Articles on news

We last addressed the 2023 trial of Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son, in February of 2024 (although Shea subsequently reviewed a nonfiction […]

Just over a week ago, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in the Eastern District of North Carolina. This press release from the United States Department of Justice explains […]

A Fort Bragg solider stands accused of using confidential national security information to place lucrative bets on the ousting of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. According to this article, the […]

Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss charges against former Louisville officers Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany, who had been accused of falsifying the warrant that preceded the 2020 police raid in […]

On Tuesday, President Trump delivered the State of the Union address. The address included mentions of immigration and fentanyl, with the President spotlighting the designation of Mexican drug cartels as […]

News about crime, criminal justice, and the courts often tends towards the gloomy, so I’m going to start this week with some positive news. The Carolina Journal has a story […]

As 2025 came to a close, the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission published the Driving While Impaired Convictions Statistical Report for Fiscal Year 2024 (hereinafter “the report”). The […]

Tensions in Minneapolis escalated again Wednesday night as a federal agent shot and wounded a man during an arrest, an incident the Department of Homeland Security said followed a “violent […]

Last Friday, Indonesia enacted its new penal code, replacing colonial-era laws that had governed the country for over a century. The legal reform implements a new national criminal code (KUHP) and a criminal procedures […]

After 43 days, the government shutdown has ended. President Trump signed the spending bill late Wednesday night, funding the federal government through January 2026. Along with resuming funding for food stamps and federal worker salaries, the bill includes provisions allowing senators to sue the Justice Department as well as broader criminalization of hemp derived products. Retroactive to January of 2022, senators who have had phone records obtained without notification by the Justice Department would be permitted to sue for up to $500,000. While it does not mention special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the provision would apply to eight senators who had their phone records obtained as part of the probe in 2023. The spending bill also changes the lawful THC content threshold for hemp derived products from 0.3% Delta 9 THC to 0.4mg of any variant of THC. Farmers and legislators from around the country have voiced concern that this could effectively eliminate over 95% of products currently sold lawfully. Read on for more criminal law news.