Supreme Court will hear health care case this term (AP)

By JESSE J. HOLLAND and MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Jesse J. Holland And Mark Sherman, Associated Press – 44?mins?ago

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear arguments next March over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul — a case that could shake the political landscape as voters are deciding if Obama deserves another term.

This decision to hear arguments in the spring sets up an election-year showdown over the White House's main domestic policy achievement. And it allows plenty of time for a decision in late June, just over four months before Election Day.

The justices announced they will hear an extraordinary five-and-a-half hours of arguments from lawyers on the constitutionality of a provision at the heart of the law and three other related questions about the act. The central provision in question is the requirement that individuals buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty.

In the modern era, the last time the court allotted anywhere near this much time for arguments was in 2003 for consideration of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. That case consumed four hours of argument. This argument may spread over two days, as the justices rarely hear more than two or three hours a day.

The 2010 health care overhaul law aims to extend insurance coverage to more than 30 million Americans, through an expansion of Medicaid, the requirement that individuals buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty and other measures. The court's ruling could decide the law's fate, but the justices left themselves an opening to defer a decision if they choose, by requesting arguments on one lower court's ruling that a decision must wait until 2015, when one of the law's many deferred provisions takes effect.

A White House spokesman said, "We are pleased that the court has agreed to hear this case."

"We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree," communications direct Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the law an "unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of the federal government into the daily lives of every American."

"In both public surveys and at the ballot box, Americans have rejected the law's mandate that they must buy government-approved health insurance, and I hope the Supreme Court will do the same," McConnell said.

Republicans have called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional since before Obama signed it into law in March 2010. But only one of the four federal appeals courts that have considered the health care overhaul has struck down even a part of the law.

The federal appeals court in Atlanta said Congress exceeded its power under the Constitution when it adopted the mandate. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the entire law, as did appellate judges in Washington, DC, in recent days.

The case could become the high court's most significant and political ruling since its 5-4 decision in the Bush v. Gore case nearly 11 years ago effectively sealed George W. Bush's 2000 presidential election victory.

In addition to deciding whether the law's central mandate is constitutional, the justices will also determine whether the rest of the law can take effect even if that central mandate is held unconstitutional. The law's opponents say the whole thing should fall if the individual mandate falls.

The administration counters that most of the law still could function, but says that requirements that insurers cover anyone and not set higher rates for people with pre-existing conditions are inextricably linked with the mandate and shouldn't remain in place without it.

The court also will look at the expansion of the joint federal-state Medicaid program that provides health care to poorer Americans, even though no lower court called that provision into question. Florida and the 25 other states say the law goes too far in coercing them into participating by threatening a cutoff of federal money. The states contend that the vast expansion of the joint federal-state Medicaid program and the requirement that employers offer health insurance violate the Constitution. No appeals court has agreed.

"The court recognized the seriousness of these vitally important constitutional challenges by allocating an extraordinary amount of time for oral argument," Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Lastly, the justices will consider whether arguments over the law's validity are premature because a federal law generally prohibits challenges to taxes until the taxes are paid. The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled earlier this year reasoned that the penalty for not purchasing insurance will not be paid before federal income tax returns are due in April 2015, therefore it was too early for a court to make a ruling on the law.

The administration agreed to seek prompt Supreme Court review of the health care overhaul, though it had options for trying to delay the court's consideration of the law until after the election. The Justice Department passed up the chance to ask the appeals court in Atlanta to reconsider its decision. It is common for the Justice Department to seek review by the full appeals court when a three-judge panel rules against the government.

Early on, at the district court level, rulings followed political affiliation. Judges appointed by Democratic presidents upheld the law, while Republican appointees struck it down.

But party lines blurred at three federal appeals courts. In Atlanta, Judge Frank Hull, a Clinton appointee, joined with a Republican colleague in striking down the mandate. In Cincinnati, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a Bush appointee, was the deciding vote in upholding the law. And in the District of Columbia, Senior Judge Laurence Silberman, named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, and Senior Judge Harry Edwards, a Carter appointee, voted together to uphold the law.

Legal experts have offered a range of opinions about what the high court might do. Many prominent Supreme Court lawyers believe that the law will be upheld by a lopsided vote, with Republican and Democratic appointees ruling in its favor. Still others predict a close outcome, with Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Republican who sometimes joins his four Democratic colleagues, holding the deciding vote.

Six separate appeals have been filed with the high court. Three come from the Atlanta court, where the administration, the states and the National Federation of Independent Business appealed different aspects of the court ruling. From Richmond, Liberty University and Virginia appealed decisions turning back their challenges to the law. The Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., appealed a ruling by the Cincinnati-based court upholding the law.

Ultimately, the court chose the Atlanta court's ruling as the primary case to review. That decision means that the highly regarded former Bush administration solicitor general, Paul Clement, is likely to argue on behalf of the challengers. The current Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli Jr., is expected to defend the law before the justices.

Two justices, conservative Clarence Thomas and liberal Elena Kagan, who had been asked by advocacy groups to withdraw from the case, are going to take part in it. The court's practice is for justices who are staying out of a case to say so when the case is accepted and no one has announced a recusal. Thomas's wife, Virginia, has worked for a group that has advocated against the health care overhaul, and Kagan served as solicitor general in the Obama administration when the law was being formulated.

View the original article here

US court: No immigration checks at Ala. schools (AP)

ATLANTA – A federal appeals court issued a ruling Friday that temporarily blocked parts of an Alabama law requiring schools to check the immigration status of students but let stand a provision that allows police to detain immigrants that are suspected of being in the country illegally.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order after the Justice Department challenged what is considered the toughest immigration law in the nation. The opinion also blocked a part of the law that makes it a crime for immigrants to not have proper documentation.

A final decision on the law won't be made for months to allow time for more arguments.

Since a federal judge upheld much of the law in late September, many frightened Hispanics have been driven away from Alabama, fearing they could be arrested or targeted by police. Construction workers, landscapers and field hands have stopped showing up for work, and large numbers of Hispanic students have been absent from public schools.

To cope with the labor shortage, Alabama agriculture commissioner John McMillan at one point suggested farmers should consider hiring inmates in the state's work-release program.

It's not clear exactly how many Hispanics have fled the state. Earlier this week, many skipped work to protest the law, shuttering or scaling back operations at chicken plants, Mexican restaurants and other businesses.

Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Alabama over the past decade as the Hispanic population has grown by 145 percent to about 185,600 people, most of them of Mexican origin. The Hispanic population represents about 4 percent of the state's 4.7 million people, but some counties in north Alabama have large Spanish-speaking communities and schools where most of the students are Hispanic.

In addition to the Obama administration, a coalition of advocacy groups also filed a separate appeal of the law, claiming it has thrown Alabama into "chaos."

Alabama's law was considered by both opponents and supporters to be stricter than similar laws enacted in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges in those states have blocked all or parts of those measures.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the legal fight over her state's tough immigration law.

The Justice Department has called the Alabama law a "sweeping new state regime" and urged the appeals court to forbid states from creating a patchwork of immigration policies. The agency also said the law could strain diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, who have warned the law could impact millions of workers, tourists and students in the U.S.

The law, it said, turns illegal immigrants into a "unique class who cannot lawfully obtain housing, enforce a contract, or send their children to school without fear that enrollment will be used as a tool to seek to detain and remove them and their family members."

"Other states and their citizens are poorly served by the Alabama policy, which seeks to drive aliens from Alabama rather than achieve cooperation with the federal government to resolve a national problem," the attorneys have said in court documents.

State Republicans have long sought to clamp down on illegal immigration and passed the law earlier this year after gaining control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed the measure, saying it was crucial to protect the jobs of legal residents amid the tough economy and high unemployment.

View the original article here

US Supreme Court opens, likely to wade into health care debate (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – The 2011-2012 US Supreme Court term, set to begin Monday, is best described by a case that isn’t even on the docket yet.

It now seems inevitable that the justices will agree to hear the legal challenge to President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act.

The case, HHS v. Florida, would instantly transform the high court’s upcoming nine-month session from an interesting and important collection of legal disputes into an historic constitutional showdown with major political implications – in a presidential election year.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for Sept. 25-30, 2011

The legal challenge threatens one of President Obama’s most ambitious accomplishments, the attempted wholesale reformation of the health care insurance market to extend health insurance to millions of Americans who otherwise couldn’t afford it.

Usually, the Supreme Courta€?s term is defined on the eve of the first Monday in October by the array of cases the justices have already agreed to hear and decide.

The unusual feature of the start of this year’s term is that the “Obamacare” case isn’t the only blockbuster looming on the high court’s horizon. In the weeks ahead, the justices are set to consider taking up a string of other potential landmark cases that could further transform the new term into a clash of constitutional titans. They include disputes examining:

‧ Whether the Second Amendment protects a right to carry a gun in public places for self-defense.

‧ Whether the use of racial preferences in university admissions programs is unconstitutional.

‧ Whether Arizona’s tough immigration law, SB 1070, is preempted by federal statutes and the more gentle policy positions embraced by the Obama administration.

‧ Whether large crosses erected on public roadsides in Utah and a Ten Commandments display in an elected judge’s courtroom in Ohio violate the separation of church and state.

Bleeping dirty words on TVIn addition to that unprecedented cluster of potential mega-cases, the high court is already set to hear a dispute involving the power of the Federal Communications Commission to punish broadcast television stations for showing brief nudity or failing to bleep dirty words during prime time programming.

The case, FCC v. Fox Television, will examine whether the FCC’s indecency enforcement procedures violate the First and Fifth Amendments. At issue is the government’s attempt to police the public air waves to prevent not only obscene material, but also indecent communications offensive to a family-oriented audience.

The current indecency enforcement effort stems from a 1978 high court decision that upheld sanctions against stations that broadcast comedian George Carlin’s famous routine on the seven dirty words you can’t say on the public air waves.

For years, the FCC enforced a policy against the systematic and repeated use of offensive words, most of which had been identified – effectively and repeatedly – by Mr. Carlin.

In 2001, the FCC changed course. It began enforcing a prohibition not just on systematic indecency but also on the use of fleeting expletives – dirty words blurted out during a prime time program. Several celebrities during music award programs on Fox used the “F-word,” and the “S-word.” In addition, an episode of ABC’s NYPD Blue featured a scene revealing a woman’s bare buttocks.

The FCC declared the programs “indecent.”

The broadcasters fought back with a lawsuit, claiming the FCC’s censorship was ill-defined and difficult to decipher. The Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed and struck down the FCC’s policy as unconstitutionally vague.

The government defends the FCC policy, noting that broadcasters had been given fair notice.

Legal analysts are watching the case to see if the court uses it to affirm traditional indecency standards or instead requires a more permissive policy in light of widespread use of the Internet and cable television.

“I think the thing that will interest the court most is just the prospect of chilling” and whether the FCC policy provides the requisite degree of clarity, John Elwood, an appellate specialist and former law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy, told a recent briefing at the National Chamber Litigation Center.

“One thing that makes [Justice Kennedy] really passionate, is will people know whether they can broadcast something,” Mr. Elwood said. “If it is a close question whether you can broadcast Schindler’s List because there are naked people in concentration camps, that is going to give him a lot of heartburn.”

In an important case involving the First Amendment’s separation of church and state, the justices will consider whether a former teacher at a Lutheran elementary school can sue the church-run school for alleged disability discrimination and retaliation.

The case is Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC and Cheryl Perich.

School officials argue that the lawsuit is barred under the “ministerial exception,” a legal doctrine which blocks employment-related lawsuits against religious organizations filed by employees who perform important religious functions.

The ministerial exception is designed to insulate religious groups from interference and second-guessing by judges and others about how the group is carrying out its religious mission. It applies to pastors, priests, and rabbis.

The issue in the Lutheran school case is whether it also applies to a teacher who spent most of her day presenting a secular curriculum to her students, but who also was a “commissioned minister” who taught religious classes and led the children in prayer.

Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia law professor representing the Lutheran school, says the case could trigger “a revolution in relations between church and state.”

“The ministerial exception is limited to employees who perform functions important to the employer’s religious mission,” he writes in his brief to the court. He says the teacher was dismissed for violating church rules and that the courts cannot decide her claim without becoming involved in underlying religious disputes.

“Allowing her claim to go forward would leave the church unable to control who teaches the faith to the next generation,” Mr. Laycock writes.

Lawyers for the teacher counter that generally applicable anti-discrimination laws are fully enforceable and “need not give way to religious exercise.”

