST news archive] last year, but the US district court stayed the case pending the Supreme Court's ruling. Pruitt said that the Supreme Court's ruling that the law is not valid under the Commerce Clause but is valid under the Taxing Clause of the US Constitution [text] actually raises more constitutional questions about the law, such as the validity of the individual mandate as a revenue-raising tax. Pruitt and other attorneys are also contemplating how the Supreme Court's ruling affects an amendment to Oklahoma's constitution [text] that prohibits any government from "mandating" that Oklahomans purchase health care. The federal government has asked that the district court dismiss Oklahoma's lawsuit in light of the Supreme Court's decision.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the PPACA was highly anticipated by both politicians and the general public, and reactions to the ruling have been mixed [JURIST report]. Earlier this month, Nebraska and six other states announced that they will continue to pursue lawsuits [JURIST report] challenging the act's mandate that employer-provided health insurance plans include coverage for contraception. US President Barack Obama held a press conference [video; transcript text] following the decision praising the court for its ruling. A week before the ruling was announced, a group of news organizations asked the Supreme Court to allow audio and video recording of the announcement of the decision [JURIST report] because of the high amount of public interest in the ruling. The lawsuit challenging the legislation [JURIST report] that was heard before the Supreme Court was brought by 26 states and additional organizations challenging both the individual mandate to purchase health insurance and Medicaid expansion included in the law.

[JURIST] Pakistan Ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman [official website] on Friday called on the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] to stop using drone strikes [AP report] in a video conference debate with White House War Adviser Douglas Lute. Rehman stated earlier this month that she believes the use of unilateral drone attacks violates international human rights laws and standards [press release], and Pakistan's spy chief is expected to repeat this request for the US to stop using them at an intelligence summit in Washington, D.C., next week. Rehman stated during the video conference that she understands drone attacks have been useful in the War on Terror [JURIST news archive], but that they are now also helping al Qaeda recruit new members. She said Pakistan is seeking an end to drone strikes and "there will be no compromise" on this issue.

Pakistan officials are not the only ones to express concern of the use of drones by the US. Last week, US lawmakers called on Congress and the Department of Homeland Security [official website] to address safety and security concerns [JURIST report] with the use of drone attacks domestically and to determine how to regulate their use. Earlier this month, rights groups filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] suing the US government for killing three US citizens using drone strikes. The UN last month also criticized [JURIST report] the US government's use of drone attacks, saying some attacks could constitute war crimes. A few days earlier, a UN official said the US government failed to answer [JURIST report] any of his questions regarding its use of drone attacks and noted that in the past the US has failed to provide a justification for the legality of these attacks under international law.

[JURIST] The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals [court website] on Friday ordered a stay of execution [order, PDF] for convicted killer Marcus Druery who had been scheduled for execution on August 1st. Druery has been diagnosed as schizophrenic by both prison and private doctors, and a county judge on Tuesday refused to order a psychiatric evaluation prior to his execution. Druery's lawyers claim that he does not understand the rational ramifications of his punishment and is incapable of understanding his legal situation. The appeals court order allows for more time to consider whether the 32 year-old is competent to be executed.

Noting that "although a severely mentally ill inmate on death row may have his execution delayed due to incompetency, once the individual has regained competence, he can be executed," JURIST guest columnist Olga Vlasova recently argued that the US Supreme Court should prohibit the death penalty for severely mentally ill offenders [JURIST op-ed]. Internationally, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon [official profile] has called on all member states to abolish capital punishment entirely [JURIST report]. The US Supreme Court [official website] ruled in Atkins v. Virginia [opinion; Cornell LII backgrounder] that the execution of mentally retarded individuals is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment [text]. However, in 29 states, including Texas, Tennessee and New Jersey [JURIST reports], the defendant still carries the burden of proving mental retardation in death-penalty [JURIST news archive] cases to receive a lesser sentence.

[JURIST] After four weeks of international negotiations, the deadline to approve an agreement at the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty [official website] passed on Friday without consensus. The proposed regulations, entitled the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), would have required the support of all 193 member states of the UN to be approved. Internationally, many blame the failure to reach an agreement on the US where there had been some internal concern that the ATT may violate 2nd Amendment protections. Despite assurances from the Obama Administration that those concerns were unfounded, 51 Senators joined in writing President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [official websites] urging them not to sign the treaty [AP report]. The Department of State [official website] issued a statement [official statement] in response to the failure to reach an agreement claiming that they remain optimistic an agreement can be reached after the ATT has been subjected to "further review and refinement." China and Russia, both large arms manufacturers, joined the United States in requesting more time before agreeing to the treaty.

International arms distribution continues to trouble governments and rights groups. Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] said that the creation of a strong international arms treaty could save lives and on Thursday he issued a statementexpressing concern for the lack of progress [JURIST reports] being made at the negotiations. Also earlier this month, in anticipation of the conference, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), called on the participants [JURIST report] to adopt an effective arms treaty in order to save lives and aid in the enforcement of international law. In June, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] called for an end to the supply of arms [JURIST report] to groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after a report highlighted the flaws in Congolese security, which AI says leads to the availability and misuse of weapons and ammunition. In April, Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] was sentenced in a US court to 25 years imprisonment [JURIST report]. Bout was convicted in November [JURIST report] on four counts of conspiracy for his proposed sale of anti-aircraft missiles to drug enforcement informants posing as potential buyers for a designated foreign terrorist organization.