The RACs are frequently wrong in their assertions about what a physician, confronted with a patient in need of medical treatment, should have done months or years earlier. Indeed, hospitals report that when they pursue appeals through the administrative appeals process—an expensive and burdensome exercise—they are successful in overturning RAC denials 75 percent of the time. Despite this alarming error rate, when a RAC determines that a provider was paid for inpatient hospital services but that the patient in question should have been treated as an outpatient, [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] takes back the entire Part A payment. Moreover, CMS takes the position that once an inpatient claim that was paid under Medicare Part A is later—usually years later—denied, the hospital cannot receive Medicare Part B payment except for a few ancillary services. As a result, when a RAC concludes that a hospital should have provided items and services on an outpatient, rather than an inpatient, basis, the hospital ends up receiving little if any reimbursement for reasonable and medically necessary items and services provided. The RACs fare significantly better. They keep a contingency percentage—9 percent to 12.5 percent—of the entire Part A payment.

RACs were made permanent through the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 [text] and were controversial at the time of enactment. RACs have a three-year lookback period and are the only Medicare audit option for hospitals in all 50 states. They were implemented in 2008 [press release], with the CMS describing their goal as "to identify improper payments made on claims of health care services provided to Medicare beneficiaries." In the CMS's 2010 report to Congress [pdf] it determined that RACs had "identified and corrected $92.3 million in combined overpayments and underpayments," with 82 percent being overpayments that were returned to the Medicare Trust Fund [Medicare backgrounder, PDF].

The Syrian government has been in conflict with the Free Syrian Army [official website] since 2011, and the international community has become increasingly concerned about the violence. Ban and League of Arab States Secretary-General Nabil El Araby [official website] called for a ceasefire [JURIST report] between the conflict's parties last Friday, notably in light of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Also last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] called on the international community to work to bring an end to the Syrian conflict [JURIST report]. Her statement came after Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] reported earlier this month that the Syrian government was using cluster bombs [JURIST report] against opposition forces. In September, UN investigators reported [JURIST report] that the number and frequency of human rights violations committed by both sides of the conflict were increasing rapidly.

As indicated above, the Chamber considers that Mr Gbagbo is not physically unfit to take part in the proceedings against him. ... The Chamber ... bases its conclusions on Mr Gbagbo's mental fitness mainly on the written report and testimony of Dr Lamothe, which establish that Mr Gbagbo possesses the capacities to understand the charges against him, as well as the conduct and the possible consequences of proceedings against him, and is capable of giving instructions to counsel as well as of making a statement.

The violence that followed the 2010 election claimed approximately 3,000 lives. Earlier this week the ICC denied Gbagbo's motion asking the court for allowance to leave the Netherlands while he recovers from alleged maltreatment received while detained by national authorities in the Ivory Coast before being surrendered to the ICC [JURIST reports] in November. The court denied Gbagbo's leave request upon a determination that he posed a flight risk. In August the ICC dismissed a jurisdiction challenge [JURIST report] by Gbagbo, ruling that the court has the authority to hear the case. Also that month ICC The court first postponed Gbagbo's confirmation of charges hearing in June, after his lawyers asked the court more time to prepare [JURIST reports], complaining that they did not have enough resources to build their case in the amount of time given. Gbagbo's original hearing date was set [JURIST report] in December during his pre-trial hearing in ICC Pre-Trial Chamber III.

Internet freedom remains a controversial issue around the world. The UN Human Rights Council in July passed its first-ever resolution to protect the free speech [JURIST report] of individuals online. The resolution was approved by all 47 members of the council, including China and Cuba, which have been criticized for limiting Internet freedom. In June the Chinese Ministry of Information and Technology revealed its proposed changes to Chinese Internet law [JURIST report] that seek to limit the ability of users to post anonymous comments on micro-blogs and forums. A Bangkok criminal court in May sentenced [JURIST report] Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of independent Internet news site Prachatai, to an eight-month suspended sentence for failing to delete defamatory comments against Thailand's royal family. Earlier that month, a Dutch court ordered [JURIST report] Internet service providers in the Netherlands to block the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay or else pay a fine of USD $12,750 per day.