The teacher is not asking any court to take sides in a religious dispute, her lawyers say. Rather, she merely seeks a determination of whether her dismissal violated generally applicable provisions of a federal anti-discrimination law.

The disputed status of JerusalemIn Zivotofsky v. Clinton, the high court will wade into a clash between Congress and the executive branch over a sensitive matter of foreign affairs – the disputed status of Jerusalem.

Because Jerusalem is a disputed territory and a major source of disagreement in Middle East peace talks, the US government has tried to remain neutral on the Jerusalem issue.

As a result, children born in Jerusalem to US citizens are listed on birth documents as having been born in Jerusalem. No country is noted on the State Department documents.

Pro-Israeli members of Congress who disagree with this neutral posture, sponsored and passed a law directing the State Department to record the place of birth as Jerusalem, Israel.

The issue came to a head following the birth of Menachem Zivotofsky, a US citizen, in Jerusalem. His mother applied for a passport for her infant son and asked that the place of birth be recorded as Jerusalem, Israel. When the State Department refused, the parents sued to enforce the federal statute.

A federal judge threw the case out, saying it presented a political question best left to the elected branches of government to iron out. The federal appeals court in Washington affirmed.

In agreeing to take up the parents’ case, the high court asked both parties to address an additional issue: Whether Congress’s Jerusalem law impermissibly infringes on the president’s power to recognize foreign sovereigns?

Neil Kinkopf, a law professor at Georgia State University, says the added question may telegraph a decision in the president’s favor.

During a recent Supreme Court preview briefing, Professor Kinkopf told the American Constitution Society that four of the nine justices had prior work experience arguing separation of powers issues on the side of the president.

They include Justices Elena Kagan, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

This prior experience, he said, will “orient the court to look favorably on the president’s position.”

But Kinkopf warned, “The way they do it could have dramatic consequences because Congress has other powers and the president has other exclusive powers, like the commander-in-chief power.”

How the court resolves the Jerusalem issue could set the stage for larger confrontations, he says.

“Can Congress use its spending power to limit the way the president exercises the commander in chief power?” Kinkopf asks.

“Could Congress say to the president no money may be spent for military operations in Libya, or no money may be spent for a surge in Iraq,” he asked.

Two important Fourth Amendment cases are also high on the court’s docket this term.

In Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, the justices have agreed to decide whether the government has the power to order the routine strip search of persons detained by law enforcement regardless of how minor the offense or any individual assessment of his or her likelihood to be carrying a weapon or contraband.

Tracking criminal suspects' carsThe court will also decide in United States v. Jones whether the Fourth Amendment allows law enforcement officials to install a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car to conduct continuous round-the-clock surveillance without first obtaining a judicially-authorized warrant.

By far the most significant case of the term – and perhaps for a generation – will be the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

Did Congress act within its commerce clause powers when it approved the ACA’s individual mandate?

The ACA requires every American to purchase a government-approved level of health insurance or pay a penalty.

Opponents say never before has the US government required citizens to purchase a private service or face punishment. Supporters say the measure is well within Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

A panel at the Eleventh US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta voted 2 to 1 to strike down the individual mandate as exceeding Congressional authority. A different panel at the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati ruled that the mandate did not violate commerce clause restrictions. A third panel at the Fourth Circuit in Richmond threw the case out on other grounds.

“The federal government’s assertion of power, under the commerce clause … is unprecedented, lacks cognizable limits, and imperils our federalist structure,” the Eleventh Circuit majority declared.

In a brief urging the high court to take up the case, US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said the Eleventh Circuit had jettisoned “the considered judgment of the elected branches of government – after years of study and deliberation – on how to address a crisis in the national health care market.”

He added: “The minimum coverage provision is squarely within Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, lay and collect taxes, and enact legislation.”

“The court of appeals’ contrary decision is fundamentally flawed and denies Congress the broad deference it is due in enacting laws to address the nation’s most pressing economic problems and set tax policy,” he wrote.

It is now up to the Supreme Court to resolve the disagreement. Initial briefs have already been filed. Reply briefs are expected by the end of the month. The court could announce in November whether it will hear the case, and which questions it will decide. A final decision could be expected by late June.

The ACA is one of the Obama administration’s greatest achievements – an attempt to fundamentally reshape the provision of health insurance nationwide. But it is also controversial. Attorneys general from 26 of the 50 states are co-litigants who urged the Eleventh Circuit to declare the law unconstitutional.

The reform effort has also split the nation. That division is expected to continue and deepen with each stage of the litigation extending well into the 2012 presidential campaign.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for Sept. 25-30, 2011

Get daily or weekly updates from CSMonitor.com delivered to your inbox. Sign up today.

View the original article here

Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare law (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An appeals court ruled Friday that President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty was unconstitutional, a blow to the White House.

The Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but also ruled that the rest of the wide-ranging law could remain in effect.

The legality of the so-called individual mandate, a cornerstone of the 2010 healthcare law, is widely expected to be decided by the Supreme Court. The Obama administration has defended the provision as constitutional.

The case stems from a challenge by 26 U.S. states which had argued the individual mandate, set to go into effect in 2014, was unconstitutional because Congress could not force Americans to buy health insurance or face the prospect of a penalty.

"This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives," a divided three-judge panel said.

Obama and his administration had pressed for the law to help halt the steep increases in healthcare costs and expand insurance coverage to the more than 30 million Americans who are without it.

It argued that the requirement was legal under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. One of the three judges of the appeals court panel, Stanley Marcus, agreed with the administration in dissenting from the majority opinion.

The majority "has ignored the undeniable fact that Congress' commerce power has grown exponentially over the past two centuries and is now generally accepted as having afforded Congress the authority to create rules regulating large areas of our national economy," Marcus wrote.

Many other provisions of the healthcare law are already being implemented.

The decision contrasts with one by the U.S. Appeals Court for the 6th Circuit, based in Cincinnati, which had upheld the individual mandate as constitutional. That case has already been appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, has yet to rule on a separate challenge by the state of Virginia.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini; Editing by Eric Beech)

View the original article here

Court temporarily reinstates "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A federal appeals court has reversed itself and temporarily reinstated the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military, but it has blocked the Pentagon from significant enforcement of the policy.

