News and Announcements

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.

A decline in the number of federal prosecutions and in the severity of sentences for drug-related crime in recent years has resulted in a significant drop in the federal prison population, according to statistics from the Judiciary, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

In 1903, the Wright Brothers’ made aviation history when they flew their airplane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They then made legal history in numerous federal patent lawsuits, raising fundamental questions about how far inventors can go in using patent law to ward off challengers.  

In calendar year 2016, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court denied 9 applications in full and 26 applications in part. Learn more about the 2016 Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on Activities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts.

Bankruptcy filings fell 4.7 percent for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2017, compared with the year ending March 31, 2016, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Warning that federal bankruptcy courts face a “debilitating workload crisis” in Delaware and eight other districts, the U.S. Judicial Conference has urged Congress to authorize four new bankruptcy judgeships and convert 14 temporary judgeships into permanent positions.

The history and workings of the U.S. court system can now be explored with a variety of easy-to-navigate and interactive tools available on the Federal Judicial Center’s revamped website. The site, which launched this week, is aimed at providing more information in engaging ways to judicial history buffs, academics and researchers, court personnel, and just about anyone with an interest in the Third Branch.

For its graduates, the Federal Probation and Pretrial Academy in Charleston, S.C., is often a life-changing experience. In this video, students and instructors discuss and also demonstrate the intensive new officer training that takes place at the academy, which covers everything from establishing meaningful relationships with defendants and offenders to responding to dangerous encounters.

When a defendant is convicted of a crime in federal court, he or she owes many debts to society. In addition to likely prison time, offenders may be required to pay thousands of dollars in restitution, fines, and special assessments after sentencing.