US District Court Judge Ronald Whyte issued a permanent injunction Monday against a 2005 California law restricting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, agreeing with the Video Software Dealers Association and the Entertainment Software Association that the law was an unconstitutional infringement on the industry's First Amendment free speech rights. Whyte [...]

The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office said Tuesday that it has asked the United States to release five Guantanamo Bay detainees who were legal residents in the UK prior to their detention. The Foreign Office said that the five detainees – Saudi Arabian Shaker Aamer, Jordanian Jamil el Banna, Libyan Omar Deghayes, Ethiopian Binyam Mohamed [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard arguments Monday from defense lawyers representing three former Enron Broadband Services executives who are seeking the dismissal of remaining charges after a jury failed to reach a verdict on all counts in their 2005 fraud trial. The three defendants – former VP Scott Yeager, former [...]

A federal judge Monday overturned a $1.52 billion jury decision against Microsoft awarded after the jury found that Microsoft violated two digital music patents held by Alcatel-Lucent . The patents govern technology that converts audio input into MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly known as MP3, which Microsoft has incorporated into several variants of its [...]

Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi requested the assistance of the UN Human Rights Council to end Iran's "arbitrary detention" of Iranian-American scholar Dr. Haleh Esfandiari in a letter sent Monday to the UN body's Arbitrary Detention Working Group . Ebadi says that Esfandiari has been held in solitary [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard arguments Monday in an appeal by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company against a lower court ruling last August which declared unenforceable a provision in Nationwide's policy limiting a Hurricane Katrina's homeowner's recovery when damage to home is caused by both wind and water. Homeowners Paul and [...]

A Thai court Monday released on bail six leaders of the July 22 anti-coup protest with the condition that they would not engage in activities that may increase "strife within society" or instigate violence. The defendants, anti-coup academics and supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , were arrested as part of an ongoing police [...]

Protect America Act of 2007, passed by the US Senate and House of Representatives and signed into law by President George W. Bush, August 6, 2007 . Read the full text of the bill . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

2007 Enacted State Legislation Related to Immigrants and Immigration, National Conference of State Legislatures, August 6, 2007 . Read the full text of the report. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Moscow City Court has convicted former Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin for his involvement in organizing a series of contract killings, sentencing Pichugin to life in prison Monday for organizing three murders and four attempted murders. Pichugin originally received a 24-year sentence , but the Russian Supreme Court overturned the sentence and ordered a [...]