Legal News

Vamos a Ver! A Latin America Legal Round-Up

By Dan Slater

There are some fascinating legal stories today from our neighbors to the south. Let’s take a quick tour:

Brazil’s Legal Doogie Howser: Either 8-year-old Joao Victor Portellinha de Oliveira is really super-smart, or Brazil’s law school entrance exam needs to be tightened up a bit. Oliveira, a fifth-grader, passed the entrance exam and was admitted to the law school at Universidade Paulista. But the school turned him away from classes yesterday when he showed up with his father. The reason? Oliveira must first graduate high school. “My dream is to be a federal judge,” Oliveira reportedly said. “So I decided to take the test to see how I would do. . . . It was easy. I studied a week before the test.” Here’s the AP story.

Public Trials Come to Mexico: Sweeping judicial reform was approved in the Mexican senate yesterday. A bill introducing public, oral trials and a guarantee of the presumption of innocence was approved 71 to 25, though 17 of Mexico’s 31 states must still approve. If passed, closed-door proceedings in which judges rely on written evidence would be replaced with U.S.-style open trials based on arguments presented by prosecutors and defense lawyers. Here’s the story from the NYT.

Lord of War Captured: Russian businessman Viktor Bout (pictured) — a major supplier of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerilla group — was nabbed by Thai police yesterday in a U.S. sting operation led by the DEA.
Bout, 41, said to be the model for Nicholas Cage’s character in the film “Lord of War,” was reportedly arrested on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, according to court documents unsealed by prosecutors in New York’s Southern District. Click here for the WSJ story, here for the NYT story and here for the criminal complaint. Click here for a 2007 Men’s Vogue feature about the pursuit of Bout (pronounced “Boot”).

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 07, 2008 (boomark / email).