Word: legality
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...most any episode of CSI will tell you, DNA testing is a staple of modern crime investigations. But only now is the U.S. Supreme Court wading into the murky legal terrain surrounding high-tech fingerprints in forensics. A sharply divided court ruled on June 18 that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing that could prove their innocence, deciding against an Alaska man convicted of rape and assault who sought a more sophisticated test of genetic material found at the crime scene. Four Justices supported the man, William Osborne, but the court's majority said the decision...
...Last week, concern burst into outrage. When the Justice Department filed a legal brief arguing against gay marriage, the head of Human Rights Campaign - the largest gay-rights group in the U.S. - accused the Administration of failing to recognize the "humanity" of homosexuals. Barney Frank called the White House to protest, and several other gay Democrats announced plans to boycott an upcoming fundraiser, forcing the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, Andrew Tobias, who is also gay, to write donors saying that he understood "all the hurt and anger...
...Justice Department briefs are due on June 29 for another legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act - this one filed by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders - and several legal groups will be watching to see if Justice rehashes the offensive arguments in its previous brief. Whatever happens, the gay and lesbian community has no intent to let off the pressure on Obama. "It's like any other intimate relationship," says Rabin, the lobbyist who works with Human Rights Campaign and other gay-rights groups. "It's close and warm and complicated, and you have really good days and really...
...political control like how they were expected to perform from the 1950s to the 1970s," says Albert Ho, a Hong Kong solicitor and chairman of China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group. "With the opening and liberalization of China, it needs to build a system of law and a sound legal system. The government and the governing party shall abide by the law. But they are very, very concerned that the law may cause an obstacle to the control of the people...
...Human-rights experts note that Gao, who was once named one of China's top 10 lawyers in 2001, also lost his legal license in 2005. They worry that the latest group of lawyers could be similarly ostracized and mistreated upon being disbarred. In that case, the authorities might lose as well. For all their work on cases that the Communist Party would rather have disappear, the lawyers are working within the system, rather than outside it. "These lawyers are not advocating a fundamental change to the political system. They are not asking the Communist Party to step down...