In an order issued late on Friday, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a request by President Barack Obama's administration to temporarily reinstate the policy against allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

The government has said it needs more time to prepare for an end to the controversial policy.

Obama signed legislation in December to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," but the bill gave the Pentagon an unlimited time frame to implement the change, leading up to a final "certification" of the repeal.

In the meantime, a separate challenge to the policy had advanced in the federal court system, where last week the 9th U.S. Circuit Court panel upheld a lower-court decision declaring "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" unconstitutional and ordered the military to immediately lift the ban.

In their latest ruling, the judges said that, based on information provided by government lawyers, senior military officials have made plans to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and that certification will be presented to Obama by the end of July or in early August.

The judges' three-page order also states that only one military service member has been discharged for being openly gay since the passage of the repeal act in December.

The judges stated that "in order to provide this court with an opportunity to consider fully the issues presented in light of these previously undisclosed facts" it was temporarily reinstating the policy.

But the order also blocks the military "from investigating, penalizing or discharging anyone from the military pursuant to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy."

The policy dates from 1993, when then-President Bill Clinton signed the directive into law as a compromise with the military to end an outright ban on gay service members that had been in force for decades.

More than 13,000 men and women have been expelled from the military under the policy since it was instituted by Clinton.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Jerry Norton)

View the original article here

Court orders immediate halt to gay military ban (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court ordered the U.S. government on Wednesday to immediately cease enforcing the ban on openly gay members of the military, a move that could speed the repeal of the 17-year-old rule.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the "don't ask, don't tell" policy must be lifted now that the Obama administration has concluded it's unconstitutional to treat gay Americans differently under the law. The appeals court noted that Congress repealed the policy in December and that the Pentagon is preparing to certify that it is ready to welcome gay military personnel.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday that they will comply with the court order and are taking immediate steps to inform commanders in the field. Col. Dave Lapan, Pentagon spokesman, said the department is studying the ruling.

Gay rights advocates said without an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court — which seems unlikely since the Pentagon already is committed to repealing the rule — the government now is barred from discharging gay or lesbian servicemembers anywhere in the world.

"The ruling ...removes all uncertainty — American servicemembers are no longer under threat of discharge as the repeal implementation process goes forward," said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans executive director.

The ruling came in response to a motion brought by Log Cabin Republicans, a group for gay GOP members, which last year persuaded a lower court judge to declare the ban unconstitutional.

After the government appealed U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips' decision, the 9th Circuit agreed to keep the policy in place until it could consider the matter. The appeals court reversed itself with Wednesday's order by lifting its hold on Phillips' decision.

"The circumstances and balance of hardships have changed, and (the government) can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay," the panel said.

Although the stay is lifted, the 9th Circuit scheduled an Aug. 29 hearing to consider whether the government's appeal of the lower court's decision is valid. But it's unclear whether the Pentagon will pursue the appeal, since they have already said they'll stop enforcing the ban.

Still, Dan Woods, the lawyer representing Log Cabin Republicans, cautioned gay military personnel against rushing to declare their sexual orientations until the government declares that it intends to abide by the ruling.

During the eight-day period last fall before the 9th Circuit put Phillips' injunction prohibiting enforcement of "don't ask, don't tell" on hold, several of the estimated 14,000 veterans who had been discharged under the policy unsuccessfully tried to re-enlist. A handful of Air Force members and members of the National Guard have been discharged from the military under the policy since December.

The Pentagon has been moving carefully to implement the repeal of the ban on openly gay troops. Under the law passed and signed by the president in December, final implementation would go into effect 60 days after the president and his senior defense advisers certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' ability to fight.

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he was hopeful the Department of Defense would not challenge Wednesday's order.

"This whole matter could have been avoided had we had certification back in the spring. It's time to get on with that important certification, end the DADT confusion for all service members, and put a final end to this misguided policy," Sarvis said.

___

Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Serb general Mladic to boycott war crimes court (Reuters)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic will boycott the U.N. war crimes court, where he is scheduled to enter a plea on Monday against charges of genocide during the Bosnian war, his lawyer said on Sunday.

Arrested in May after 16 years on the run, Mladic formally was charged by the Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague last month when the defiant general rejected war crimes charges against him as "obnoxious" and "monstrous."

Mladic is accused over a campaign to seize territory for Serbs after Bosnia, following Croatia, broke away from the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s as the Balkan state broke up during five years of war that killed at least 130,000 people.

The 69-year-old career soldier is due to enter the plea after refusing to do so last month, but Belgrade-based attorney Milos Saljic said Mladic would boycott the hearing to demand that he be represented by his own defense lawyers.

"Mladic is not going to appear in the courtroom tomorrow unless he is forced to. He does not want to do it because he does not have his team of lawyers yet," Saljic told Reuters.

If Mladic boycotts the hearing or refuses to enter a plea at Monday's hearing, judge Alphens Orie will likely enter one of "not guilty" for him.

Mladic's former political chief Radovan Karadzic boycotted the start of his trial in 2009 and it is considered unlikely that the tribunal would force Mladic to appear on Monday.

"The tribunal has no official indication or confirmation that Mladic is not going to appear so I am unable to comment," court spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said.

Mladic, who has said he was only defending his country and people during the 1992-5 Bosnia war, has lodged a list of preferred defense lawyers with the court, including Saljic and a Russian lawyer, but the tribunal is still verifying the qualifications and eligibility of the attorneys.

Court-appointed lawyer Aleksandar Aleksic, who represented Mladic at his first hearing, will represent him on Monday.

Mladic is accused in connection with the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica -- Europe's worst massacre since World War Two.

Hague prosecutor Serge Brammertz has said Mladic used his power to commit brutal atrocities and must answer for it, but Serb nationalists believe Mladic defended the nation and did no worse than Croat or Bosnian Muslim army commanders.

View the original article here

UN-backed court issues Hariri indictment, warrants (AFP)

BEIRUT (AFP) – A UN-backed court on Thursday issued a long-awaited indictment and arrest warrants for the 2005 murder of Lebanon's ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, with members of the powerful Hezbollah reportedly among those named.

Prosecutor General Said Mirza said he received the sealed indictment and arrest warrants in the case, which many fear could plunge the country into political crisis and spark sectarian unrest.

The Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) confirmed that it had issued an indictment Tuesday and submitted a copy and related arrest warrants to Lebanese authorities on Thursday.

