News

A shooting and drowning nearly three miles off the California coast sends the Ninth Circuit on a 200-year tour of federal maritime jurisdiction. The takeaway: Uncle Sam can prosecute…

The right to counsel means little if the lawyer appointed to defend someone against the federal government lacks the resources to do the job. A lawyer needs time to investigate, the means to challenge the government’s evidence, and the support necessary to give a client’s case the attention it…

Ever wonder if two decades-old DUIs can permanently cost someone the right to own a gun? Well, a Pennsylvania man who was convicted of two DUIs over 20 years ago and still can't own a firearm. Third Circuit (en banc): Wonder no more. Disarming him is unconstitutional. Concurrence: For this guy,…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a case addressing whether federal prisoners may appeal the denial of habeas relief when the legal issue they seek to raise is the subject of a circuit split...even when binding precedent in their own circuit forecloses their claim.

The case…

The botched execution in Tennessee of Christa Pike, who survived despite being subject to two doses of lethal injection on Wednesday, has reignited furious debate about the death penalty in the U.S.

Witnesses say Pike, who was strapped to a gurney, was administered a supposedly lethal dose…

The Federal Defender Program, Inc., for the Northern District of Georgia is moving to block the U.S. Marshals Service from moving pretrial detainees out of Atlanta, GA and into a detention facility in rural Irwin County, an approximate three hour drive from the United States District Courthouse…

It's beyond debate that officers cannot pull someone over without reasonable suspicion and then invent a bogus reason for the stop afterwards, says the Fifth Circuit. So this case about…

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, a first assistant U.S. Attorney automatically becomes interim U.S. Attorney if there's a vacancy. So can the AG name someone the first assistant to a vacant U.S. Attorney position and have them automatically elevated?…

And in en banc news, the Tenth Circuit will not reconsider its decision that the only woman on Oklahoma's death row received a fair trial (for conspiring with a paramour to kill her…

On July 28, 2026, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Cal. Pen. Code § 273.5 (corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant) is not a crime of violence. See …