Italy corruption trial of ex-PM Berlusconi begins News
Italy corruption trial of ex-PM Berlusconi begins

[JURIST] The trial of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and former lawyer David Mills began Tuesday in Milan on charges of corruption arising from Berlusconi's alleged payment of $600,000 to Mills for favorable testimony at trials in the 1990s. Last month, the Italian Court of Cassation [official website, in italian] ruled that Berlusconi should face trial [JURIST report] in an appeals court on accusations he had bribed judges to stop the auction of the SME state-owned food company to a rival in 1985. The Daily Mail has more.

Berlusconi, a media mogul and Italy's richest man, has faced numerous allegations of corruption in the past. In 2006, he was ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, false accounting, tax fraud, money laundering, and giving false testimony [JURIST reports] at trials involving his broadcasting company Mediaset [corporate website]. Last month, a judge threw out some of the tax fraud charges [JURIST report] against Berlusconi because the statute of limitations had expired.

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.