Criminal Justice

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

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

DETROIT — Becoming a lawyer in Michigan after a felony conviction is challenging, but it’s not impossible. Tenisha Yancey did it, before she was elected to the state House, even though law school admissions officials warned that she probably wouldn’t... Read More

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clear the federal government to resume executions as soon as next week. The emergency filing on Monday urged the court to lift a hold that a trial judge... Read More

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Anne Arundel County Judge Laura Ripken has set a new date for the trial to determine whether the Capital Gazette shooter was sane at the time of the mass shooting, according to the Maryland Judiciary. Slated to... Read More

WASHINGTON — Roger Stone, the Republican political operative who famously predicted a dump of embarrassing documents on the Clinton campaign in 2016, got his first glimpse on Tuesday of the jurors who’ll decide whether he lied to a congressional committee... 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 - 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

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department announced Thursday that it will resume capital punishment for the first time in nearly two decades. In a written statement, the Department said Attorney General William Barr directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to adopt... Read More