News

After several months of anticipation, a Pennsylvania House committee on Tuesday cleared two bills regarding the commonwealth’s death penalty – one that would tighten the standard for its use and another that would eliminate it entirely (…

President Joe Biden has selected every one of the seven active judges in the Western District of Washington, the only court where he’s had a chance to do so (access full article…

Ruth E. Friedman, Director of the Federal Capital Habeas (or “§ 2255”) Project since its inception in 2006, was surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues yesterday evening as she was honored with the prestigious…

Rene Valladares, the Federal Public Defender for the District of Nevada and the acclaimed author of A Defender’s Guide to Federal Evidence, was surrounded by…

An upstate New York judge who pointed a loaded handgun at a Black man during a 2015 court hearing was removed from office Thursday by the state’s highest court (access full article).…

A Kentucky lawyer hopes to call attention to the plight of his client and others waiting for long-delayed competency exams by living in jail with his client (…

During a nighttime protest in the wake of George Floyd's murder, Des Moines, Iowa police officer tackles, pepper-sprays a news photographer and arrests him for "failure to disperse." Charges dropped, the photographer sues. Eighth…

Hundreds of employees within the federal public defender system could be laid off under funding levels proposed by the House and Senate, according to judiciary officials who say the system has imposed a hiring freeze as uncertainty looms over the appropriation figure (…

Twenty-three Democratic U.S. senators on Friday urged congressional appropriators to increase spending on federal public defenders beyond what is proposed in pending spending legislation or risk significant job cuts (…

Seventh Circuit pro tip to the defense bar: If your client is facing fifty years for cocaine possession, you really should…