This paper analyzes the understanding of the Brazilian Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States about press freedom. The research aims to compare the position of the Courts about this fundamental right. Using the comparative method, it analyzes the arguments used by the courts in trials which had press freedom as its object. The paper also presents a literature review of the Bra...

1 MBritain and the United States began in the late 19th century. Legislation was periodically proposed only to be defeated until, in 1942, Switzerland decriminalised assistance in suicide for cases when there were no “selfish motives”. In 2002, euthanasia was legalised in the Netherlands and Belgium, then in Luxembourg in 2009, and most recently, in 2015 in Colombia and in 2016 in Canada. PAS, ...

Amicus curiae briefs are deeply woven into the fabric of modern federal appellate practice. Indeed, amici curiae submit briefs in approximately ninety percent of the cases that the United States Supreme Court entertains, and the Justices deny a minuscule number of amicus requests to participate. Amicus practice is less ubiquitous in the United States Courts of Appeals. Amici seek to file compar...

handed down its 6-3 decision against Angel Raich and Diane Monson.1 The Court ruled that the federal government can prohibit even intrastate and noncommercial marijuana possession and cultivation under the rubric of “interstate commerce.” In the prior Supreme Court ruling, United States vs. the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative,2 the Court ruled that “medical necessity” is not a legal defens...

Since the United States Supreme Court ruling in 2002 on the Atkins v. Virginia case, which determined that executing an individual with mental retardation violates the Eighth Amendment, the potential motivation to malinger mental retardation by individuals charged in potential death penalty cases has emerged. The following case illustrates some of the challenges that emerge in such an evaluatio...

state’s highest court, the South Carolina Supreme Court in late 1997 upheld the criminal conviction of a woman charged with child abuse for using crack cocaine during her pregnancy. Finding that a viable fetus is a “child” under the state’s child abuse law, the court ruled that “maternal acts endangering or likely to endanger the life, comfort, or health of a viable fetus” could constitute chil...