By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — A government report found that U.S. Attorney’s Offices declined 50 percent of the cases from American Indian reservations from 2005-2009, the Associated Press reported. The Government Accountability Office report found that Federal prosecutors resolved 9,000 of the 10,000 cases they got during that period. Half were declined for prosecution…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Walk through any federal courthouse and it seems security is pretty tight. Still, a Justice Department Inspector General report on courthouse security says federal judges and personnel could be at risk because of poor training, questionable contracts and broken security equipment, the Washington Post reports. The Post’s Ed O’Keefe…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the FBI are investigating a deputy U.S. Marshal who fatally shot a tattoo parlor employee while off duty during a confrontation in Los Angeles in 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported. The local prosecutor had found inconsistencies in deputy marshal Matthew Itkowitz’s story, but…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — A Justice Department policy during the Bush-era is about to get the boot. The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will issue a memo Thursday to U.S. Attorneys around the country saying that he’s overturning a policy which urged prosecutors to push defendants hammering out…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Stevens is dead and so is one of the prosecutors in the prosecution of the Stevens case, who committed suicide. On Monday, the latest twist in a perplexing case surfaced when NPR’s Carrie Johnson reported that the prosecutors in the bungled 2008 prosecution of the Alaskan senator…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — A 600-page, never-released Justice Department report concludes that the American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the U.S. for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, the New York Times reports. “It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Former Los Angeles U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien says he wrote a check this week reimbursing the government in instances where he stayed in hotel rooms that cost more than the government-approved rate, the Los Angeles Times reported. O’Brien was one of five U.S. Attorneys cited in a Justice…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Here’s a controversial issue that won’t go away: Where to hold the 9/11 trial. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder Jr., who has often been treated like a pinata by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary when confronted about the issue, says the government is “close to a decision” on how…
