Cruz Varas (C V) , his wife and son (all Chilean nationals) had applied for political asylum but the National Immigration Board held that, from the information given, they had not invoked sufficiently strong reasons to be considered as refugees under national or international law and that they should be expelled. In an unsuccessful appeal …Read more

Jens Soering was a German national who came to the United States to study at the University of Virginia. While there, he became friends with Elizabeth Haysom, a Canadian national.  Haysom’s parents did not approve of Soering and Haysom’s relationship.  In March 1985 the couple made plans to kill Haysom’s parents.  They rented a car …Read more

This case considered the practice of “forced disappearances” by the Government of Honduras, which included secret surveillance, kidnapping and executions. The Court found as proved that “[d]uring the period 1981 to 1984, 100 to 150 persons disappeared in the Republic of Honduras, and many were never heard from again.” It recognized patterns in these disappearances …Read more

Angel Manfredo Velasquez Rodriguez (“AMVR”), a UNAH student, was arrested without warrant in Tegucigalpa on September 12, 1981. Eyewitnesses saw members of the National Investigation Directorate and G-2 (Intelligence) of the Armed Forces of Honduras apprehend and take AMVR to an unknown location. On September 9, 1981, the Government of Honduras recognized the jurisdiction of …Read more

Chief Bernard Ominayak (the “author”) was the leader and representative of the Lubicon Lake Band (the “Band”), a Cree Indian Band living in the Province of Alberta in Canada. He argued that the State party expropriated Lubicon land for commercial interest despite its recognition that the Band members had the right to continue their traditional …Read more

The applicant, a United Kingdom national who had previously been diagnosed with having a paranoid psychosis, claimed that the United Kingdom unlawfully deprived him of his liberty when authorities forcibly recalled him to a hospital for the criminally insane in which he had completed a prior sentence for a violent crime. At the time of …Read more

This case was an appeal by the State of Colorado (“Colorado”) and Colorado prison officials, challenging an order from the Colorado Federal District Court directing the State of Colorado to close the maximum security unit of the Colorado State Penitentiary at Canon City (“Old Max”). Inmate Fidel Ramos filed a complaint alleging that the conditions …Read more

The petitioner was charged with committing armed robbery and murder. The jury found the petitioner guilty of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder, and subsequently returned a sentence of death on each count, finding aggravating conditions present (that the murder offenses were committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission …Read more

The Court considered three cases together that involved individuals sentenced to death. One case involved a black man who was convicted of murdering a homeowner during an attempted burglary. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital after arrest and diagnosed as suffering from mild to moderate mental impairments with psychotic episodes, but was later found …Read more