Attorney General

Justice Department asks judge to block North Carolina bathroom law, cites ‘stigmatic harm’

The U.S. Justice Department is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent North Carolina from enforcing a law that requires government facilities to restrict restrooms to people of the same biological sex. The brief (PDF) filed Tuesday argues that excluding transgender people from bathroom and changing facilities consistent with their gender…

Jul 6, 2016 12:40 PM CDT

Justice Department to investigate police shooting of black man in Baton Rouge

The fatal shooting of a black man by Baton Rouge police Tuesday sparked protests and an announcement of a federal civil rights investigation. The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will lead the investigation into the shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post,…

Jul 6, 2016 11:42 AM CDT

DOJ mandates implicit bias training for prosecutors and agents

The U.S. Department of Justice will require its employees to receive training designed to prevent implicit bias from affecting their decisions. The DOJ announced in a Monday press release that all law enforcement agents and prosecutors would begin receiving this training over the next few weeks. Implicit bias, defined as…

Jun 28, 2016 4:35 PM CDT

Prosecutor blasts federal court for scheduling hate crimes trial of Dylann Roof before state trial

State prosecutor Scarlett Wilson criticized the federal court system during a hearing Monday, saying it is circumventing South Carolina’s trial of Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old white man accused of fatally shooting nine people at a historic black church in Charleston in 2015. Roof’s federal trial is set for Nov. 7—about…

Jun 20, 2016 12:43 PM CDT

After critics panned his most important SCOTUS argument, solicitor general learned this lesson

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli says he “felt like the roof had caved in on me” after journalists derided his argument defending the Affordable Care Act in March 2012. Jeffrey Toobin of CNN said Verrilli’s argument was “a train wreck for the Obama administration,” while Adam Liptak of the New York…

Jun 16, 2016 5:45 AM CDT

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is leaving Justice Department

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli will be leaving the Justice Department on June 24. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Verrilli’s departure on Thursday in a statement calling him “a brilliant lawyer, a devoted public servant and one of the most consequential Solicitors General in American history.” In his Supreme Court arguments…

Jun 2, 2016 10:44 AM CDT

Judge exceeded authority by ordering ethics classes for possibly 3,000 DOJ lawyers, brief says

The U.S. Justice Department is asking a federal judge to stay his unusual order requiring department lawyers who appear in any court in 26 states to take ethics classes for alleged misrepresentations in a major immigration case. The Justice Department brief filed on Tuesday argues that the sweeping sanctions imposed…

May 31, 2016 11:03 AM CDT

In 156 government cases against big banks, only 47 people have been charged

Only 47 people have been charged in 156 criminal and civil cases filed by the government since 2009 against the nation’s 10 largest banks, according to a newspaper analysis. Most of those charged had junior or midlevel jobs at the banks, according to the findings by the Wall Street Journal…

May 27, 2016 5:45 AM CDT

Law prof sees Title IX ‘collision course’ in federal directives on bathrooms and sexual violence

The Justice Department is citing Title IX to support its directive that public schools must allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. Some schools could respond by opening bathrooms to both genders. But that raises a new question, Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk…

May 26, 2016 7:39 AM CDT

Federal judge imposes sweeping sanctions on DOJ, requires ethics classes for litigators in 26 states

Blasting the U.S. Department of Justice for its earlier conduct in a major immigration case that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, on Thursday imposed sweeping sanctions on the department’s litigators and demanded a remedial response from U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch. “[T]he…

May 20, 2016 9:35 AM CDT

Law firms hired by Ohio didn’t violate federal debt collection law via letterhead, SCOTUS rules

Special counsel hired to collect debts for the state of Ohio may use the state attorney general’s letterhead without violating the Fair Debt Collections Act, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a unanimous decision. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion (PDF) for the court. The special counsel are…

May 16, 2016 12:12 PM CDT

US tells schools to allow transgender students to use facilities matching their gender identity

The United States is sending letters to public schools across the country that says transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. The letter “contains an implicit threat” that schools that don’t comply could face lawsuits or a loss of federal funding,…

May 13, 2016 7:16 AM CDT

DOJ and North Carolina trade lawsuits over transgender bathroom law

Updated: North Carolina filed a lawsuit Monday accusing the U.S. Justice Department of “baseless and blatant overreach” for its warning that the state’s transgender bathroom law violates the federal Civil Rights Act. Hours later, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit (PDF) asserting that North Carolina’s entities were in violation of…

May 9, 2016 9:50 AM CDT

North Carolina transgender bathroom legislation violates Civil Rights Act, DOJ says

North Carolina’s House Bill 2, the recently passed legislation that restricts public bathroom use for transgender individuals, violates both Title VII and Title IX of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, the justice department wrote in a letter (PDF) to the state’s governor Wednesday. Gov. Pat McCrory has until Monday to…

May 4, 2016 4:50 PM CDT

Monitoring of my Twitter account showed racial bias, state lawyer says in labor complaint

A lawyer with the Oregon Department of Justice claims he was the victim of racial bias when co-workers investigated his tweets that used the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Erious Johnson Jr. has filed a civil-rights complaint with the state labor department, along with a notice of intent to sue. Johnson is civil…

Apr 18, 2016 8:59 AM CDT