It disclosed neither the nature of the charges nor the identities of the suspects.

Hariri's son and political heir Saad hailed the indictment as a "historic" moment for Lebanon and urged the government of Najib Mikati, dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, to cooperate with the STL.

"After many years of patience, of struggle... today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security," Hariri said in a statement.

A judicial official told AFP arrest warrants were issued for four Lebanese suspects, identified by local media as members of Hezbollah.

Lebanese television channel LBC reported the suspects include Mustafa Badreddine, brother-in-law of Hezbollah top operative Imad Mughniyeh who was killed in a 2008 bombing in Damascus.

Badreddine was said to have supervised the Hariri assassination. He had previously been arrested in Kuwait for planning to bomb the US embassy, LBC reported.

Also among the four is Salim Ayyash, a Hezbollah member who holds US citizenship and headed the cell that carried out the bombing, LBC said.

Hezbollah officials contacted by AFP declined to comment.

But the party's Al-Manar television on Thursday dismissed the court as "politicised" and said it bore the mark of being at the service of intelligence agencies.

The Iranian- and Syrian-backed group has warned it would "cut off the hand" of anyone who attempts to arrest party members linked to the February 14, 2005 seaside bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others.

Hezbollah forced the collapse of Saad Hariri's Western-backed unity government in January after he refused to stop cooperating with the tribunal.

Mikati, his successor, was appointed with the blessing of Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful political and military force.

On Thursday, Mikati issued his government policy statement which failed to clearly spell out whether his cabinet would continue cooperating with the tribunal.

"The government confirms that it will follow the progress of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was set up in principle to see justice served in a manner that is neither politicised nor vengeful, and as long as it does not negatively affect Lebanon's stability and civil peace," read the ambiguously worded statement.

Members of Hariri's "March 14" coalition said the statement was a clear sign Mikati's government would not abide by its international obligations under the pretence of preserving civil peace.

"They (the Mikati government) consider that justice would undermine stability and national unity," Fares Soueid, secretary general of the "March 14" opposition, told AFP.

"They picked stability and national unity over justice... while we consider that stability cannot be at the expense of justice."

Lebanon now has 30 days to serve out the arrest warrants. If the suspects are not arrested within that period, the STL can then publicly call on those accused to surrender.

Observers say it is unlikely Lebanese authorities will be able to locate any of the suspects.

The tribunal's findings have been the subject of wide speculation in Lebanon and there is fear an indictment of Hezbollah members could spark sectarian unrest.

The STL was set up in The Hague in 2009 by the United Nations to try those alleged to have carried out Hariri's killing.

The murder sparked the so-called Cedar Revolution, a wave of mass protests that, combined with international pressure, forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after a 29-year deployment.

Hariri, who was 60 when he was killed, headed five Lebanese governments between the years 1992 to 1998 and 2000 to 2004, when he stepped down from premiership over differences with neighbouring Syria.

Syria was widely suspected of having a hand in Hariri's murder but has denied involvement.

View the original article here

Intl court orders arrest of Gadhafi, son, key aide (AP)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – International judges ordered the arrest of Moammar Gadhafi on Monday for murdering Libyan civilians who rose up against him, as NATO warplanes pounded his Tripoli compound and world leaders stepped up calls for the Libyan leader to resign.

The International Criminal Court said Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam Gadhafi and his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi are wanted for orchestrating the killing, injuring, arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of civilians during the first 12 days of an uprising to topple Gadhafi from power, and for trying to cover up their alleged crimes.

The warrants from The Hague court turn the three men into internationally wanted suspects, potentially complicating efforts to mediate an end to more than four months of intense fighting in the North African nation. The warrants will be sent to Libya, where Gadhafi remains defiantly entrenched.

Presiding judge Sanji Monageng of Botswana called Gadhafi the "undisputed leader of Libya" who had "absolute, ultimate and unquestioned control" over his country's military and security forces. She said prosecutors presented evidence showing that following popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Gadhafi and his inner circle plotted a "state policy ... aimed at deterring and quelling by any means — including by the use of lethal force — demonstrations by civilians against the regime."

Hundreds of civilians were killed, injured or arrested, she said, adding there were "reasonable grounds to believe" that Gadhafi and his son were both responsible for the murder and persecution of civilians.

Prosecutors said the three suspects should be arrested quickly "to prevent them covering up ongoing crimes and committing new crimes."

Gadhafi's regime rejected the court's authority even before the decision was read, accusing the court of unfairly targeting Africans while ignoring what it called crimes committed by NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq "and in Libya now."

"The ICC has no legitimacy whatsoever ... all of its activities are directed at African leaders," Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters Sunday.

Rebels welcomed the court's action, but appeared divided about where Gadhafi should ultimately stand trial.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, head of the Benghazi Interim Council, said rebels would "welcome all assistance from the friendly countries" to help arrest the Libyan leader, and said: "We will hand Gadhafi to (the) ICC."

Mohammed al-Alaqi, justice minister in the Libyan rebel administration, picked up a copy of the warrant from the court, but suggested Gadhafi could be prosecuted in Libya "under the standards of this court."

He also hoped the warrants would persuade Gadhafi's forces to defect.

"Maybe this decision will make the military brigades change their minds, because Gadhafi and his son have no future at all," he said.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the court's decision highlighted the increasing isolation of the Gadhafi's regime.

"It reinforces the reason for NATO's mission, to protect the Libyan people from Gadhafi's forces," he said Monday, adding that the Libyan leader and his supporters need to realize that "time is rapidly running out for them."

NATO air forces have been conducting daily air strikes against military targets in Libya for the past 100 days — a bombing campaign that has drawn increasing international criticism.

In Tripoli, two loud explosions shook the area near Gadhafi's compound Monday, setting off a chorus of emergency sirens in the Libyan capital. Libyan officials said NATO fired two missiles targeting Gadhafi's personal bus, about 100 yards (meters) from the human shields the Libyan government keeps inside Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound.

Journalists were taken to see a heavily damaged, burnt-out bus inside the compound two hours after the strike. It didn't appear to have been struck recently, however, since it was cool to the touch. No one was reported killed in the strike, though officials said two people were slightly injured.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States began striking Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31 and is joined by a number of Arab allies.

European nations praised the warrants.

