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June 17, 2025
The Texas attorney general's office has asked a state court to set an execution date for a man convicted based on a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, despite his case pending on appeal before the state's highest criminal court.
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June 16, 2025
A Connecticut trial court judge acted within his power to consider and then add three criminal contempt sentences to a murder convict's prison term after the defendant hurled a series of racial and profane attacks at the court when a habeas corpus hearing concluded, the state's highest court ruled Monday.
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June 16, 2025
The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, announced Monday that it had struck a new partnership with the Rand Corp. to launch a national task force working to develop standards and recommendations for the integration and oversight of artificial intelligence in the criminal justice system.
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June 13, 2025
Authorities say the increased use of electronic tablets in prisons and jails helps inmates communicate with family and access entertainment, but advocates warn that the tablets lead to less connection, more surveillance and greater profits for prison telecoms.
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June 13, 2025
To get around bans in North Carolina and many other states, debt relief companies set up facade law firms — companies that are law firms in name only, with a tiny number of lawyers nominally serving thousands of clients, consumer advocates and regulators say.
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June 13, 2025
A team of Mayer Brown LLP attorneys fought for decades to get the death sentence of a Houston man commuted to life in light of the inmate's intellectual disability, in a case that shows how legal standards have evolved in an area once known as "death county."
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June 12, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a prisoner may not add new claims to a habeas corpus petition once a final judgment is issued, cementing strict limits on repeat habeas filings prescribed by federal law.
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June 12, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a pro se inmate to appeal a suit alleging harsh treatment while behind bars, reversing the Fourth Circuit in an opinion that says civil litigants do not need to file a second notice of appeal if they filed prior to a court's decision to reopen the case.
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June 12, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled students claiming disability discrimination in public schools should not face a higher standard of proof than plaintiffs in other Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act lawsuits.
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June 11, 2025
A former executive director of Queens Defenders and her husband are charged with embezzling $60,000 from the organization and spending it on personal expenses including rent for a penthouse apartment, luxury goods, vacations and teeth-whitening procedures, prosecutors say in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York federal court.
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June 10, 2025
The U.S. Department of Justice said it "carefully and individually" reviewed thousands of public safety grants before canceling hundreds of the agreements earlier this year and urged a D.C. federal judge to toss a class action contesting the grant terminations.
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June 10, 2025
Hundreds of private attorneys in Massachusetts who are paid by the state to represent indigent defendants and others have stopped accepting new court-appointed cases over complaints about low pay, putting the system on what one veteran advocate called "the verge of imploding."
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June 10, 2025
The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center announced Tuesday that it will soon welcome back the founder and former director of its Supreme Court and appellate program to serve as the third executive director in its 40-year history.
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May 30, 2025
Local zoning and planning boards, usually unelected decision-making bodies, often operate with sweeping discretion that can provide cover for discrimination against religious communities. But backed by pro bono attorneys, religious groups are leaning on a 2000 federal law in their bid for court intervention.
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May 30, 2025
At the beginning of May, an Arizona state court judge permitted an artificial intelligence-generated victim impact statement of a deceased victim at a sentencing hearing, leaving some attorneys concerned about how admitting these types of videos might affect sentencing in other cases.
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May 30, 2025
A federal jury awarded $28 million to John Walker Jr., a man wrongfully convicted of murder nearly 50 years ago, after finding that prosecutors in Erie County, New York, systematically ignored criminal defendants' constitutional rights. The verdict hinged on the Monell doctrine, a hard-to-prove legal theory that allows civil rights plaintiffs to hold governments liable for constitutional violations stemming from official policy, custom, or widespread failure to supervise public officials.
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May 30, 2025
The gap between the need for civil legal services for Californians and the help that is actually available has grown over the past five years, as has the income level of those affected by that gap, according to a new study from the State Bar of California.
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May 22, 2025
Five nonprofit and community organizations whose grants were terminated by the U.S. Department of Justice have launched a class action in D.C. federal court challenging the department's "abrupt and unlawful" cancellation of $820 million in grant funding.
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May 16, 2025
The Ninth Circuit ruled Friday that two Oakland police officers violated the rights of innocent bystanders and are not entitled to qualified immunity following a high-speed pursuit that left one person dead and several others injured.
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May 15, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for a civil rights lawsuit against a Houston-area traffic officer who shot and killed a fleeing man, ruling that courts must weigh the full sequence of events — not just the instant a threat arises — when deciding if police used excessive force.
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May 15, 2025
People who were wrongfully detained too long by immigration authorities have three additional months to file claims under a $92.5 million settlement, one of the largest immigration-related civil rights deals in New York City history, according to an announcement Thursday by the law firm that won the deal.
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May 13, 2025
A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday stopped short of ordering a receiver to take control of Rikers Island in an effort to clamp down on incidents of excessive force against the jail population, instead opting for a "remediation manager" with more narrow powers to work in collaboration with city officials to reform the notorious jail complex.
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May 09, 2025
Prisoners returning from a farm detail are escorted by a prison guard mounted on a horse that had been broken by the prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
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May 09, 2025
Immigration detainees are bringing about a sea change in workers’ rights behind bars, chipping away at the assumption that people in civil detention or in prison fall outside the reach of minimum wage laws and protections against forced labor.
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May 09, 2025
Inmates battling wildfires are just the tip of the iceberg in a largely invisible workforce of more than 800,000 people who work for meager pay while incarcerated. Civil rights lawyers, advocates and some elected officials are pushing to change the legal framework that enables prison labor practices, which many trace back to American slavery and the 13th Amendment.