UPDATE ~ DOD calls Gitmo emails from former military prosecutors "much ado about nothing" News
UPDATE ~ DOD calls Gitmo emails from former military prosecutors "much ado about nothing"

[JURIST] A US Department of Defense spokesperson Monday dismissed allegations [JURIST report] made by two former military prosecutors that the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay are "rigged" and often deprive defendants of evidence that could help prove their innocence. Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told reporters that the DOD Inspector General [official website] conducted a full investigation into the allegations made to the office in March 2004, and found no basis for further investigation. Di Rita did state that his department is considering "refinements" to the military commissions [Human Rights Watch backgrounder]. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.