Federal Courts

When even the former chief prosecutor opposes a trial in the military commissions he headed, there's something seriously wrong. Since their creation...

The health care debate highlights the importance of appointing judges who place their duty to the Constitution over a partisan agenda. But it also crystallizes the agenda of opposition that has caused the Republican Party to go off the deep end.

The story is about more than one judge doing something wildly inappropriate. It's about a conservative movement in which the bile and animosity directed at the president are so poisonous that even someone who should know better confuses political criticism and sick personal attack.

In courtrooms all across America, judges sit helplessly by, their hands legally tied, as the twisted immigration law wreaks havoc on American families,

WASHINGTON -- Newt Gingrich's lackluster performance in Thursday night's debate darkened the already dim chances of seeing Justice Anthony Kennedy hau...

The Obama administration will mark the 10-year anniversary of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay with the trial of a man locked up for a decade without trial and accused of "war crimes" committed long before the United States was even at war.

Our courts have as of yet been exempt from the same level of scrutiny as Congress and our politicians, but there is a pervasive, ongoing corporate attack on judicial integrity, and what we're seeing is that a lack of aligned interests, secrecy, and corruption are eroding that system as well.

This Supreme Court term promises to be a significant one, with decisions affecting every American. The cases the court will decide this term alone highlight what's really at stake for all Americans, far beyond any single election or individual term in office.

Recently, the Senate confirmed six judicial nominees, four of whom were women. Not only did the confirmation bring the total number of women confirmed during the Obama Administration to 50 (47% of all confirmed nominees), but two broke glass ceilings in their jurisdictions.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama's new law cracking down on illegal immigration, ruling Monday that she ...

According to Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Casey Anthony verdict is precisely why the U.S. should no longer be allowed to bring suspected terrorists to trial in its civilian federal courts: because juries cannot be trusted to convict in all cases.

In part, the Court has stated that direct contributions give rise to fears of actual or apparent corruption, while independent expenditures do not.

As House Republicans continue to press for new and expanded war authority, the White House has issued a rare threat to veto any legislation that would needlessly expand the war on terror.

A fair trial led to a stiff sentence, leaving the fear-mongers dumb. The folks in the Obama Administration should keep that in mind when they decide where to try KSM.

In addition to noting their own pain and anger, victims today praised a federal court judge and the United States justice system for bringing Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to justice in a public courtroom following a fair trial.

We live in a highly partisan era of Congressional and Presidential politics. We cannot let these calculated political priorities spill over to our judicial system as well, as seems to have happened in the case of Judge Henry Hudson.

It would almost be funny that lawmakers give more credit to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Liz Cheney and alarmist Fox News anchors than to their own retired senior military leaders -- but only if the consequences weren't so serious.

Even if one believes that national security trumps all, the failure to provide a fair trial to suspected terrorists will ultimately do far more harm to U.S. national security than it will do good.

The Ghailani case is significant because it's been viewed as a test of whether the civilian court system can handle the cases of another 35 Guantanamo Bay detainees slated for trial. I'd say that it just passed that test with flying colors.

I've been struck by the contrasts between two ongoing proceedings: The orderliness, professionalism and fairness of the federal court proceedings, and the confusion, uncertainty and inequity that cloud the military commissions.

This morning I sat in a U.S. military commissions courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and watched the first child soldier charged by a Western nation since World War II plead guilty to crimes he was never seriously accused of.

The military is simply not in a position to conduct the sort of complex criminal investigations that are the FBI's specialty. Soldiers are trained to fight battles in a war zone; the FBI is trained to collect, preserve and analyze evidence in a crime scene.