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Officials in Memphis said that the city would not immediately agree to negotiate an overhaul of the Memphis Police Department with the federal government. Mayor Paul Young warned that doing so could be “bureaucratic and costly.” Young’s comments came after the Justice Department released findings of a 17-month-long investigation, saying Memphis officers unlawfully used excessive force, disproportionately targeted Black people and mistreated children and those with mental health issues. Pushing back against the Justice Department’s request to negotiate a legally binding consent decree, Young cited changes that the police department introduced after several officers fatally beat Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, last year. Those changes and others still to come, he said, would constitute “an effective improvement plan that transcends what is undoubtedly a bureaucratic and costly consent decree,” the New York Times reports. Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said DOJ could sue Memphis given the scope of the constitutional violations that its investigation found. President Biden has less than two months left in office, and the incoming Trump administration may not want to see the case through. The unusual resistance to negotiating a consent decree , which would allow for federal oversight of the police department, comes as the DOJ is scrambling to finish at least six investigations into police conduct before Trump is inaugurated. During his first term, the Justice Department walked away from policing cases pursued by the Obama administration. Memphis came under national scrutiny in January 2023, when an encounter between a group of Black police officers and Nichols, a Black FedEx worker, quickly became violent. Surveillance and body camera footage showed officers punching, kicking and beating Nichols, who was driving home from work. He died in the hospital days later.

In an era when online anger and social tensions are increasingly directed at big businesses, Meta last year spent $24.4 million on guards, alarms and other measures to keep company head Mark Zuckerberg and the company’s former chief operating officer safe. Some high-profile CEOs surround themselves with security. The fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson while he walked alone on a New York City sidewalk has put a spotlight on the varied approaches companies take in protecting their leaders against threats, the Associated Press reports. Thompson had no personal security and appeared unaware of the shooter lurking before he was gunned down. “We are better today at collecting signals. I’m not sure we’re any better at making sense of the signals we collect,” says Fred Burton of Ontic, a provider of threat management software for companies. Some of the biggest U.S. companies, particularly those in the tech sector, spend heavily on personal and residential security for their top executives. Meta, whose businesses include Facebook and Instagram, reported the highest spending on personal security for top executives last year, says the research firm Equilar. Zuckerberg “is synonymous with Meta and, as a result, negative sentiment regarding our company is directly associated with, and often transferred to, Mr. Zuckerberg,” the company said this year. Just over a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 reported spending to protect their top executives. Of those that did, the median payment for personal security doubled over the last three years to about $98,000. In many companies, investor meetings like the one UnitedHealthcare’s Thompson was walking to, are viewed as very risky because details on the location and who will be speaking are highly publicized. Still, "there are also company cultures that really frown on that and want their leaders to be accessible to people, accessible to shareholders, employees,” said Dave Komendat, president of a Seattle risk managemenet firm.

The U.S. Justice Department is expected to cut back or eliminate efforts to seek court-ordered reforms of local police departments after President-elect Trump takes office. That would leave the burden on states and cities to oversee police agencies to combat misconduct. Some of those government units may act only if there is considerable community support for more oversight of policing, speakers on a Brookings Institution webinar said Thursday. Brookings researchers studied police reforms in St. Louis and Baltimore, both of which experienced DOJ oversight after high-profile incidents, the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in 2014 and the death of Freddie Gray after being injured while being transported by Baltimore police in 2015. The deaths of Brown and Gray represented Black men killed with impunity by police , Brookings scholars said. One in 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police. Such disparities persist across social class lines and even when Black men are unarmed and not attacking at the time of their deaths. There has been a "huge variation" in state actions on police reform in the last decade of activism by Black Lives Matter and others, said Rashawn Ray, a Brookings senior fellow. Contrasting the two states involved in the study, Maryland and Missouri, which have similar populations, police have killed 180 people in Maryland and 310 in Missouri over 10 years. During that period, Maryland legislators passed a major police reform package, while Missouri lawmakers generally passed "pro-police" measures that limited police prosecutions and liability for deaths, Ray said. Research led by Ali Sewell of Emory University, a participant in the webinar, found that police killings “ spill over ” to harm the health of people living in neighborhoods with more police violence. Police killings trigger traumas and collective memories, forcing community members to relive the violence. Black people who view videos of police violence report worse mental health conditions. Researchers interviewed 20 stakeholders in St. Louis and Baltimore about community health, public safety, police reform, and the enduring impact of protests that followed the Brown and Gray episodes. Participants included elected officials, police officers, and community activists. l One person interviewed in Baltimore said, “If one doesn’t know how to deal with the pressures and the general stress of engaging law enforcement, then it can negatively impact their mental health." Perri Johnson of the Loyola Academy of St. Louis, a former police captain in the city, said that police officers themselves are diivided over reforms, with white officers and police unions generally defending the status quo and black officers favoring changes in police procedures and getting more public citizens involved in reviewing police policies and training. Webinar participants agreed that the public, particularly minorities, would be better served if police officers engaged more with the community in non-confrontational situations and made fewer unnecessary traffic stops. Yanet Amanuel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland said one study found that 64% of traffic stops in the state involved Blacks, much higher than their proportion of the population, and many involved only the odor of marijuana. ;

