Reuters reports that threats against federal judges have substantially increased over the last several years. Threats deemed “serious” by the U.S. Marshals Service rose from 179 incidents in 2019 to more than 450 in 2023. A majority of these threats seem to be motivated by politics and are coming from people without a direct connection to any litigation before the judges. The phenomenon is not unique to federal court judges. A 2022 survey by the National Judicial College of primarily state-court judges revealed that almost 90% of the 398 judges polled expressed concerns for their physical safety. A “true threat” is punishable under state and federal law under any number of different statutes, but many disturbing or offensive comments are protected speech under the First Amendment, as my former colleague Jonathan Holbrook discussed here. Read on for more criminal law news. Bankman-Fried Sentenced. The criminal charges against former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried is a story we at the News Roundup have long been following. After being convicted at trial of multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy relating to the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX (with losses estimated to be around $8 billion), he was sentenced to 25 years in prison last week by a federal district court in Manhattan, New York. According to the defendant, an appeal is forthcoming, so there may yet still be more to the story. Easter Swatting. This WRAL story recounts the experience of a Wake Forest family who were victims of a so-called swatting incident [...]
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