US officials and members of the Iraqi government have mismanaged $24 million in reconstruction grants made by the US in 2004, and fraudulent activities may have occurred in some of the cases, according to a report released Wednesday by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction . Inspector General Stuart Bowen said he has [...]

AP is reporting that US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination. 9:15 AM ET – In a letter to President Bush Thursday, Miers withdrew her nomination , expressing concern that the confirmation process would present "a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of [...]

Letter from Harriet Miers to George W. Bush, October 27, 2005 . Excerpt: As you know, members of the Senate have indicated their intention to seek documents about my service in the White House in order to judge whether to support me. I have been informed repeatedly that in lieu of records, I would be [...]

Revisiting Proposals to Split the Ninth Circuit: An Inevitable Solution to a Growing Problem, US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing testimony, October 26, 2005. Read the full text of witnesses' prepared statements. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Republican senators continued a long-running effort to build support for breaking up the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit into two circuits during a US Senate Judiciary Committee subcommitee hearing Wednesday. A bill introduced earlier this month by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) would split the circuit into two, [...]

Walt Disney shareholders have appealed a ruling by a Delaware court that the company's directors were not liable for approving a $130 million severance package for former President Michael Ovitz . The appeal sought to have the ruling overturned on procedural and evidentiary grounds. Ovitz served as president of the company for 14 months before [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Scott Gerber of Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law says that although, in Harriet Miers, President Bush apparently put a premium on picking a Supreme Court nominee loyal to him, when the political chips were down he wasn't very loyal to her… President George W. Bush informed the nation on Thursday [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Vladeck of the University Miami School of Law says that a narrow interpretation of the US Supreme Court's classic 1866 ruling against military tribunals in Ex parte Milligan might actually be in the best interest of suspected dirty bomber Jose Padilla as he again takes his challenge to indefinite detention under [...]

Lawyers could be suspended for a year for repeatedly filing frivolous lawsuits under a bill introduced in the US House of Representatives as part of a Republican effort to limit such lawsuits. Supporters of the legislation say frivolous claims and lawyers that bring them are clogging US courts and driving up healthcare costs around the [...]

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti has subpoenaed 73 employees of Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, as part of its ongoing investigation into deaths alleged at hospitals and nursing homes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina . The subpoenas covered all levels of employees at the hospital, and a spokeswoman for the attorney general said [...]