Judiciary News

Federal courthouses in southern Florida are reopening Monday, September 18 after closures caused by Hurricane Irma.

Four new Supreme Court Fellows are set to begin their 2017-2018 fellowships in September.

All federal courthouses have reopened, after being shut down more than a week because of Tropical Storm Harvey. 

Don Bush, a retired federal magistrate judge in Texas, left the bench and is pursuing a new career as a newly certified paramedic.  

The annual cost of detaining federal prisoners before trial and after sentencing is significantly higher than the cost of supervision in the community, according to recent figures by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

In federal courthouses across the United States, access to justice requires the use of languages spoken around the globe.

The judiciary has made it a mission to reduce space and cost, all while improving efficiency. A new U.S. Courts video shows how the Judiciary is reducing building space by storing files electronically, eliminating the need for large rooms to shelve paper documents.   

The number of federal prison inmates sentenced under mandatory minimum laws decreased by 14 percent from 2010 to 2016, although they still make up more than half of all federal inmates, according to a new report by the United States Sentencing Commission.

Bankruptcy filings fell 2.8 percent for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2017, compared with the year ending June 30, 2016, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. 

Nearly half of all inmates in federal prison were convicted of drug-related offenses, and most inmates are young, minority men, according to the latest research of incarcerated federal offenders from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Consumers filing for bankruptcy in 2016 reported aggregated assets of $72 billion and aggregated total liabilities of $191 billion, a decline from the previous year, according to an annual report filed by the Judiciary with Congress.

An annual Judiciary report on wiretaps showed a sharp divergence between federal and state courts, with federal courts reporting a 11 percent increase in authorized wiretaps in 2016, compared to 2015, and state courts reporting a 41 percent decline. 

As teachers bid farewell to their students for the summer, federal courts are offering them a chance to spend the dog days in hands-on, interactive professional development seminars in the courtroom.

The 12 regional Courts of Appeals are playing an outsized role in helping the federal Judiciary to achieve its five-year goal for reducing courthouse and office space.

Recent scams in federal courts in South Carolina and Virginia are typical of the fraudsters.