The U.S. private immigration detention industry is enjoying a surprise boost from the Biden administration and expecting a windfall from Donald Trump despite being skewered by watchdogs and critics for running civil detention centers with some “horrific” and even lethal conditions. Trump’s plan to deport millions of people and expand private immigration prisons to hold them during that process is getting a multi-billion dollar head start from President Biden’s tack to the right on immigration, the Guardian reports. Despite widespread complaints about often horrific conditions in detention centers, the Biden administration has extended contracts with privately-run facilities under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even as members of Congress, federal watchdogs and advocates pushed for their closure. “Congress allocates over $3 billion a year so the U.S. government can maintain the largest immigration detention apparatus in the world,” said Jesse Franzblau of the National Immigrant Justice Center. He said, “Private contractors receive billions a year in federal dollars to provide Ice detention, transport, surveillance and deportations. People in detention experience inhumane conditions and rights abuses that include medical neglect, preventable deaths, punitive use of solitary confinement, lack of due process, and discriminatory and racist treatment.” The number of people detained in Ice jails has risen steadily under Biden, from 14,195 to almost 39,000, driven by the loosening of pandemic restrictions at the US-Mexico border. Some heavily-criticized facilities have had their contracts extended. Congress approved $3.4 billion for fiscal year 2024 for ICE to detain 41,500 people per day, an increase from $2.9 billion in 2023. This year so far, 10 people have died in ICE custody, nine of them in private sector centers. In 2023, 90% of people in ICE custody were held in privately-run facilities. The Biden administration “will hand off the same system that Democrats and Republicans have always created”, said Austin Kocher of Syracuse University, who studies the immigration enforcement system. In September, the Department of Homeland Security’s office of inspector general released a report on 17 unannounced, spot inspections at ICE facilities across the country, which were carried out from 2020 to 2023. It found a shortage of medical care, violations of sanitation standards, improper care in solitary confinement and problems with staff responses to detainees’ needs.

Senior aides in the White House are weighing whether to ask President Biden to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former officials who could be targeted with Donald Trump’s return to the White House Biden and his allies are concerned that these officials could face inquiries and even indictments, fears that have been heightened by Trump’s appointment of Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Patel has said he would go after the president-elect’s critics. Overall, Democrats are ramping up the pressure on Biden to grant clemency to other Americans, and they aren’t afraid of leveraging the Hunter Biden pardon to get their message across. Criminal justice advocates and Democratic lawmakers this week asked the president to use his clemency power to grant relief for death row inmates and nonviolent offenders before he leaves office. Some advocates have floated a Biden pardon of Trump as a way to turn down the political temperature, Politico reports. The sense of urgency across the criminal justice movement has intensified since Biden made the party-splitting move to clear his son of a gun conviction and guilty plea in a tax case, as well as any other “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed” over a 10-year period. “This is a matter of doing the right thing, as well as it’s a matter of legacy. I would hate for Joe Biden’s presidency to end and in history’s final accounting that Donald Trump have a better legacy on clemency than Joe Biden, said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). “That would be shameful, and he has the power and the authority to do something about it.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week that "you could expect more" pardons and clemency action as the president finishes out his term. The U.S. Office of the Pardon Attorney has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Biden’s term. He has granted 25 individual pardons and 135 commutations, more sentence commutations at this point in his presidency than his recent predecessors in their first terms. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) said, “We need to make sure these poor people, military personnel, law enforcement, civil servants, people like Liz Cheney, Cassidy Hutchinson, Adam Kinzinger, etc., they need and deserve legal protections from what Trump and ... Patel are saying that they plan to do.”

