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This year is turning out to be another remarkable year for new record relief enactments. In just the first six months of 2021, 25 states enacted no fewer than 51 laws authorizing sealing or expungement of criminal records, with another 5 states enrolling 11 bills that await a governor’s…

On July 2, 1908, LDF founder and first Director-Counsel, and the first Black Supreme Court Justice…

Attorney General Merrick Garland has imposed a moratorium on scheduling federal executions, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday (access press…

Attorney General Merrick Garland has imposed a moratorium on scheduling federal executions, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday (access full…

Following former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's conviction for the murder of George Floyd, a Minnesota judge sentenced Derek Chauvin to 22 1/2 years (270 months) in prison Friday — a punishment that exceeds the state…

The Senate on Monday voted to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the influential federal appeals court in Washington DC (access full article).

Jackson, a federal…

The Senate on Thursday confirmed the first-ever Muslim to serve on the federal bench, approving the nomination of Zahid N. Quraishi to a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (…

The “safety valve” sentencing provision in  18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) allows a district court to sentence a defendant below the mandatory-minimum sentence for certain drug offenses if the defendant can show he or she doesn’t have all three conviction categories, together, that are listed in the…

A judge found that a federal prosecutor in Kansas with a history of questionable conduct committed misconduct in a drug case, prompting a sharp reduction in the defendant's sentence (article available…

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced five of President Joe Biden’s first judicial nominees Thursday, including Ketanji Brown Jackson for the powerful D.C. Circuit, bringing them one step closer to confirmation (…