The presence of Black men serving as active judges on the federal appellate courts has stalled in the past 10 years, even as President Joe Biden has prioritized demographic diversity in his judicial nominations and almost doubled the number of Black women on the circuit courts (access full article).
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 (access full article).
Prosecutor in plea negotiations: We agree to recommend a sentence at the bottom of the guideline range. Prosecutor to district court: We recommend a sentence at the bottom of the guideline range for this top-of-the-food-chain drug dealer who is worse than a murderer. District court: Top of the guideline range it is.
In 2021, FBI agents lied to a judge, got permission to raid safe-deposit boxes owned by people suspected of no crime, and then sent hundreds of forfeiture notices never saying what the box owners did wrong. Then they lost the contents of many of the boxes, including retirees' entire life savings. But don't take our word for it. Head over to The Los Angeles Times and see the FBI agents admit as much under oath.
In Erlinger v. United States, No. 23-370 (June 21, 2024), the Supreme Court held that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions for ACCA purposes.
In an 8 to 1 decision, the Supreme Court rejected a Second Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)’s prohibition against persons subject to a domestic violence restraining order possessing a firearm. See United States v. Rahimi, No. 22-915 (June 21, 2024).
In Smith v. Arizona, No. 22-889 (June 21, 2024), a unanimous Court held, when an expert conveys an absent analyst’s statements in support of the expert’s opinion, and the statements provide that support only if true, then the statements come into evidence for their truth, implicating the Sixth Amendments Confrontation Clause.
In the 6 to 3 opinion Snyder v. United States, No. 23-108 (June 26, 2024), the Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.
Starting in at least 2007, Oklahoma has allowed transgender people to obtain Oklahoma birth certificates with amended sex designations. In 2021, the governor issued an executive order directing the Department of Health to stop amending sex designations. Three transgender Oklahomans sue. Tenth Circuit: This is sex discrimination and thus might get heightened scrutiny, but it fails even rational-basis scrutiny.
Kerry Max Cook, 68, spent 20 years on death row for a 1977 murder. Now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has formally declared him innocent, citing stunning allegations of prosecutorial misconduct (access full article).