From Roger Fitch and our Friends Down Under

At Justinian.....

Federal death sentence for the Boston bomber - rarely used

The US has performed badly again in the UN's annual review of its human rights record, more here.

Al Jazeera has more.

The US imposition of the death penalty has been highlighted by the conviction of the "Boston bomber", who received the federal death sentence in Massachusetts, a state strongly opposed to the penalty, and one where it has not been imposed since 1947.  

The federal death penalty has been imposed just three times in 30 years, and there is some talk that capital punishment could finally be abolished in the US.

The UN has also issued its guidelines on habeas corpus, just in time for the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta.

It's a timely issue in the US, where the habeas action of Abu Zubaydah, the CIA's first (post-9/11) torture victim, has seen an extraordinary delay of nearly seven years in DC district court. 

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Years after his plea bargain (Fitch of October 2012), and following 13 years of gratuitous torment by successive American and Canadian governments, Omar Khadr has finally been bailed by an Alberta court, pending his appeal of fake war crime convictions at the Pentagon's dodgy Court of Military Commission Review.  

More here and here. 

Khadr's chances look good, as the DC Circuit has just issued its long-awaited decision in Al Bahlul, striking down "conspiracy" and other US-invented "war crimes" as offences triable by military commission. Steve Vladeck comments.  

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Government declassifications have led to more damaging revelations by Gitmo internees of their abuse, e.g. that of Majid Khan, the "High Value Detainee" presently awaiting a military commission sentence pursuant to a plea deal, and Shaker Aamer, the last British resident still held. 

Marty Lederman explains the significance of ending the gag orders against Gitmo internees talking about their mistreatment, now that the US Senate's Feinstein Report on the same torture has been released. 

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In the same week that the author of Boumediene, retired justice John Paul Stevens, called for reparations to some Guantanameros, the City of Chicago set-up a fund to pay the victims of past torture by the Chicago police.

US cities and towns pay out millions in civil damages and settlements every year for police negligence and misconduct, but Chicago's program will be the first systematic fund.

READ THE REST HERE.