Search results for

After closing arguments today, the trial of admitted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will now move to the sentencing phase.

Some 1,200 people are sentenced in federal courts each week. But U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that weighing pertinent evidence to determine the length of a sentence should fall to juries, not judges. NPR's Tony Cox talks to Jeff Fisher, one of the lawyers who helped set the precedent, Charles Hobson, an attorney with the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, and Barry Scheck, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

State sexual assault law is tightened in response to the six-month sentence imposed on former Stanford student Brock Turner. He was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

U.S. sentencing guidelines treat 1 gram of crack the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine. So crack users can get much longer prison sentences than powder users. The U.S. Sentencing Commission holds a public hearing to consider the 20-year-old law.

David Padilla is one of thousands of people sentenced under tough drug laws who are spending life in prison. Now the Clemency Project 2014 promises pardons or early release for some offenders.

Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his former business partner, Adam Kidan, are sentenced to five years and 10 months each after admitting to fraud in a Florida gambling scheme. The sentences could be reduced as both men cooperate with other government investigations.

Most of them were serving sentences for nonviolent crimes. The White House says it's the most grants in a day since at least 1900. Obama has commuted far more sentences than other recent presidents.

The Supreme Court has thrown out the federal sentencing guidelines that Congress imposed, returning more power to judges to decide how severely to punish crime. Hear NPR's Nina Totenberg.

NPR's Alex Chadwick speaks with Slate legal analyst Dahlia Lithwick about a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that could change how convicts in federal cases are sentenced.

Robert talks with Dave Doge, who covers the criminal courts in Wisconsin for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.