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.
With warrant, Cleveland police searched a suspected drug dealer's house. Out on the street, an officer peers into the tinted windows of a car of a person found in the suspected dealer's home—but the car was not mentioned in the warrant—and sees what he suspects is a "bag of dope." Officers tow the car but don't get a warrant. Turns out it, indeed, was "dope." Man: the search of my car is unconstitutional because police need a warrant. Police: we don't need a warrant because drugs were in plain view and here's a video of officers peering into the car and the photo taken inside the car.
A heated debate played out at the Fourth Circuit on Wednesday over a Maryland defense attorney's bid to overturn his money laundering conviction connected to a drug-dealing client, with the chief judge accusing a federal prosecutor of potentially treading on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel (access full article).
In a 6 to 3 opinion written by Justice Thomas, the Court held that the First Circuit improperly vacated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence. See United States v. Tsarnaev, No. 20-443 (Mar. 4, 2022) (access opinion). Breyer dissents with an opinion joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor.
Nevada man's trial in March 2021 began with one of the jurors participating via Zoom for the first two days because of a possible Covid-19 infection. Man is convicted and appeals, asserting that the remote participation was akin to depriving him of his constitutional rights to a fair and impartial jury trial. Ninth Circuit: If you don't want jurors in your criminal trial to participate by Zoom, don't consent to their doing so.
In a White House press release issued today, President Biden announced that he is commuting the sentence of 37 of 40 individuals on federal death row. These clients will have their sentences reclassified from execution to life without the possibility of parole. President Biden's "actions today will prevent the next Administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice."