Homemaking diva Martha Stewart called Wednesday for US sentencing reform in a Christmas message posted on her defense website. Stewart, currently imprisoned for securities-related crimes at the Alderson West Virginia federal correctional facility for women, said she herself was "fine, really", but directed her readers' attention to "the women here in Alderson will never have [...]

Troubled Russian oil firm Yukos will seek a ruling by a US court Wednesday against Baikal Finance Group, which purchased Yukos' primary subsidiary in a Sunday auction. Yukos said it would seek $20 billion in damages from those involved in the auction and to have Baikal's assets frozen, after the Russian government sold the Yuganskneftegas [...]

The WA Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on disputed King County ballots in the still-undecided governor's race. The court's decision on the 730 ballots could decide the race, which Republican state Sen. Dino Rossi currently leads by 51 votes over Democratic state Attorney General Christine Gregoire according to the recount. The Seattle [...]

President Bush has granted four more pardons, bringing his total to 31 since taking office, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Bush has issued far fewer clemency orders than either President Clinton or his father, George H.W. Bush, who issued 77 during his term in office. Modern presidents have typically granted hundreds to thousands of [...]

Douglas Berman, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University: "According to this AP story, President George Bush granted four pardons today, which gives him a total of just 31 pardons and commutations during his first term.  As the AP story notes, this total is "far off the pace of most modern presidents and less than [...]

A CA judge will hear arguments Wednesday in San Francisco's challenge to a state law banning same-sex marriage. San Francisco drew the national spotlight when it issued about 4,000 same-sex marriage licenses in February and March, but the CA Supreme Court halted the practice, although it did not rule on the constitutionality of the state [...]

The European Court of First Instance ruled Wednesday that antitrust penalties against Microsoft should be upheld as the computer giant appeals the European Commission's ruling from March. According to the ruling by Judge Bo Vesterdorf, Microsoft did not demonstrate that "it might suffer serious and irreparable damage as a result of the implementation of the [...]

Judge Alvin Hellerstein of Manhattan federal court refused Tuesday to accept an ex-AOL employee's plea of guilty to charges of conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property, saying that he wasn't sure the man had actually committed a crime under the new federal can-spam legislation. Jason Smathers, fired by AOL in June, used another employee's [...]

Updating a continuing story on JURIST's Paper Chase, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Baikal Finance Group, the little-known company that bought the production arm of oil giant Yukos at auction from the Russian authorities over the weekend, had a long history in the energy sector and that the sale, which took place in [...]

Mark Godsey, University of Cincinnati College of Law: "Handing a major victory to the Bush Administration, the Ninth Circuit on Monday in U.S. v. Afshari overturned a lower court decision and held Title 18 U.S. C. 2339B(a)(1) constitutional. This statute provides criminal penalties for providing "material support" to a designated terrorist organization.  The statute provides [...]