Appeals

With no fanfare, Sandra Hemme, the Missouri woman who spent 43 years in prison for a murder she did not commit, is finally free of the legal system (access full article).

President Biden has appointed more than 62 Black judges, including 40 Black women, who are now serving lifetime appointments on the federal bench.

Today, the U.S. Senate confirmed Tiffany Rene Johnson to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, making her the 40th Black woman confirmed (access full article).

Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as first Black woman and 116th Supreme Court justice on Thursday, June 30, 2022 (access previous coverage).

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday,  June 30, 2022, became the U.S. Supreme Court's newest justice, a historic move that makes her the first Black woman to serve on the high court in its 232-year history (access Supreme Court press release).

President Biden on Thursday announced he is commuting the prison sentences for nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others in what the White House said was the largest act of clemency in a single day in modern presidential history.

The 1,500 people had been serving long prison sentences that would have been shorter under today's laws and practices. They had been on home confinement since the COVID pandemic.

The pardons went to people who had been convicted of nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses, who the White House said had "turned their lives around."

Pope Francis appealed on Sunday for U.S. authorities to commute the sentences of death row prisoners, in an unusual request during his weekly Sunday prayer in St. Peter's Square (access full article).

A coalition of District Attorneys, Attorneys General, law enforcement officials, former judges, U.S. Attorneys and other criminal justice leaders, submitted a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to commute the sentences of all individuals currently on federal death row (access full article).

A U.S. federal judicial panel has endorsed giving public defender programs greater organizational independence within the federal judiciary, a structural shift that would grant lawyers for indigent defendants greater control over their budgets, staffing and policies (access full article).

U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), the Senate’s only former federal public defender, joined U.S.

The US Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on an important free speech question: What test should courts use to determine whether statements are “true threats” that are not protected by the First Amendment? The answer should inform courts what prosecutors must show to prove that a defendant intended to make threatening statements.