Criminal Justice

WASHINGTON — States must accommodate the wishes of death row inmates who ask to have a priest or other representative of their faith pray aloud and even comfort them with a touch during their executions, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.... Read More

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina has given the greenlight to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state's inability to procure lethal injection drugs.... Read More

WASHINGTON — A Texas oil rig worker on Tuesday became the first criminal defendant from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol to be convicted by a jury. Guy Reffitt, 49, was convicted in U.S. District Court in... Read More

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court on Friday reinstated the death sentence of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reversing a lower court ruling that held the trial court erred in seating jurors who had not been asked about their... Read More

WASHINGTON — Jury selection got off to a rough start Monday in Washington, D.C., for the trial of accused Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionist Guy Reffitt as attorneys ran into difficulties finding objective jurors. All the prospective jurors knew about the... Read More

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — The three men convicted of the murder in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty Tuesday morning of federal hate crimes and lesser civil rights charges. In addition the jury also found father and son... Read More

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — They chased and killed a running Black man who was unarmed and committed no crimes, leaving a trail of racist text messages and social media posts in the months and years before the shooting. Whether the... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four years after 17 people were gunned down at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, President Joe Biden says his administration stands with the advocates working to end gun violence and is urging the nation to uphold the... Read More

WASHINGTON – The District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service is suing the Federal Bureau of Prisons in a class action lawsuit that could alter how prisoners are handled nationwide. The Public Defender Service argues District of Columbia prisoners are being... Read More

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The son and father convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery have reached a plea agreement that could avoid their trial on federal hate crime charges. Arbery's parents denounced the deal as a betrayal, and called on the judge to... Read More

WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland held a virtual discussion with a bipartisan group of election officials on Wednesday, providing them with an update on the threats that have been investigated and addressed in the past several weeks. Among... Read More

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A jury of 18 people who appeared mostly white was picked Thursday for the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd’s killing, a case that the judge told potential jurors has “absolutely nothing”... Read More

WASHINGTON — A New York trial court violated a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment rights when it allowed, over his objection, for the reading of a plea transcript of an unavailable witness to be admitted and read aloud in the courtroom.... Read More

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of four inmates at an Arkansas jail who were unknowingly administered ivermectin to treat their cases of COVID-19. The plaintiffs in the case allege... Read More

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A judge in Georgia sentenced the three men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery to life in prison on Friday, giving two of them sentences that included no possibility of parole. Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael... Read More

WASHINGTON — The fiasco of international politics created by the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, drew calls to close it down from some lawmakers Tuesday at a Senate hearing. They described the detention facility that has held suspected... Read More

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — All three defendants have been found guilty of murder in the fatal shooting of jogger Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020. The reckoning came shortly after 2 p.m. Wednesday after about 10 hours of deliberations. It followed a... Read More

WASHINGTON — A jury on Friday found Kyle Rittenhouse, the Wisconsin teenger who fatally shot two protesters and wounded a third, not guilty of murder and other felony charges. The shootings occurred last summer during demonstrations in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in... Read More

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday re-established a Justice Department office intended to expand legal services to people who can’t afford layers. The Office for Access to Justice was originally launched during the Obama administration to address what... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at a Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he... Read More

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The Department of Justice’s Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement in tandem with the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation on Tuesday announced the culmination of the agencies’ efforts to disrupt opioid trafficking on the... Read More

WASHINGTON -- On April 15, 2013, two Chechen-American brothers planted a pair of homemade pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. At approximately 2:49 p.m. that Monday afternoon, the bombs detonated 14 seconds apart, killing three... Read More

MIAMI, Fla. - Three individuals and two companies have been permanently enjoined from operating an international mail fraud scheme offering unwary consumers psychic, clairvoyant or astrological services, the Justice Department said on Friday. Robert Lhez, Mireille Dayer and Julie Poulleau,... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A former Georgetown University tennis coach plans to plead guilty to participating in the college admissions cheating scandal known as Varsity Blues.  Gordon Ernst is admitting to accepting about $2.7 million in bribes to help children of wealthy... Read More

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Four former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights  are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Tuesday at a hearing that could also address some pretrial motions. A federal grand jury indicted Derek... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A 44-year-old California man was arrested early Monday morning near the Democratic National Committee headquarters after U.S. Capitol Police discovered he had multiple knives and a machete in his truck. “This is good police work plain and simple,”... Read More

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Tony Evers granted 71 pardons Tuesday, putting him on pace to pardon more people in his first term than any governor in contemporary history. In all, Evers has pardoned 263 former inmates, since his pardon advisory... Read More

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- The Arizona man who wore a fur hat with horns and decorative body paint as he joined the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 pleaded guilty Friday to a felony charge and could serve... Read More

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld Dylann Roof's conviction and death sentence for the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation, saying the legal record cannot even capture the "full horror"... Read More

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A group of more than 100 former and current prosecutors and law enforcement officials is calling on President Joe Biden to prioritize criminal justice reform and make good on his campaign promise to form a task force... Read More