Search results for

The 1965 Voting Rights Act has removed racial barriers for generations of black voters in the South. Now a legal challenge raises the question of just how much federal oversight election laws still need.

Public support for the medical use of marijuana is rising, but the Obama administration has begun lashing out against the drug. The Justice Department has warned that dispensaries aren't immune from prosecution, even in states where medical use is legal.

A scandal over the botched gun-trafficking operation intensified on Capitol Hill this week. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has called for an independent investigation into whether Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress. Another Republican has called on Holder to resign.

Attorney General Eric Holder told relatives of people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks that a preliminary criminal investigation into the allegations had been opened. But even if the hacking took place on U.S. soil, investigators could run into trouble with the statute of limitations.

The Obama Justice Department has been taking a more aggressive approach against people who block access to abortion clinics, using a 1994 law to bring cases in greater numbers than George W. Bush did. Some believe the stepped-up enforcement has put a damper on clinic violence.

Prosecutors admit that the constitutional right to an attorney is inconsistently applied for indigent criminal defendants in some states. In Michigan, officials have repeatedly ignored pleas to change how it pays lawyers for the poor. But lawsuits and exonerations may be starting to change that.

Democrats Ron Wyden and Mark Udall are pressing the Justice Department to reveal more about some key provisions of the Act and how it interprets them.

The Republican leading a yearlong investigation into the failed gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious acknowledged that the probe has turned up no evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder approved the idea. Other GOP lawmakers Thursday threatened Holder with contempt of Congress.

President George W. Bush signed the act into law 10 years ago. But in the years since, civil liberties groups have raised concerns about whether the Patriot Act goes too far by scooping up too much data and violating people's rights to privacy.

The Justice Department has recovered more than $1 billion in fines using an anti-bribery law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But now business groups are calling on Congress to overhaul it and rein in prosecutors. They say the law is producing a lot of confusion and big legal bills.