What makes a court proceeding fair? Explore the principles of impartiality, notice, meaningful hearings, evidence, reasoned decisions, consistent law, and judicial review.
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 federal jury found that an insurance executive and marketing CEO built a massive ACA enrollment fraud scheme by targeting homeless, unemployed and vulnerable people, generating at least $180 million in federal subsidies.
From presidential orders to agency rules, some landmark cases began when government officials claimed authority the courts said they did not have. Here is what happens when judges draw that line.
The Supreme Court follows precedent, but precedent is not unchangeable. From segregation and economic regulation to privacy and abortion, some landmark rulings exist because the Court concluded an earlier Supreme Court decision should no longer control.
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.
Modern cars can generate location, navigation and driving data long after a trip ends. When police investigate a crime, information created by the vehicle itself can become evidence.
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.
A receipt can establish where money went, when a purchase happened and whether a story fits the records. But sometimes the most important evidence is the receipt that should exist—and doesn't.
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.
Modern investigations can use location data to identify devices near a crime scene, potentially drawing innocent bystanders into an investigation simply because their phones were nearby.
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.
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.
Modern cars can record location, speed, braking, diagnostics and driving behavior. As vehicles become computers on wheels, a growing legal fight is developing over who can collect, use, share and control that data.
A witness gives one account immediately after an event and another months later. Changed stories can reshape a case—but the reason for the change may matter as much as the inconsistency itself.
AI can now create convincing photographs, recordings and voices depicting events that never happened. Deepfakes are forcing courts to reconsider how digital evidence can be authenticated and trusted.
A mistaken identification, shared name, bad database entry or flawed investigation can put an innocent person in handcuffs. What happens when police arrest the wrong person—and the mistake is not discovered immediately?
