Democrats on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have said they plan to call witnesses to question the integrity of US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito during confirmation hearings. The witness list includes experts on constitutional law and civil rights, but will also include John Flym, who argued a 2002 case before the US Court of [...]

US Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) , a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee , has said that while Democrats on the committee are considering delaying a vote on Samuel Alito's confirmation to the US Supreme Court, a final decision has not yet been made. Senate leadership aides said Thursday that Democrats would invoke their right [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Geoffrey S. Corn, Lt. Col. US Army (Ret.) and former Special Assistant to the Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters, now a professor at South Texas College of Law, says that the McCain Amendment on the treatment of detainees has been largely undermined not only by Presidential reservations on its [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Bryan Horrigan of Macquarie University Faculty of Law in Sydney, Australia, says that the upcoming confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito are a trial not just of the nominee, but of the uniquely-American system of public judicial confirmations of high court judges… As Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation hearing before the US Senate [...]

Jeb Bush et al. v. Ruth Holmes, Supreme Court of Florida, January 5, 2006 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Virginia Governor Mark Warner on Thursday ordered that DNA evidence from a 1980s rape and murder case be tested to determine whether the man convicted and executed for the crime was innocent. Roger Keith Coleman was convicted for the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law and was executed in 1992. Warner ordered the tests [...]

AP is reporting that Senate aides have said that Democrats will force a one-week delay in the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the nomination of Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court. Confirmation hearings are set to begin Monday and committee chairman Arlen Specter had hoped to hold a vote on whether to approve the [...]

The National Council for Human Rights, sponsored by the Egyptian government, on Thursday called for an investigation into the 11 deaths that occurred during the most recent round of parliamentary elections that ended in December. The killings were the result of violence throughout several weeks of elections in Egypt ; the elections were marred by [...]

AP is reporting that law enforcement officials have said that Jose Padilla has been transferred from military to civilian custody in order to face terror charges in Miami. The transfer, previously delayed by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, was authorized Wednesday by the US Supreme Court.

Lord Paddy Ashdown , the EU High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina on Thursday confiscated funds from the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) because its founder and wanted war crimes criminal Radovan Karadzic remains a fugitive. In 2005, the country's main Bosnian Serb party had raised about $121,000 but its assets were frozen and were only to be [...]