Judiciary News

Judges engaged the public in real-life civics lessons at Constitution Day celebrations on college campuses, at readings of the founding document on courthouse steps, during naturalization ceremonies at presidential homes, and in recitations of the preamble.

The Judicial Conference today approved changes to the Judiciary's Model Employment Dispute Resolution (EDR) Plan to cover interns and externs and to extend the time for initiating EDR complaints from 30 to 180 days. The Conference’s Judicial Resources Committee will consider further changes to the model plan at its next meeting. The Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts also reported on the recruitment of a Judicial Integrity Officer in the Administrative Office and the expansion of judicial, staff, and law clerk orientations and education dealing with workplace harassment.

Federal courthouses in New Bern and Wilmington, North Carolina, remain closed due to Hurricane Florence. 

A cross section of high school journalists shared their reflections on the aspirations expressed in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, putting into a modern context such phrases as “We the People …”  and  “a more perfect Union….” 

Four new Supreme Court Fellows are set to begin their 2018-2019 fellowships in September.

Consumers filing for bankruptcy in 2017 reported aggregated assets of $80 billion and aggregated total liabilities of $105 billion, according to an annual report filed by the Judiciary with Congress.

Federal probation officers have always tried to bring about positive life change in the lives of people under supervision, whether it’s helping them get a job, get into drug treatment, or even acquire better decision-making skills. In today’s technology-driven world, officers are also employing increasingly sophisticated research and data analysis tools in their supervision plans.

Civility is a critical factor in making difficult decisions in the law and in life.  That is the conclusion that can be drawn from a new video that captures the insights of federal judges who have several lifetimes of experience dealing with contentious, high-stakes issues in their courtrooms.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., announced that the Board of the Federal Judicial Center has selected Deputy Director John S. Cooke to be the eleventh director of the Federal Judicial Center.

Bankruptcy filings fell 2.6 percent for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2018, compared with the year ending June 30, 2017, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

While overall civil rights cases have declined, cases brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) have increased three-fold in recent years. Filings in three states – California, Florida, and New York – account for a significant number of the civil rights cases filed under the ADA. You can find out more in this new installment of Just the Facts.

Federal courts reported a 30 percent increase in authorized wiretaps in 2017, compared to 2016, and state courts reported an 11 percent rise, according to a newly released Judiciary report. 

A robotic arm gestures across a tablet screen, using sophisticated software to try to crack a geometric passcode. Drones and flash drives lie dissected on a workbench, while a state-of-the-art computer scans a hard drive. This isn’t the CSI Crime Lab, it’s the Eastern District of Missouri’s National Forensic Laboratory.

“The lack of additional judgeships, combined with the growth in caseload, has created difficulties for many courts across the nation,” Chief Judge Lawrence Stengel told a House subcommittee today. “It has reached urgent levels in five districts that are struggling with extraordinarily high and sustained workload,” he said in prepared testimony. The courts are the: Eastern District of California, District of Delaware, Southern District of Florida, Southern District of Indiana, and Western District of Texas.

The Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working Group, a group of federal judges and senior Judiciary officials formed at the request of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., issued a report recommending measures to improve workplace conduct policies and procedures in the federal Judiciary.