Mehmet Ali Agca , a Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, was released from a Turkish prison Thursday to cheers from a crowd of nationalist supporters. After serving 20 years in an Italian jail, Agca was extradited to Turkey to serve five additional years in prison for the previous murder of [...]

Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr on Wednesday asked the judge presiding over Khadr's military trial to delay proceedings so that Khadr could secure counsel with more trial experience. Khadr, 19, faces charges of conspiracy, murder and attempted murder stemming from a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan outside an al Qaeda compound, [...]

A German court sentenced Iraqi Lokman Amin Mohammed to seven years in prison Thursday for recruiting fighters and raising money to support the insurgency in Iraq. Prosecutors say Mohammed played a key role in the Western Europe branch of insurgent group Ansar al-Islam , smuggling wounded Iraqi fighters into Europe for medical treatment. Mohammed is [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Sherrilyn Ifill of the University of Maryland School of Law says that on the third day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito his student membership in a conservative Princeton organization took center stage as emotions ran high and tempers flared… Day 3 may have been about as dramatic as [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Wendy J. Keefer, former senior counsel and chief of staff in the US Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy and now with Bancroft Associates in Washington DC, says that Judge Samuel Alito's steadfast performance on the fourth day of his Senate hearings and the testimony of other witnesses, including a [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Gilles of Quinnipiac University School of Law says that after a third day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito seems to be on his way towards confirmation given his performance thusfar, the current balance in the Senate and the fact that he's replacing Justice Sandra [...]

Members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee will continue their questioning of Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito into the fourth day of his confirmation hearings Thursday following Wednesday testimony dominated by questions concerning abortion and Alito's membership in a controversial Princeton alumni association. Alito was pressed on his refusal to disavow a 1985 memo [...]

US Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has forwarded a request to investigate President Bush’s authorization of National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping on US residents to the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, citing a lack of jurisdiction to begin his own inquiry into the controversial program. On Tuesday the Pentagon’s inspector general also declined to [...]

Brown v. Sanders, Supreme Court of the United States, January 11, 2006 . Read the Court's opinion per Justice Scalia, along with a dissent from Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Souter, and a second dissent from Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Ginsburg. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Abdul Aziz Hakim , leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the country’s most powerful Shiite politician, said Wednesday that a new Iraqi government dominated by religious Shiites elected in the December 15 parliamentary vote would not “change the essence” of the new Iraqi constitution despite a compromise with Sunni Arabs [...]