US pushing ahead with Guantanamo trials despite expected appeals News
US pushing ahead with Guantanamo trials despite expected appeals

[JURIST] With a federal appeals court giving the green light [JURIST report] earlier this month, the US is looking to quickly restart military tribunals for declared "enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo [JURIST news archive]. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that the trials will resume "as soon as possible", even though other appeals of the general issue to the US Supreme Court are a near certainty. The Pentagon has alerted the media to be prepared to cover the Guantanamo trials as soon as early September 2005 though lawyers for some Guantanamo detainees, including the attorney for Australian David Hicks [JURIST report], said they haven't been given formal notice of a resumption of the proceedings. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.