U.S. Courts News Reporter
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The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a plea from Missouri to block New York from imposing a gag order and sentencing former President Donald Trump in his criminal proceedings there until after the 2024 elections.
After a six-week trial, Trump was convicted in May in a New York state court on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors contended that Trump sought to hide a $ 130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, … Read the rest
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The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.
The Supreme Court cleared out quite a bit of its backlog of relisted cases at last week’s conference. For starters, it granted review in City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, concerning how specific Clean Water Act pollutant discharge permits have to be. But the court denied review in … Read the rest
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Justice Elena Kagan’s opinion for a sharply divided court in Pulsifer v. United States resolves an ambiguity in the provisions added to federal sentencing law in the First Step Act of 2018, coming down firmly on the side of the government. The problem involves how to read a “safety valve” in federal criminal sentencing laws, which allows defendants to avoid the often lengthy mandatory minimum sentences scattered throughout the federal criminal code. The safety valve requires the defendant to … Read the rest
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People given consecutive sentences under the federal law that imposes penalties for the use of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence or drug trafficking may now be entitled to a new sentencing hearing, thanks to the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling Friday in Lora v. United States. The justices ruled that federal criminal sentencing laws do not require Efrain Lora, who was convicted for his role in a drug-trafficking-related murder, to receive multiple consecutive, rather than concurrent, … Read the rest
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The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.
In criminal trials, the Constitution places various limits on what information judges and juries may consider. This week, we highlight cert petitions that ask the court to decide, among other things, whether a jury may take into account a defendant’s courtroom demeanor and whether a judge may partially base a … Read the rest
About five percent of federal supervision cases closed in 2021 resulted in people being sent back to federal prison because of revocations resulting solely from technical violations.
Judiciary News – United States Courts… Read the rest