The “100-­mile border zone” is not just a geographic area—it is a legal construct that provides federal authorities broader powers to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. If you are within 100 miles of the nation’s land borders or coastlines, you are in the 100-­mile border zone, a region where ...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey erred in applying a sentencing enhancement for constructive possession of an AK-­style pistol (“Pistol”) found in a bag located in the trunk of defendant’s vehicle six months after ...

In resolving a split among the United States Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a defendant who induces a victim to enter into a contract under false pretenses may be convicted of federal wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 even though the defendant did ...

This column was originally published on May 29, 2025, on Rutherford.org. It has been reprinted with permission

“If one company or small group of people manages to develop godlike digital superintelligence, they could take over the world. At least when there’s an evil dictator, that human is going to ...

The ever-­growing army of self-­driving vehicles quietly traveling through our cities are becoming something far more than just driverless vehicles—they’re morphing into the most sophisticated mobile surveillance network law enforcement has ever had. Police departments across America are increasingly tapping into the 360-­degree, always-­recording cameras of autonomous vehicles to investigate ...

P

olice have long sought tools to monitor and predict criminal activity with precision, and a new system called Spidernet brings that vision closer to reality. Developed by researchers at the University of Portsmouth and University of Winchester, Spidernet is a digital forensics framework designed to track smart device owners, ...

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy is overseeing the retesting of forensic evidence in multiple sexual assault cases after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (“TBI”) terminated a forensic analyst at its Jackson laboratory for “unethical conduct.” The retesting, initiated in October 2024, aims to ensure the integrity of evidence in ...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that invoking the Fifth Amendment while testifying at trial does not constitute inconsistent testimony with a prior confession made under a proffer agreement because under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, no factual inference can be drawn from the invocation of ...

A question posed by a child in a Curious Kids column in The Conversation, a nonprofit news website written by academics, led a biomedical engineer to a discovery that could aid forensic analysis at crime scenes involving water exposure.

Guy German, a biomedical engineer at Binghamton University in New York, ...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a 132-­month prison sentence because the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina committed procedural error during sentencing for violating 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2), (b)(l) (possessing material depicting the sexual exploitation of minors) by applying the sentence ...

Police departments across the United States are increasingly using artificial intelligence (“AI”) to generate composite sketches of suspects based on witness descriptions, accelerating an investigative process that once relied solely on human artists.

The adoption of AI in law enforcement spans multiple domains. In Chicago, algorithms help identify potential crime ...

This article was originally published on February 5, 2025, by Inquest.org at https://inquest.org/punishment-­tv/.

Last spring, Netflix released a reality show called Unlocked: A Jail Experiment. It follows a group of incarcerated men in Arkansas whose unit is briefly subjected to fewer security restrictions—a “radical social experiment” that hypothesized ...

Although the issue is not even close to being resolved, the United States has, in recent years, made some noticeable progress on the issue of racial disparity in our criminal justice system. Regardless of what research method you choose, the number of Black individuals incarcerated is highly disproportionate to the ...

The California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, granted a petition for a writ of mandate after finding that Elijah Jackson, who is Black, established a prima facie claim that the San Diego Police Department (“SDPD”) violated the Racial Justice Act of 2020 (“RJA”) by producing data showing a stark ...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted Scott Lewis Rendelman’s motion for authorization to file a successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion based on the holding of the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) in Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), that the Government ...

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that the police conducted an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment of a defendant’s vehicle during a traffic stop when they facilitated entry into the vehicle by a drug-­sniffing dog without probable cause.

Tien Dinh Pham was observed leaving an area police alleged to ...

The Supreme Court of Illinois ruled that a defendant retains the right to challenge his sentence when he enters a “blind” guilty plea, i.e., a plea that does not specify the sentence as part of the plea.

Background

Sedrick White admitted to fatally shooting Arnel Adamore in August 1998 while ...

The New Orleans Police Department (“NOPD”) has used artificial intelligence-­powered facial recognition technology since at least 2018, often bypassing city ordinances designed to limit such surveillance, according to public records, internal emails, and a 2025 Washington Post investigation.

In December 2020, the New Orleans City Council unanimously passed Ordinance 33021, ...

In Arizona, a secretive program has quietly amassed a staggering trove of financial data on tens of millions of Americans and individuals worldwide, all under the guise of fighting crime. The Transaction Record Analysis Center (“TRAC”), operated with oversight from the Arizona Attorney General’s office, has ballooned into a mass ...

A groundbreaking adaptation of perovskite technology is poised to transform forensic analysis of gunshot residue (“GSR”), offering unprecedented speed and sensitivity. “Perovskite” refers to a class of materials with a specific crystal structure, named after the mineral calcium titanate, discovered by Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski. Traditional GSR analysis, which relies ...

The police badge should be a shield for the public, not a cloak for predators. Yet across America, a dangerous undercurrent flows beneath the thin blue line: officers fired for brutality, lies, theft, even criminal acts, are quietly recycled back onto the streets where they often dishonor the badge again. ...

Arkansas: The downward spiral of former Hot Spring County Sheriff Derek “Scott” Finkbeiner, 47, continued with his fourth arrest on May 2, 2025, reported KATV out of Little Rock. The arrest stemmed from Finkbeiner’s attempt to contact a witness, co-­defendant Jordan Hammond, through the Signal app, violating a court order ...