An ex-convict hid his criminal past to get work as a court-appointed sentencing consultant and bilked the city out of more than $60,000 with phony efforts to help dozens of poor defendants, authorities said Tuesday.Richard Gottfried, who last year...

Legal experts from 95 countries have devised a way of measuring how well leaders, officials and judges are meeting the basic principles of law and human rights.The “Rule of Law Index” _ unveiled Thursday at the World Justice Forum in Vienna _ is aimed...

Think twice before you sign up for an online service using a fake name or e-mail address. You could be committing a federal crime.Federal prosecutors turned to a novel interpretation of computer hacking law to indict a Missouri mother on charges...

The number of people who legally immigrated to the U.S. dropped 17 percent last year, largely because of administrative problems, according to a Homeland Security Department report.A total of 1.05 million people became legal permanent residents in 2007,...

Legal experts said Tuesday that the heart of the perjury case against Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick _ steamy text messages that seem to contradict his sworn denials of an affair with an aide _ might be less open-and-shut than many believe.Kilpatrick’s...

President Pervez Musharraf is running out of options. Legal complexities may save him in the short-term, but few expect him to hold on for long, raising fresh uncertainty over Pakistan’s support for the U.S.-led war with radical Islamic groups.The...

Mexican senators on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence.The Senate voted 71 to 25 in favor of the measure, after a clause that would have let...

Mexican lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence, after deleting a proposal to allow police to search homes without warrants.President Felipe Calderon...

Mexican lawmakers on Tuesday approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence, even as lawmakers deleted a proposal to allow police to search homes without a warrant.President Felipe...

Mexico’s lower house of Congress on Tuesday approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence, but lawmakers deleted a proposal to allow police to search homes without a warrant.In...