US Supreme Court declines appeal from man who spent 27 years in solitary confinement
The US Supreme Court Monday declined to hear a case that asks if extended solitary confinement is a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the country’s constitution. In Hope v. Harris, the petition for the plaintiff described the solitary confinement of Dennis Wayne Hope since 1994 following an escape attempt from prison. For almost 30 years, [...]
Here's the international legal news we covered this week: The High Court of South Africa ruled Friday that President Jacob Zuma's appointment of a State Prosecutor who would decide whether to reinstate corruption charges...
On Human Rights, California is Better than Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and Texas!
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper, a former DC public defender, addresses prosecutor Michele Hanisee's remarks concerning the death penalty in California... Speaking in favor of Proposition 66, the ballot initiative that seeks to speed up executions in California to Texas-like...
Newtown Families' Suit Against Gunmakers Will Likely End in Dismissal
JURIST Guest Columnist Nicholas Johnson of the Fordham University School of Law discusses the recent suit filed by the families of the Newtown victims...Some of the families who survived the horror of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting are suing the manufacturer...
Cuban nationalists began pressing for independence from Spain in the mid-nineteenth century. Cuban guerrilla fighters initiated frequent skirmishes with the Spanish military between 1868 and 1878. Revolutionary activities picked up in the 1890s and Spain imposed martial law in 1896....
Eighteen US states have abolished the death penalty. Three states - Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin - have completely banned the death penalty since the mid-nineteenth century. Fifteen states abolished the death penalty at various points throughout the twentieth and twenty-first...
UN criminal tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia praised at Security Council meeting
Officials from the UN Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia addressed the UN Security Council Thursday to discuss the work that has been achieved as the tribunals mark 20 years of existence in 2014...
The children of convicted murderer Dennis McGuire filed a lawsuit on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio over the method used in McGuire's 26-minute long execution, which they say amounted to...
Prolonged Ohio execution heightens lethal injection drug controversy
The prolonged execution of convicted murderer Dennis McGuire on Thursday has stirred a controversy over new drugs used to administer lethal injections. McGuire was convicted in 1994 of raping and murdering a 22-year-old girl in 1989 and...
Guantanamo inmates pursuing claims under global torture treaty
Lawyers for five Guantanamo Bay inmates implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Tuesday argued that restrictive rules for classifying evidence violate the Convention Against Torture , a treaty that the US ratified in 1994. The lawyers...