Wells Fargo [JURIST news archive] has been involved in many legal battles recently. In August the company was assessed a $6.5 million fine [JURIST report] by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for improperly selling high-risk mortgage securities to investors during the housing market crash in 200. In July the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit against several banks, including Wells Fargo, that accused the banks of price-fixing [JURIST report]. In March the SEC filed a subpoena enforcement action [JURIST report] against Wells Fargo to force the company to hand over documents connected to the company's sale of nearly $60 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities to investors.

In July a senior Russian judge ordered a court to review [JURIST report] Khodorkovsky's appeal. Opposition leaders and other groups have shown skepticism about the validity of Khodorkovsky's sentence. In December the Russia Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights under President Dmitry Medvedev called for the prosecutor general to petition to annul the conviction [JURIST report]. Describing the verdict as fictitious, council member and former Constitutional Court judge, Tamara Morshchakova, noted the council found neither evidence nor substance to the charges brought against Khodorkovsky in the second trial. The council's decisions are non-binding and have seldom elicited action from Russian authorities. In July the council urged amnesty for economic crimes in a meeting with Medvedev that would include amnesty for the crimes of Khodorkovsky. Last year former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov testified [JURIST report] that former president and current prime minister Vladimir Putin ordered Khodorkovsky's arrest for political reasons, indicating that Khodorkovsky had funded the Communist Party without first getting approval to do so from the president.

Well, let me—let me try to work with your hypothetical. I think what I hear your hypothetical to say is that prevailing norms change, and they evolve to a certain point where certain kinds of advice is required, which is much what this Court said in Padilla about—about deportation advice. You would have—you would not have a new rule to simply recognize that at the time that attorney gave advice, that—that Strickland was violated. It would be a new rule, I think, Justice Kennedy, to say that Strickland requires relief, even though at the time the advice was given the prevailing norm had not yet crystalized into the degree that this Court requires.

The court also heard arguments in Bailey v. United States [transcript; JURIST report] on whether police officers may lawfully detain individuals incident to a search warrant when those individuals have left the premises before the search warrant could be executed. Police detained Chunon Bailey a mile away from his home, incident to a search warrant of his home. Bailey claims his Fourth Amendment [text] rights were violated, with his attorney arguing, "[b]ecause individuals who have left the scene do not pose an immediate threat to the safe and efficient completion of the search, the court of appeals erred by permitting their detention absent probable cause or even individualized suspicion," citing Michigan v. Summers [text]. The Solicitor General denied this understanding of Summers: "So let me be very clear. In the government's view, Summers is about current and recent occupants, people whom police, when they are executing the warrant, find at the home or see leaving the home in the process of executing a warrant. And the question here is do the justifications apply equally as a departing occupant steps away from the home and onto a sidewalk, a yard, a couple blocks away. And I think my friend's answer to that has a wonderfully abstract quality to it that doesn't engage any of the realities on the ground. [...] The justifications for detention apply equally to departing occupants when they are seen by officers leaving in the process of executing the warrant. [...] [T]he government is not contending that other connections to the residence, other than that kind of observed connection by the officers, could justify a detention under Summers."

Turkey has recently faced criticism for its human rights record. Last month the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled [JURIST report] in X. v. Turkey that a gay man was detained in violation of Articles 3 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In July a Turkish court ordered [JURIST report] the release of 16 individuals detained on accusations of having links to Kurdish militants. Also in July the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Francois Crepeau called on the government of Turkey and authorities in the EU to respect the rights of migrants [JURIST report] in the continent. In June the Turkish ruling party planned to abolish the special courts [JURIST report] used in coup and terrorism trials. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plans to present a reform package including the proposed abolition of special courts to the country's parliament before the recess.

Excessive delay in immigration case processing can undermine the fair administration of justice if witnesses are no longer available to testify, U.S. citizen relatives die, or documentary evidence is lost. Moreover, the failure to promptly resolve cases results in aliens with unsupportable claims for relief from removal remaining in the United States longer, while those with legitimate claims for relief remaining in legal limbo for unwarranted lengths of time.

Immigration law [JURIST backgrounder] has became a hot button issue over the past few years. Last month the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied a request [JURIST report] from Alabama state officials to reconsider its August ruling partially striking down [JURIST report] the state's immigration law. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in September denied a request for a new injunction against a controversial provision of Arizona's immigration law which requires law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of persons they stop or arrest if there is a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the US illegally. In August the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit again heard arguments [JURIST report] on two anti-illegal immigrant laws enacted in 2006 by the city of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which deny permits to businesses that employ illegal immigrants and fine landlords who extend housing to them.