Federal Courts

A US district court judge has lambasted federal meth sentencing guidelines as harsh, unfair, based on politics instead of science, and "fundamentally flawed." He's not the only one.

A panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has held that the Fair Sentencing Act's reduction in sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine offenses should be extended to all federal crack prisoners, regardless of when their offense took place.

The US Supreme Court has held that an immigration judge went too far when he ordered the automatic deportation of a Jamaican man who resided in the US for most of his life over the possession of 1.3 grams of marijuana.

More DEA raids in Los Angeles, federal prison bureaucrats ignore a Michigan medical marijuana prisoner's medical needs, and there is lots of action in state legislatures.

A federal appeals court has upheld the DEA's decision to not allow UMass-Amherst Professor Lyle Craker to grow marijuana for medicinal research purposes, capping a 12-year odyssey.

Meet Stingray, law enforcement's newest high-tech weapon in its fight against crime. Civil libertarians and privacy advocates have some concerns, and they're starting to make their way into the federal courts.

There is plenty of action in state legislatures, the battle over rescheduling continues, a Maine dispensary gets called out for using pesticides, and much more.

A drug dog's sniff of a home's front door is a search under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and police must thus first obtain a search warrant, the US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

A Missouri technical college wanted to drug test all incoming students, but for a second time, a federal district court judge has said no, and she is likely to make it permanent when the case goes to trial in July.

Legislatures are in session across the land, and that's reflected in our update this week. Bills are moving, generally, but not, always in the right direction. Meanwhile, Arkansas looks ahead to 2014, and Oakland wants back in the Harborside case.