Crime

RICHMOND, Va, - Virginia’s General Assembly passed a jury sentencing reform bill this week that is revolutionary for the state but is already being done nearly everywhere else. The bill allows juries to decide whether a criminal defendant is guilty... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers and witnesses at a congressional hearing Tuesday urged greater vigilance of police departments to weed out officers with White supremacist tendencies. They said the White supremacists create a risk of inflaming racial tensions in a way that... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A congressional resolution that started Monday as a condemnation of hate crimes against Asians quickly turned into a dispute over who should be blamed for the devastation caused by coronavirus. Democrats blamed President Donald Trump for mishandling the... Read More

Rep. Josh Gottheimer wants to hold social media platforms accountable when terrorist organizations use their website portals to raise funds and spread propaganda. A proposal by the New Jersey Democrat, the Online Arsenal to Combat Foreign Terrorist Organizations, would fine... Read More

NEW YORK (AP) — Former White House adviser Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday on charges that he and three others ripped off donors to an online fundraising scheme “We Build The Wall.” The charges were contained in an indictment unsealed... Read More

WASHINGTON - A federal judge’s recent ruling gave prosecutors nationwide a new tool for pursuing money launderers by redefining bitcoin as a form of currency. The ruling was based on the prosecution of a man who tried to evade criminal... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Scammers who cheat desperate consumers out of money during the coronavirus pandemic prompted calls for federal legislation to crack down on them during a Senate hearing Tuesday. The proposals would set new standards for data privacy, penalize price-gougers... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a large part of eastern Oklahoma belongs to Native American tribes - a significant victory for a reservation that challenged the state's authority to prosecute crimes on its land. Writing for the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal law enforcement officials pledged a vigorous crackdown Tuesday during a Senate hearing on fraudsters who are trying to make easy money off vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic. They accused con artists of selling fake vaccines and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can prevent criminal defendants from pleading insanity without violating their constitutional rights. The justices' 6-3 decision came in the case Kahler v. Kansas. As recounted in the decision, James Kraig Kahler... Read More

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — One week after a Florida Senate panel failed to take up a measure to prohibit the arrests of children under 10 in most cases, the full Senate voted Wednesday to approve a compromise version of a bill... Read More

The House, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, passed legislation that would classify lynching as a federal hate crime. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., passed on a vote of 410-4. The Act is named for... Read More

WASHINGTON - National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien told a gathering of world ambassadors this week that China has engaged in a "massive theft" of Intellectual property from the U.S., complicating diplomatic relations and making events like the recent trade dispute... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Drug control experts urged Congress Tuesday to take quick action to prevent drugs created by clandestine chemists that mimic the effects of opioids from entering legal and illegal marketplaces. They suggested that Congress turn a temporary order on... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan quartet of House members is urging national security officials to start an investigation into whether foreign adversaries are engaging in an effort to incite anti-Semitism and civil unrest across the United States. Democratic Reps. Kathleen Rice,... Read More

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death Monday for the killing of Washington Post columnist and royal family critic Jamal Khashoggi, whose grisly slaying in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul drew international... Read More

Ohio's Secretary of State on Wednesday referred the names of 18 voters to prosecutors for allegedly casting multiple votes in the 2018 mid-term election. Secretary Frank LaRose said the voters were identified through the Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition... Read More

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., proposed legislation Tuesday to stop Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from advancing rules that critics say could hurt efforts to fight sexual harassment and assaults on college campuses. Slotkin is one of several members... Read More

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Authorities said the shooting at Saugus High School that left two students dead and three wounded Thursday occurred over a 16-second period in which a classmate pulled out a gun in the quad area and opened... Read More

Hate crimes targeting people in 2018 surged to their highest levels in 16 years despite a slight overall dip in the number of hate crimes, the FBI said in a report released Tuesday. The FBI’s tally, which used data submitted... Read More

MINNEAPOLIS — Barton Scott found the girl on Snapchat. He pretended to be her friend and persuaded her to give up her password. Then Scott took what he really wanted: the photos marked “My Eyes Only.” Scott, in his mid-30s... Read More

PHILADELPHIA — In 2015, Byron Wolfe helped a Pennsylvania State Police detective enhance 24-year-old photographs. The work took two hours, and Wolfe promptly forgot about the case, chalking it up as a simple favor, he recalled recently in his office... Read More

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Samuel Little, a 79-year-old man with a penchant for storytelling and drawing chalk pastel portraits in his California prison cell, was recently labeled by the FBI as the United States’ most prolific serial killer. Over the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Do a pair of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court require the resentencing of Lee Boyd Malvo, the surviving assailant in the D.C. sniper case? That's the question the justices will consider when it convenes Wednesday to hear... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court this week took up a question it has avoided in recent years: Whether the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution requires unanimous verdicts in criminal cases in both federal and state courts. In practice, the Bill... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., has introduced a bipartisan, bicameral bill to deter narcotics traffickers from using illicit pill presses to manufacture counterfeit drugs. Spanberger, a member of the bipartisan Freshman Working Group on Addiction, said as the opioid... Read More

WASHINGTON - When it comes to opposition talking points, the myth that Democrats advocate for "open borders" is both the most preposterous -- and persistent -- assertion of the still-young 2020 campaign season. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors accused a high-powered Washington, D.C. lawyer in court this week of engaging in illegal foreign lobbying by helping to craft a report critical of the Ukraine’s former prime minister. Gregory Craig, White House counsel during the... Read More

The apparent suicide of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has not only derailed the pursuit of justice for his alleged victims, it also highlighted a slew of problems within America’s federal prison system.  In the aftermath of Epstein’s death on... Read More

WASHINGTON - In the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, the Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats announced its endorsement Tuesday of H.R. 1931, Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019, a bill aimed at... Read More