US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters Wednesday he would lead opposition to the nomination of former US Solicitor General Theodore Olson to the post of US attorney general. Olson was mentioned as a potential candidate on a short list floated by the White House earlier this week, but Senate Democrats consider Olson [...]
Negotiations have collapsed in Iraq over a controversial oil bill that would govern the distribution and refinement process and give the national government control over oil revenue, the New York Times reported Thursday. The bill, which the Iraqi cabinet approved in February, is now in jeopardy due to a conflict between the Iraqi oil minister [...]
Serbia will increase efforts to locate and arrest several war criminals to curry a favorable report from Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) when she advises EU officials on pending pre-membership deal with the country, a Serb liaison official said Wednesday. Del Ponte has heaped criticism [...]
A federal law allowing prison officials to indefinitely commit sex offenders to a mental hospital following their prison term is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, effectively freeing five convicted sex offenders pending the government's filing of a motion to stay the order. Senior US District Court Judge Earl Britt of the US Eastern District [...]
A former US Marine sergeant pleaded not guilty in a California federal court Wednesday to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for killing two Iraqi insurgents during the Multinational National Force-Iraq's November 2004 offensive in Fallujah . The criminal complaint against Jose Nazario accuses the former sergeant and squad leader of ordering his squad to shoot [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Haider Ala Hamoudi of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that a dispute over the legality of an oil exploration contract recently made between Hunt Oil Co. and the Kurdistan Regional Government calls into question the growing push for a form of loose federalism for Iraq… On September 8, it [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist S. David Mitchell of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law says that in light of the disproportionate and disparate effects of felon exclusion laws on individuals and their communities, ex-felons should have their rights restored automatically when they have completed their sentences… "What will Roger Goodell do?" National pundits recently pondered [...]
An Afghan terror suspect has been transferred to Guantanamo Bay , the US Department of Defense (DOD) announced Wednesday. Known only as Inayatullah, DOD said the detainee has admitted to being the head of al-Qaeda operations in Zahedan, Iran, and to orchestrating al-Qaeda terrorist attacks. DOD indicated that Inayatullah's status will be determined by a [...]
The US District Court for the District of Vermont ruled Wednesday that states have the power to regulate automobile greenhouse gas emissions. In Green Mountain Plymouth Dodge Jeep v. Crombie the court held that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) does not preempt state regulation of emission standards. Auto industry insiders, including General [...]
The New Jersey Supreme Court Wednesday ruled 5-0 that New Jersey doctors do not have a duty to inform abortion-seeking patients that an embryo is an "existing human being." The court declined to use the case of Acuna v. Turkish to weigh in on the issue of when life begins, holding that a physician has [...]