"Gadhafi is now a fugitive from international justice," British Prime Minister David Cameron told lawmakers in the House of Commons. "The pressure and the time is telling on Gadhafi, and we will not let up until the job is done."

In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said "after 41 years of dictatorship, it is perhaps time to stop, for him to leave power."

The Foreign Ministry of Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, said the warrants confirmed that Gadhafi had "lost all legitimacy, political and moral."

"As such, he can have no role to play in Libya's future," it said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, however, warned that military action alone won't solve the crisis in Libya, and said his nation backs attempts to reach a political solution there.

"Foreign troops may be able to win war in a place, but they can hardly win peace. Hard lessons have been learned from what has happened in the Middle East and Afghanistan," Wen told reporters Monday in London.

Wen said China has had recent contacts with both Gadhafi's regime and the main opposition leadership based in eastern Libya.

It's unclear how the arrest warrant could restrict Gadhafi's travels within Africa, since many African states are not ICC signatories and others have declined to act on an ICC arrest warrant for another African leader, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The Sudanese leader was on his way to China at Beijing's invitation when the warrant was announced for Gadhafi.

The African Union has said al-Bashir's arrest would dangerously imperil the fragile peace process in Sudan and had asked the U.N. to defer the warrant for one year. The AU's host country of Ethiopia is not an ICC member.

Gadhafi regularly attends AU summits. The AU will hold a summit later this week in Equatorial Guinea, which is also not an ICC member.

___

Adam Schreck in Tripoli, Libya contributed to this report

View the original article here

Cambodian court opens landmark K. Rouge trial (AFP)

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Four top Khmer Rouge leaders went on trial at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Monday for genocide and other atrocities during the hardline communist regime's reign of terror in the 1970s.

The case, described as the most complex since the Nazi trials after World War II, has been long awaited by victims of the totalitarian movement, which wiped out nearly a quarter of the population.

The four face charges including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes over the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork, torture or execution during the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 rule.

All four suspects deny the accusations, including the genocide charges, which relate specifically to the murders of Vietnamese people and ethnic Cham Muslims.

Nuon Chea, the right-hand man of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, left the hearing after only half an hour in protest at the handling of the investigation and legal proceedings.

"I am not happy with this hearing," said Nuon Chea, 84, before abruptly leaving the courtroom and returning to the detention facility. The defendants are allowed to be absent if they refuse to cooperate.

Former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith and her husband, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, were later excused on health grounds, leaving only one-time head of state Khieu Samphan in the dock.

The accused, all in their late 70s or 80s, suffer from varying ailments and there are fears that not all of them will live to see a verdict.

The complex proceedings, expected to take years, are seen as vital to healing the traumatised nation's deep scars.

"This trial is very important to find justice for those who died and for the survivors," said Khem Nareth, 56, who lost his mother and brother under the regime. "I want the court to jail the four leaders for life," he added.

The initial hearing is scheduled to last four days and will focus on expert and witness lists and preliminary legal objections.

A main topic of debate on Monday was whether Ieng Sary's 1979 death sentence in absentia for genocide, in what was widely regarded as a sham trial, constituted double jeopardy.

Defence lawyer Michael Karnavas said the accused "should not be tried twice for the same crimes."

But international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley argued the 1979 proceedings "did not even meet the most basic standards of a fair trial".

Hundreds of Cambodians travelled to the court for the first day of the latest trial. Parts of the proceedings were also broadcast on Cambodian television.

Full testimony from the suspects, held at a purpose-built detention centre since their 2007 arrests, will not take place until late August at the earliest.

The trial is the culmination of years of preparation by the tribunal, which was established in 2006 after nearly a decade of negotiations between Cambodia and the United Nations.

In its historic first trial, the tribunal sentenced former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav -- also known as Duch -- to 30 years in jail last July for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people.

The second case is more significant and complicated because it involves higher-ranking regime members who are refusing to cooperate, as well as many more victims and crime sites.

Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the movement emptied Cambodia's cities and abolished money and schools in a bid to create an agrarian utopia before they were ousted from the capital by Vietnamese forces.

View the original article here

Court overturns ban on video game sales to kids (AP)

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press – 6?mins?ago

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to let California clamp down on the sale or rental of violent video games to children, saying governments lack authority to "restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed" despite complaints that the popular and fast-changing technology allows the young to simulate acts of brutality.

On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento had ruled that the law violated minors' rights under the First Amendment, and the high court agreed.

"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm," said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion. "But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

Video game makers and sellers celebrated their victory, saying the decision puts them on the same legal footing as other forms of entertainment. "There now can be no argument whether video games are entitled to the same protection as books, movies, music, and other expressive entertainment," said Bo Andersen, president and CEO of the Entertainment Merchants Association.

More than 46 million American households have at least one video-game system, with the industry bringing in at least $18 billion in 2010. The video game industry has its own rating labeling system intended to warn parents, with the rating "M" placed on games that are considered to be especially violent.

But at least two justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, indicated they would be willing to reconsider his vote throwing out the law, taking issue with the sweep of the court's holding.

"I would not squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some to be a significant and developing social problem," Alito said, suggesting that a narrower state law might be upheld.

And an unlikely duo, conservative-leaning Clarence Thomas and liberal-leaning Stephen Breyer, agreed that the California video game ban should have been upheld, but for different reasons.

Breyer said the court's decision creates an insurmountable conflict in the First Amendment, especially considering that justices have upheld bans on the sale of pornography to children.

"What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?" Breyer said. "What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman — bound, gagged, tortured and killed — is also topless."

And Thomas said the majority read something into the First Amendment that isn't there.

"The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that "the freedom of speech," as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors' parents or guardians," Thomas wrote.

Leland Yee, a child psychologist and California state senator who wrote the video game ban, told The Associated Press Monday that he was reading the dissents in hope of finding a way to reintroduce the law in a way it would be constitutional.

"It's disappointing the court didn't understand just how violent these games are," Yee told The AP.

California's 2005 law would have prohibited anyone under 18 from buying or renting games that give players the option of "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." Parents would have been able to buy the games for their children, but retailers who sell directly to minors would have faced fines of up to $1,000 for each game sold.

That means that children would have needed an adult to get games like "Postal 2," the first-person shooter by developer Running With Scissors that features the ability to light unarmed bystanders on fire. It would also apply to the popular "Grand Theft Auto IV," a third-person shoot-'em-up from Rockstar Games that allows gamers to portray carjacking, gun-toting gangsters.

