The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Bustillo v. Johnson and Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon , a pair of consolidated cases that could expand the Miranda rights of foreign nationals. The cases involve two convicted foreign nationals – a Honduran and a Mexican – who claim their arresting officers' failure to notify them of [...]

Former Assistant US Attorney Richard Convertino and US State Department Regional Secretary Officer Harry Raymond Smith III were indicted before a Detroit federal grand jury Wednesday on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false declarations in connection with a botched 2003 terrorism trial. Convertino was the lead prosecutor in a case against North [...]

Serbian officials Wednesday asked Carla del Ponte , chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to bear in mind the country's "complex political situation" as she arrived in Belgrade for talks two days before issuing a report to the European Union on the country's co-operation with the court. In the wake [...]

United Nations officials and armed peacekeepers took former Liberian President Charles Taylor into custody Wednesday in Monrovia after he was transported to Liberia following his capture by Nigerian officials in an attempt to flee the country. Taylor disappeared from his villa Monday in the southeast Nigerian city of Calaban where he spent the last two [...]

Wire services are reporting that a federal judge in Florida has sentenced former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff to five years and 10 months in prison on two conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from falsification of documents to procure a loan for the 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casino by Abramoff and his partners. Abramoff and co-defendant [...]

Johannesburg High Court Judge Willem van der Merwe on Wednesday refused to dismiss rape charges against former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma . The defense filed a motion for dismissal citing a lack of evidence proving Zuma's guilt in the rape of a longtime family friend and AIDS activist. The judge denied the motion [...]

The Law Lords , the judicial panel of the UK House of Lords that is Britain's highest court, Wednesday dismissed appeals brought by anti-war protesters who argued that under the Criminal Law Act 1967 they were allowed to break British law in an attempt to stop what they termed a "greater crime of aggression", i.e. [...]

A female Saudi lawyer, Reem al-Habib, received preliminary approval on Wednesday to join the team of lawyers defending Saddam Hussein . Habib, who graduated from Harvard Law School and works in western Saudi Arabia as a corporate lawyer, cites personal reasons for joining Hussein's defense team that do not reflect the views of the Saudi [...]

The Fukuoka district court in Japan on Wednesday dismissed a case brought by 45 Chinese men accusing the Japanese government and two Japanese mining companies of forcing them to work in Japanese coal mines during World War II. The men asserted that they were taken from China against their will and were taken to the [...]

Leading Wednesday's environmental law news, Norman Mineta, secretary of the US Department of Transportation has announced the final rule changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) system, which governs the minimum fuel economy averages for vehicles sold in the US. The final rule applies to light trucks, i.e., pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and [...]