Rachel Browning’s Legal Blog

As a history buff and indie-rock fan, I recently listened with great intrigue to a segment of NPR’s All Things Considered (yes, I’m also a nerd), in which the show featured three singer-songwriters who have compiled a set of 42 songs in honor of our 43 past presidents.  The collection, entitled Of Great and Mortal [...]

[Read more →]

 
            The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently completed a multi-year revamping of its naturalization test. Passing the naturalization test is one of several requirements an individual must fulfill in order to become a naturalized citizen.  The revised test has a stronger emphasis on the fundamental concepts of American democracy and is meant [...]

[Read more →]

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court (5-4) denied a motion for a stay of execution requested by Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen on death-row in Texas for the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston.  Medellin’s request for a stay was based on a last ditch hope that either the U.S. [...]

[Read more →]

Today, a U.S. military tribunal established by Congress through the Military Commissions Act (MCA), convicted Salim Hamdan of five of the ten charges brought against him by the U.S. government:  those involving his alleged “Material Support for Terrorism,” an offense Congress declared to be a war crime in the MCA.   Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former [...]

[Read more →]

There has been much discussion over the past several years of certain Supreme Court Justices references to international law in their decisions and whether or not such practice is justifiable, legal or even necessary when interpreting the U.S. Constitution.  This week the high court handed down several important decisions, and international law was invoked, but [...]

[Read more →]