The California law never took effect. Lower courts have said the law violates minors' constitutional rights, and that California lacked enough evidence to prove that violent games cause physical and psychological harm to minors. Courts in six other states, including Michigan and Illinois, reached similar conclusions, striking down similar bans.

Unlike depictions of "sexual conduct," Scalia said, there is no tradition in the United States of restricting children's access to depictions of violence, pointing out the violence in the original depiction of many popular children's fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Snow White.

Hansel and Gretel kill their captor by baking her in an oven, Cinderella's evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves and the evil queen in Snow White is forced to wear red hot slippers and dance until she is dead, Scalia said.

"Certainly the books we give children to read — or read to them when they are younger — contain no shortage of gore," Scalia added.

And there is no definitive proof that violent video games cause harm to children, or any more harm than another other form of entertainment, he said.

One doctor "admits that the same effects have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner or when they play video games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are rated `E' or even when they `view a picture of a gun," Scalia said. "Of course, California has (wisely) declined to restrict Saturday morning cartoon, the sale of games rated for young children, or the distribution of pictures of guns."

The case is Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 08-1448.

___

Associated Press Writer Paul Elias contributed to this story.

View the original article here

International court issues arrest warrant for Gaddafi (Reuters)

THE HAGUE/TRIPOLI (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on Monday for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and rebels trying to oust him said their forces had advanced to within 80 km (50 miles) of the capital.

The court approved warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity. ICC prosecutors allege they were involved in the killing of civilian protesters who rose up in February against Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

"To prevent them covering up ongoing crimes and committing new crimes, they should be arrested. This is the only way to protect civilians in Libya," said ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who had sought the arrest warrants.

The ruling is unlikely to lead to Gaddafi's arrest as long he remains in power and inside Libya, because the court does not have the power to enforce its warrants.

Celebrations erupted in the rebel-held city of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, after the ICC ruling. People honked their car horns, waved flags, fired shots into the air and flashed victory signs in the street.

The ICC decision invalidated any notion of having negotiations with Gaddafi, insurgent officials said.

Gaddafi's government denies targeting civilians, saying it took action against armed criminal gangs and al Qaeda militants. It says NATO should be prosecuted instead for killing civilians with its bombing campaign.

Anti-Gaddafi rebels, based in the Western Mountains region southwest of Tripoli, made their biggest breakthrough in weeks to reach the town of Bir al-Ghanam, where they are now fighting pro-Gaddafi forces for control, their spokesman said.

The advance took them about 30 km (18 miles) north from their previous position and closer to Tripoli, Gaddafi's biggest power base.

A senior United Nations official said the war on the ground was started to shift in favor of the insurgents, who for weeks have been bogged down in battles with Gaddafi's forces.

"While we do not have a detailed understanding of the military situation on the ground, it is clear that the initiative, although halting, is now with the opposition forces, supported at times by NATO air power," the U.N. under secretary-general for political affairs, Lynn Pascoe, told the U.N. Security Council.

BLOODY REVOLT

The rebels -- backed by NATO air support -- have been battling Gaddafi's forces since late February, when thousands of people rebelled, prompting a fierce crackdown by Gaddafi's security forces.

The revolt has turned into the bloodiest of the Arab Spring revolts against autocratic rulers rippling across the Middle East.

"We are on the southern and western outskirts of Bir al-Ghanam," Juma Ibrahim, a rebel spokesman in the nearby town of Zintan, said by telephone.

"There were battles there most of yesterday. Some of our fighters were martyred and they (government forces) also suffered casualties and we captured equipment and vehicles. It's quiet there today and the rebels are still in their positions."

A Reuters reporter in the center of Tripoli heard at least two loud explosions on Monday coming from the direction of Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziyah compound, repeatedly targeted by NATO.

Later, government officials took reporters to the compound. They showed them a burned-out bus which, they said, belonged to Gaddafi and had been hit by two NATO missiles.

ISOLATION

Gaddafi is the second sitting head of state to have an ICC arrest warrant issued against him. The previous one was Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Securing arrests, however, has proven difficult for the ICC, which has no police force and relies on member states to enforce arrest orders. Some states have refused to arrest Bashir, who is still able to travel to friendly states.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the court's ruling reinforced the reasons for the alliance's bombing campaign and deepened Gaddafi's isolation.

"(Gaddafi) and his henchmen need to realize that time is rapidly running out for them," Rasmussen said in a statement.

"NATO is more determined than ever to keep up the pressure until all attacks on civilians have ended, until all regime forces have returned to their bases and until there is unhindered access to humanitarian aid."

Reading out the ruling at the court in The Hague, presiding judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng said Gaddafi has "absolute, ultimate and unquestioned control" over Libya's state apparatus and security forces.

She said both Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam "conceived and orchestrated a plan to deter and quell by all means the civilian demonstrations" against the regime and that al-Senussi used his position of command to have attacks carried out.

Gaddafi's administration made no immediate comment on the ICC ruling. Speaking on Sunday, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the court was guilty of double standards and was following a Western political agenda.

"The ICC has no legitimacy whatsoever," Ibrahim told reporters.

In Benghazi, in eastern Libya, the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) said the arrest warrants rendered any attempt at peace talks with Gaddafi pointless.

"After this warrant, it is all irrelevant. We cannot negotiate with war criminals," NTC spokesman Jalal al-Galal told Reuters. "The world has confirmed what we have been saying all along. He's a war criminal, and he should be tried for it."

"We are extremely happy that the whole world has united in prosecuting Gaddafi for the crimes he has committed," Galal said. "The people feel vindicated by such a response."

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the council chairman, urged Gaddafi's aides and supporters to abandon him, saying those who help him escape justice will end up sharing his punishment. "It is time to abandon Gaddafi to spare themselves," he added.

In neighboring Tunisia, three Libyan ministers, including the foreign minister, were holding talks with "foreign parties," the Tunisian state news agency reported, in a possible sign some in Gaddafi's circle were seeking a settlement.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Tarek Amara in Tunis, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Maria Golovnina in Benghazi, Sherine El Madany in Cairo, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations and David Brunnstrom in Brussels; writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Mark Heinrich)

View the original article here

Supreme Court strikes down California video game law (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government cannot ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors as this would violate free-speech rights, the Supreme Court said on Monday in its first ruling in a video game case.

