Due process limits how government may act against individuals. Learn how notice, meaningful hearings, neutral decision-makers, evidence, and substantive protections help make government action fair.
An examination of America's mortgage default system, including nonjudicial foreclosures, loss mitigation, property valuations, HOA liens and nationwide legal services.
Flock license-plate cameras can record millions of vehicles and make their movements searchable. Courts are now confronting a difficult Fourth Amendment question: when does observation on public roads become surveillance?
A fish, an airplane, a tomato and some of the biggest civil-rights and regulatory disputes in America have turned on the meaning of a word or short phrase. These cases show how much can depend on the language Congress chose.
Some famous lawsuits appear to be about environmental protection, marriage, government policy or constitutional rights. But before a court can decide who is right, it may have to answer a more basic question: does this person have the right to bring the case at all?
Some of the most consequential lawsuits never reach a jury. From dismissal and summary judgment to jurisdictional rulings and settlements, major cases show how litigation can be decided long before trial.
Doorbell cameras, store surveillance systems and home security cameras record far more than crimes against their owners. When something happens nearby, privately recorded video can become important evidence in a police investigation.
A witness can look directly at a defendant and sincerely say, “That's the person I saw,” yet still be mistaken. Decades of wrongful-conviction cases have changed what courts know about eyewitness memory and certainty.
Facial recognition and other automated systems can give police powerful investigative leads. When the technology makes a mistake, however, an innocent person can suddenly become the focus of an investigation.
A locked phone can contain years of private information. Whether the government can force someone to unlock it may depend on how it is locked, what investigators already know and which court is deciding the issue.
AI can produce images, music, writing and software in seconds, but copyright law was built around human creators. Courts and the Copyright Office are defining where human authorship ends and machine generation begins.
An ordinary photograph can preserve evidence nobody noticed when it was taken. Reflections, shadows, clocks, clothing, background objects and tiny details can later establish where someone was, when something happened, or whether a story is possible.
A confident eyewitness can be extraordinarily persuasive to a jury. But when that confidence developed—and what happened after the witness first saw the suspect—can matter as much as how certain the witness appears in court.
Deleting a text, photo, email or file does not always destroy it. Copies, backups, cloud systems, recipients and forensic recovery can allow supposedly deleted evidence to reappear months or years later.
A fence, tree, driveway, noise complaint or property line can turn two neighbors into courtroom opponents. Neighbor disputes show how small conflicts become expensive lawsuits—and why the original disagreement is often only the beginning.
Photos, email, social media, cloud files and online accounts can survive long after their owner dies. The law increasingly has to decide who may access, preserve or control a person's digital life.
The person who knows the most about a case may never testify. Death, disappearance, privilege, the Fifth Amendment and strategic decisions can leave jurors deciding what happened without hearing from a crucial witness.
Phones and apps can create detailed records of where a device has traveled. In a criminal investigation, location history can place a phone near a crime scene—or help show that its owner was somewhere else.
