Judiciary News

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.

Representatives of the federal Judiciary today asked Congress to provide $7.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2018 to fund the continuing operations of the judicial branch, as well as to enhance cybersecurity, adequately provide for funds for counsel for indigent defendants, and to ensure sufficient security at federal courthouses.

A recently enhanced database that houses information about civil and criminal federal cases dating to 1970 is now available to researchers and the public on the Federal Judicial Center’s website as part of a partnership with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

In the first months after Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Atsushi Wallace Tashima’s life wasn’t much different from that of other young Americans. Like others in his ethnically mixed Los Angeles neighborhood, Tashima’s family draped their windows at night, to protect against America’s new wartime enemies. But the Tashimas soon were branded, solely because of their ethnic heritage, as potential spies and saboteurs. By presidential order, 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were uprooted from their homes, and shipped off to internment camps.

In a concerted effort to make it easier for people to serve as jurors, the federal Judiciary is embracing technologies aimed at reducing wait times, paperwork, and trips to the courthouse.

The first week of May is Juror Appreciation Week. In observance of that event, two educational videos about federal jury service are available.