Court Wades Into Prison Sentence Dispute
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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court returned for another term Monday and wasted no time getting down to business, appearing poised to alter the system used for sentencing 64,000 federal criminal defendants a year.    But justices clashed over whether any changes they make would create greater inequity in the federal system...
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The U.S. Supreme Court said on  Monday that it would decide whether a death row inmate's  constitutional rights had been violated by forcing him to  appear at his sentencing while shackled in leg irons and  handcuffed to a belly chain in front of the jury.
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The Supreme Court said Monday that it would use the case of a Missouri death row inmate to consider the constitutionality of forcing defendants to appear before juries in chains and shackles.
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A lawyer for a condemned prisoner asserted that there is an unacceptable risk of agony in Kentuckyâs procedure, but justices were skeptical.
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Abdus-Shahid M.S. Ali's lawsuit against prison guards was based on allegations of harassment and mistreatment. But the Supreme Court's decision yesterday that he is barred from suing rests on an ambiguous federal statute that has confounded the courts and sharply divided the justices.
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Rebellion over 42-day detention as threat of legal challenge looms
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Disposing of a constitutional challenge to the federal sentencing system, the Supreme Court has set up an anticipated fight in Congress over how judges punish convicted criminals.
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A bid to declare capital punishment for juveniles unconstitutional was met with doubts from one of two Supreme Court justices likely to be pivotal in its outcome.
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A fight broke out among inmates in a prison yard Friday, injuring 18 prisoners, three of them critically, prison officials said.
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In a major criminal law decision, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that federal judges no longer must follow the long-criticized sentencing guidelines in effect since 1987.
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Among nine cases the court selected today for the coming term is a dispute over Âpaycheck protectionÂ laws.
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The acquittal of seven guards and a nurse charged in the death of a teenage boot-camp inmate has renewed calls for reform of the state's troubled corrections system
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US Supreme Court agrees to consider challenges to lethal injection filed by two death row inmates.
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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appeared poised Monday to alter the system used for sentencing 64,000 federal criminal defendants a year, but justices clashed over whether changes would create greater inequity.    Judges, not juries, consider factors that can add years to defendants' prison sentences, under the government's 17-year-old system which has been challenged as unconstitutional...
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Local courts could offer resolution, but critics say they may not go far enough.
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A ruling by New York's highest court on the state's death penalty law has complicated the job of prosecutors and left the fate of inmates uncertain.
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A Muslim inmate says prisoners around the country are regularly mistreated by their jailers because of religious faith. The Supreme Court is considering his case Monday.