French Justice Minister Rachida Dati engaged in emergency discussions with senior members of the French judiciary on Monday to prevent a threatened judges' revolt. Objections have been raised to what some regard as the authoritarian style the controversial politician has adopted since her appointment by new French President Nicolas Sarkozy ; in the process, Dati [...]

Steve Lamar Fields v. Jill Brown, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, September 10, 2007 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A lawyer for US Marine First Lt. Andrew Grayson, an intelligence officer accused of mishandling an investigation into the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha , said Monday that Grayson has rejected a plea offer from military prosecutors requiring him to admit attempting to cover up the killings in exchange for prosecutors dropping all [...]

The Dutch government has invited UN representatives to discuss final arrangements for the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon it has agreed to host to try suspects for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said Monday in a letter to the Dutch parliament . The UN delegation [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Brian J. Foley of Drexel University College of Law says that on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we should remember that the US government has steadfastly refused to allow investigations that might locate individual blame for this massive security failure… After major tragedies there are two investigative roads to take [...]

Brandon Mayfield , the Oregon attorney arrested and detained for two weeks in May 2004 after the FBI mistakenly concluded that his fingerprints matched those found on a bag containing detonators used in the 2004 Madrid train bombings argued Monday that provisions of the USA Patriot Act allowed investigators to search his home and office [...]

Lawyers for former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif filed an appeal of Sharif's Monday deportation to Saudi Arabia with the Supreme Court of Pakistan Tuesday, asking the court to hold the Pakistani government in contempt for violating an August Supreme Court ruling that Sharif had an "inalienable right to enter and remain in the country" [...]

The European Union said Monday that it will only sign a new pre-membership aid and economic deal with Serbia when that country has demonstrated its cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) . Carla Del Ponte , the ICTY chief prosecutor, will submit a report in the next few weeks to [...]

Charles McArthur Emmanuel , son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, pleaded not guilty Monday to a US federal indictment charging him with involvement in killings and torture in Liberia. Emmanuel, a Boston-born US citizen, was the first person ever to be indicted under a 1994 federal anti-torture statute . During his father's regime, Emmanuel [...]

California resident Hamid Hayat was sentenced to 24 years in a federal prison Monday following his 2006 conviction for supporting terrorism and lying to the FBI. Because Hayat had no prior criminal record, US District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. determined that the maximum sentence of 39 years imprisonment was more than needed to sufficiently [...]