Judge William G. Young, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, issued a 107-page ruling Tuesday chastising Congress for a "virtually unprecedented" attack on judicial independence and for putting a "chokehold" on federal courts by removing their authority to hear deportation cases. Young says the recently-passed Real ID [...]

Near the end of his trial in Amsterdam Tuesday, Muslim extremist Mohammed Bouyeri confessed to the November 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh , saying "if I were released and would have the chance to do it again. . . I would do exactly the same thing." Bouyeri added that he stabbed, shot [...]

Corbell v. Norton, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, July 12, 2005 . Excerpt: But when one strips away the convoluted statutes, the technical legal complexities, the elaborate collateral proceedings, and the layers upon layers of interrelated orders and opinions from this Court and the Court of Appeals, what remains is the [...]

According to a congressional aide speaking on the condition of anonymity, an unreleased Pentagon report reveals that a top Army general rejected the recommended reprimand of former Guantanamo Bay prison commander Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller for the abusive interrogation of a detainee. The recommendation came from two generals after a military investigation into FBI [...]

British police are bracing for hate crimes against Muslims in response to the announcement Tuesday that the perpetrators of the London bombings were British citizens and are vowing to handle any calls swiftly and vigorously. Police chiefs and community leaders have met in Scotland Yard to discuss and prepare for potential retaliation. The chief constable [...]

An Egyptian court Tuesday ordered Tarek el-Zomor released from prison for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat . El-Zomor was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant group which organized Sadat's murder because it disagreed with his Camp David peace negotiations with Israel. The court order said el-Zomor [...]

The US Tuesday urged the UN General Assembly to vote against a draft resolution by the so-called G-4 to expand the UN Security Council by adding six additional permanent seats and four non-permanent seats to the current 15 members. The debate over the resolution submitted by Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil has split the General [...]

US District Judge Royce Lamberth blasted the US Interior Department Tuesday and ordered it to admit to American Indian plaintiffs that information being provided to them regarding outstanding lost royalties on earnings from Indian land may be unreliable, calling the Department's handling of a trust fund the "oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist [...]

Leading Tuesday's states brief, a Kentucky circuit judge issued two stays of execution today to allow two prisoners to continue their challenge to the state's use of lethal injection as a form of execution. Last week, the same judge ruled that the use of lethal injection was constitutional . While no death warrants are in [...]

Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, passed by the UK House of Commons on July 11, 2005 likely to stir up racial or religious hatred," carrying a maximum sentence of 7 years]. Read the full text of the bill here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.