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Posted: February 4th, 2012, 10:55pm MSK
[JURIST] Bruce MacDonald, the senior Pentagon official overseeing war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo [JURIST backgrounder], on Friday denied a request to extend the filing deadline for pre-trial motions [JURIST report] for prisoners accused of planning the 9/11 attacks [JURIST backgrounder]. The prisoners' lawyers stated that they needed the extension because of delays in getting security clearance [AP report] and new restrictions on legal mail between the attorneys and their clients. The prisoners' arraignment is set to occur within months. In January, Chief Defense Counsel for Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, Colonel JP Colwell, ordered attorneys under his command not to comply...
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Posted: February 4th, 2012, 10:06pm MSK
[JURIST] The federal government on Friday requested additional time for oral argument [brief, PDF] before the US Supreme Court to argue that the minimum coverage provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [HR 3590; JURIST backgrounder], which requires almost every US citizen to obtain health insurance by 2014 or face a tax penalty, is constitutional. The government requested an additional 30 minutes, which would bring the total time allotted for oral argument to six hours. The government is defending [JURIST report] the health care minimum coverage requirement by attempting to keep the focus of the argument on...
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Posted: February 4th, 2012, 5:43pm MSK
[JURIST] US Army [official website] commander Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington [official profile] referred Pfc. Bradley Manning [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] to a general court-marital Friday on all charges for allegedly releasing classified information to WikiLeaks [website; JURIST news archive]. The referral to a court-martial means Manning will now stand trial [AP report] on 22 counts brought against him for his alleged disclosure of over 700,000 confidential documents and videos to the Wikileaks website. It was the largest leak of classified information in US history. Manning's defense lawyers argue he should have never been sent to Iraq nor given access...