By a 7-2 vote, the high court struck down a California law, which also imposed strict video game labeling requirements, as unconstitutional. It said video games, like books, plays and movies, deserve free-speech protection.

The ruling was a victory for video game publishers, distributors and sellers, including the Entertainment Software Association. Its members include Disney Interactive Studios, Electronic Arts, Microsoft Corp and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

The trade association hailed the ruling as a "historic and complete win" for free-speech rights and "the creative freedom of artists and storytellers everywhere."

"Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what we have always known -- that free speech protections apply every bit as much to video games as they do to other forms of creative expression like books, movies and music," said Michael Gallagher, the association's president.

The law, adopted in 2005, has never taken effect because of the legal challenge.

It defines a violent video game as one that depicts "killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." Retailers who sell or rent a violent video game to a minor could be fined as much as $1,000.

The U.S. video game industry makes about $10.5 billion in annual sales. More than two-thirds of U.S. households include at least one person who plays video games, according to industry statistics.

Six other states have adopted similar laws, and all had previously been struck down in court.

The Supreme Court's majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, said there was no tradition in the United States of restricting children's access to depictions of violence.

SCALIA CITES HOMER, GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES

He cited a number of books for children that depict violence.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just desserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers 'til she fell dead on the floor,'" Scalia said.

"In truth, the California Act is the latest in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors," he said in summarizing part of the ruling from the bench on the last day of the court's 2010-11 term.

"Before video games came cheap novels depicting crime ... motion pictures, comic books, television and music lyrics -- all of which were blamed by some for juvenile delinquency," he said.

The ruling marked the first time the Supreme Court has considered whether violent video games sold to children can be treated the same as sexually explicit material.

Scalia agreed with opponents of the law who said parents, not government, should decide what games their children can buy and play.

He rejected the argument by California lawmakers who cited several studies that suggested violent video games can be linked to aggressive and anti-social behavior in children.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer dissented, and Parents Television Council president Tim Winter denounced the decision.

"This ruling replaces the authority of parents with the economic interests of the video game industry," he said, adding: "Retailers can now openly, brazenly sell games with unspeakable violence and adult content even to the youngest of children."

But John Riccitello, CEO of Electronic Arts, a major video game publisher, said, "Everybody wins on this decision -- the court has affirmed the constitutional rights of game developers; adults keep the right to decide what's appropriate in their houses; and store owners can sell games without fear of criminal prosecution," he said.

The Supreme Court case is Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, No. 08-1448.

(Additional reporting by Liana Baker in New York and Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles; Editing by Will Dunham and Vicki Allen)

View the original article here

Warcrimes court issues Kadhafi arrest warrant (AFP)

THE HAGUE (AFP) – Judges at the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi for war crimes and crimes against humanity on Monday, the 100th day of a NATO bombing campaign.

Britain, which has led the UN-mandated international effort to protect civilians from Kadhafi's forces, hailed the court's decision and said members of the Libyan regime should now abandon him.

Italy said the decision of the three-judge court, set up in 2002 to try war crimes, confirmed that Kadhafi had lost all "moral legitimacy" and could have "no role in the future of his country."

And French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the warrant "confirms that the question is not whether Kadhafi should leave power, but when he will leave power."

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had sought the warrants for Kadhafi, 69, his son Seif al-Islam, 39, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, 62, for murder and persecution since mid-February, when the bloody uprising started.

All three are charged over their roles in suppressing the revolt, in which civilians were murdered and persecuted by Libyan forces, particularly in Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata, the prosecutor said.

Thousands have so far died in the fighting, while around 650,000 others fled the country. Another 243,000 Libyans have been displaced internally, according to UN figures.

Moreno-Ocampo said on Sunday that the war crimes in Libya will not stop until Kadhafi is arrested.

"Crimes continue today in Libya. To stop the crimes and protect civilians in Libya, Kadhafi must be arrested."

The prosecutor will give his response to the decision on Tuesday.

The only other warrant issued by the ICC for a sitting head of state, for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in March 2009, has yet to be served. Bashir was due to begin a state visit to China later Monday.

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "These individuals are accused of crimes against humanity and should be held to account before judges in a criminal court," he said, calling on the Libyan government to cooperate with the investigation.

"Individuals throughout the regime should abandon Kadhafi."

And NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said arrest warrant shows that time is running out for the increasingly isolated Libyan leader.

"This decision once again highlights the increasing isolation of the Kadhafi regime," he said in a statement.

"It reinforces the reason for NATO's mission to protect the Libyan people from Kadhafi's forces. Kadhafi and his henchmen need to realise that time is rapidly running out for them," he added.

The head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, meanwhile told a news conference in the rebel capital of Benghazi that "justice had been done," while rebel justice minister Mohammed Al-Allagy told reporters outside the ICC: "We are going to arrest them."

Al-Allagy said: "First arrest them, we will decide afterwards where to prosecute them."

In his submission, Moreno-Ocampo said Kadhafi had a personal hand in planning and implementing "a policy of widespread and systematic attacks against civilians and demonstrators and dissidents in particular."

"Kadhafi's plan expressly included the use of lethal force against demonstrators and dissidents," the submission said.

The Libyan strongman also ordered sniping at civilians leaving mosques after evening prayers. His forces carried out a systematic campaign of arrest and detention of alleged dissidents, it said.

"Kadhafi's plans were carried out through his inner circle, which included Seif al-Islam, Kadhafi's de-facto prime minister and his brother-in-law Al-Senussi, considered to be his right-hand man," the submission said.

Moreno-Ocampo's investigation follows a referral by the United Nations Security Council on the Libyan conflict on February 26. The prosecutor's office launched its investigation five days later. On May 16, Moreno-Ocampo asked the court for the warrants.

The ICC is the world's only permanent, treaty-based court set up to try those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide if the accused's own country cannot or will not do so.

NATO meanwhile said it was hitting around 50 targets a day and that its "Operation Unified Protector" was approaching its 5,000th strike sortie.

The air strikes appear to have helped the rebels launch an offensive of their own against Kadhafi's forces. However, only in Nafusa does the rebel army of ill-equipped irregulars and defectors appear to be making any sustained progress.

View the original article here