Judiciary News

Focusing on efforts by the federal courts to contain costs, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has issued his "2012 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary."

In late October and early November, courts in New York, New Jersey and other Eastern Seaboard states were shut down by Super Storm Sandy. This account, by Chief Judge Loretta A. Preska, describes the challenges faced by the Southern District of New York in putting its courts back in order.

Pronouncing himself “humbled,” Judge Thomas F. Hogan, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, has received the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, but he cautioned in remarks that America's federal judges are “nearing a crossroads.”

Celebrating Bill of Rights Day, students in a newly released two-minute video talk candidly about the rights and freedoms they value most and are guaranteed in this seminal document.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Denny Chin, a Chinese immigrant who grew up in a Hell's Kitchen tenement, is the subject of a newly released Pathways to the Bench video profile, the eighth in a video series in which federal judges talk about challenges that helped prepare them to serve justice.

Every four years, U.S. courts play a little-known role to help ensure that the Electoral College votes are received in Washington and properly counted.

According to data released this month by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, immigration cases were the fastest growing segment of cases in the federal system for which an offender was sentenced in fiscal year 2011. Until fiscal year 2009, the most common federal crime had been drug-related.

"Bring your body bags," was the message left by an offender on a probation officer’s cell phone. "I’ll kill you and your family," another offender wrote an officer from prison after his probation was revoked.

A Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, or BAP, is authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 158 (b) to hear, with consent of all the parties, appeals from bankruptcy courts that otherwise would be heard by district courts, but only in those districts in which the district judges authorize appeals to BAPs.

All 80 federal defender organizations in districts across the country have begun using a new web-based system, defenderData, to manage their case information; schedule events, generate, edit, index and search case-related documents, and produce reports.

A public education program housed in the Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse has received the St. Louis Bar Foundation’s Spirit of Justice Award, for its excellence in teaching young audiences about the workings of the courts.

A comprehensive review of case record assets at the District Court of the Virgin Islands uncovered historic documents dating back to 1767 — when Denmark still owned the islands and the American colonies had yet to declare their independence from Great Britain.

You have until November 30, 2012 to apply for one of the most unique Fellowships in the federal Judiciary. The Supreme Court Fellows Program offers the opportunity not only to learn about the issues facing the Judiciary—but to contribute to the work of the Supreme Court, Federal Judicial Center, Administrative Office of the United States Courts and United States Sentencing Commission.

Marcia Anderson is the bankruptcy clerk of court for the Western District of Wisconsin. She also is the nation's first female African American major general in the U.S. Army Reserve. Her story and how she balances these two very different worlds are the themes of a new "Serving Our Courts, Serving Our Country" video, released by the United States Courts to honor Veterans Day 2012.

Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts for fiscal year 2012, the 12-month period ending September 30, 2012, totaled 1,261,140, down 14 percent from the 1,467,221 bankruptcy cases filed in FY 2011, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.