News

Federal defenders from across the nation have argued at least one case every term except for one since at least 2000, according to Adler. Most often, it’s their first and only time in front of the justices (…

In 1963, the Supreme Court decided in Gideon v. Wainwright that, for criminal cases to be fair, defense lawyers are “necessities, not luxuries.” States must ensure that people who cannot afford defense lawyers are provided with them at government expense.

In collaboration with the U.S.…

Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf of the Eastern District of New York will soon be stepping down from the bench and as the head of the federal judiciary's governing body, according to a Monday announcement from the nation's chief justice (…

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Erlinger v. United States, No. 23-370, to decide “whether the Constitution requires a jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt to find that a defendant’s prior convictions were ‘committed on occasions different from one another,’ as is…

Leilani V. Lujan has been selected as the next federal public defender for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands (access announcement).  

Lujan began her four-year term Nov. 17,…

The Supreme Court on Monday morning granted cert in Erlinger v. United States, where the justices will return to a familiar statute: the Armed Career Criminal Act, which imposes an enhanced sentence for unlawful…

President Joe Biden will announce his intention Wednesday to nominate an attorney whose Senate confirmation would make him the first Muslim American judge to serve on a federal appeals court (…

The Senate passed a continuing resolution, or "CR," that would fund the government through early next year. The vote came late tonight, just a day after it passed the House (…

The U.S. Army is overturning the convictions of 110 Black soldiers — 19 of whom were executed — for a mutiny at a Houston military camp a century ago, an effort to atone for imposing harsh punishments linked to Jim Crow-era racism (…

Today the U.S. Sentencing Commission published the 2023 Demographic Differences in Federal Sentencing Report. The report updated research on…