Month: March 2014

By Steve Barnes LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday struck down an Arkansas law that would ban most abortions starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy, one of the most restrictive such statutes enacted in the United States, declaring the measure unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that the law “impermissibly infringes a woman’s Fourteenth Amendment right to elect to terminate a pregnancy before viability” of the fetus, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Webber had previously barred enforcement of the measure while she reviewed a legal challenge to it brought by two Arkansas abortion providers. As enacted, the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act would have banned most abortions at or after 12 weeks of pregnancy, if a fetal heartbeat could be detected by standard ultrasound.

By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) – A Colorado judge overseeing the mass murder case against a gunman charged with killing 12 people in a suburban Denver movie theater has rejected several defense challenges to the state's death penalty laws and abruptly canceled hearings on the issue. The series of written opinions issued on Friday by Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos Samour represented a setback and rebuke to efforts by the defense to shield James Holmes from the possibility of execution, if he is convicted. Denying several defense motions seeking to challenge Colorado's capital punishment and sentencing laws, Samour said most of the issues raised by Holmes' lawyer were "frivolous" and had already been litigated and resolved. "To the extent the defendant wishes to change the current state of the law in Colorado, his arguments should be directed to the legislature or the Colorado Supreme Court," Samour wrote.

Peru’s jailed former president, Alberto Fujimori, was hospitalized and in stable condition on Friday after suffering a small stroke, doctors said. Fujimori, 75, was conscious and talking on Friday afternoon following a stroke in his jail cell in the morning, said Dr Juan Barreto, with the Clinica La Luz in Lima. “He is a little bit delicate.” Fujimori started to have problems with blood flow to his brain four days ago, and a magnetic resonance imaging scan confirmed he had a stroke on Friday that impaired movement of his left arm, said Jose Luis Ore, the medical director of the clinic. “He won’t be released today and probably not tomorrow.” Fujimori, who has been imprisoned since 2007 on charges of human rights abuses and corruption committed during his 1990-2000 term, often coordinates with members of his political party from his jail cell and criticizes President Ollanta Humala via Twitter and Facebook.