Federal officials who pledged millions of dollars to test backlogged rape kits promised that sexual predators would be brought to justice – and wrongfully convicted prisoners would be exonerated. Nine years later, after the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative awarded nearly $350 million in grants to 90 state and local agencies, USA Today has been able to confirm just one exoneration as a result of the grant program. Thousands of kits that could free more innocent people have been left untested – again., USA Today reports. The National Institute of Justice recommends testing backlogged kits from all reported sexual assaults, including in closed cases. Entering DNA profiles from those kits into a national database could help clear wrongfully convicted people and identify rapists who have evaded justice. Following those standards is not required to get a grant, and recipients in at least 10 states didn’t do it. The agencies didn’t test backlogged kits in cases with a previous confession, guilty plea or conviction, or if the suspect’s DNA already was in the national database. As a result, prisoners with cases tied to untested kits must overcome legal hurdles before the evidence can be analyzed for DNA. The process typically takes years – if it happens at all. In the meantime, the true perpetrators may be left free to commit more crimes. Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative , did not respond when asked for a list of exonerations attributed to the program. Federal data provided via a public records request was riddled with errors. The city of Cleveland reported 23 exonerations to the government, and Connecticut’s Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection reported two. Officials in both places said those numbers were mistakes and should have been zero. No other grantees reported exonerations. The newspaper found details about two overturned convictions in Wayne County, Mich., by searching media archives and websites, including the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of universities in Michigan and California. Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy has been at the forefront of bringing attention to the rape kit backlog. Only one of those exonerations was directly attributed to the federal grant program. The other, of Anthony Dyer, occurred as a result of Worthy's previous efforts to ensure untested kits were analyzed.

A federal judge rejected a deal that would have let Boeing plead guilty to a felony conspiracy charge and pay a fine for misleading U.S. regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed, killing 346 people. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas said that diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) in the government and at Boeing could result in race being a factor in picking an official to oversee Boeing’s compliance with the agreement, the Associated Press reports. The ruling creates uncertainty around criminal prosecution of the aerospace giant over development of its bestselling plane. The judge gave Boeing and the Justice Department 30 days to tell him how they plan to proceed. They could negotiate a new plea agreement, or prosecutors could put the company on trial. Paul Cassell, an attorney for families of passengers who died in the crashes, called the decision an important victory for the rights of crime victims. “No longer can federal prosecutors and high-powered defense attorney craft backroom deals and just expect judges to approve them,” Cassell said. “Judge O’Connor has recognized that this was a cozy deal between the government and Boeing that failed to focus on the overriding concerns -- holding Boeing accountable for its deadly crime and ensuring that nothing like this happens again in the future.” The deal the judge rejected was was reached in July. It would have let Boeing plead guilty to defrauding regulators who approved pilot-training requirements for the 737 Max nearly a decade ago. Prosecutors said they did not have evidence to argue that Boeing’s deception played a role in the crashes.

Immigrants arrested for homicides accounted for fewer than 1% of "at-large" arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the last six years, Axios reports. President-elect Trump has vowed to launch the "largest deportation of criminals in American history" — often focusing on the slaying of Georgia college student Laken Riley by an undocumented immigrant — but data show crimes like homicide and sexual assault feature in only a small fraction of ICE arrests. An Axios review of data for nearly 180,000 ICE at-large arrests broken down by criminal convictions from October 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2023 found that the largest numbers concerned immigration-related offenses (16%); driving under the influence (15%); dangerous drugs (15%), assault (9%) and traffic offenses (9%). Some 3% of the crimes were larceny, 1.7% sexual assault and .7% homicide. ICE "at-large" arrests are those made in public settings as opposed to when ICE picks up someone who's already in jail or prison. ICE data show that there have been more than 425,000 noncitizen immigrants with criminal convictions in the past 40 years or more. About 13,100 — or 3% — were convicted of homicide, while 15,811 (3.7%) were convicted of sexual assault. Many are imprisoned in federal, state or local facilities and may enter deportation proceedings after serving their sentences. Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt didn't address the disparity in the ICE arrest data and Trump's claims about immigrant crime. She said Trump will conduct "the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history." The federal government has prioritized deporting immigrants with criminal records since the Obama administration said, Amy Maldonado, an immigration lawyer in Michigan. On Thursday, Trump said he was nominating Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Scott served for almost three decades in the Border Patrol, and as the chief of the agency during the last year of the Trump administration and beginning of the Biden administration. Trump named Caleb Vitello, assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs in ICE, as the agency's new acting director, Politico reports.

A federal appeals court upheld an injunction blocking Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador from prosecuting medical professionals for referring patients to out-of-state abortion providers. A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld a preliminary injunction issued by Idaho federal judge B. Lynn Winmill in July 2023 , Idaho Capital Sun reports. The injunction stems from a lawsuit by two Idaho doctors and Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky.  They sued Labrador after the attorney general issued a legal opinion saying medical professionals who referred or prescribed abortion pills to pregnant patients across state lines were subject to Idaho’s criminal penalties under the state’s near-total abortion ban. The lawsuit alleged Labrador violated the First Amendment, due process laws and the commerce clause by issuing the opinion. The 9th Circuit panel agreed with Winmill that the suing parties “established a likelihood of success on the merits of their First Amendment claim.”  After Labrador’s letter became public and the lawsuit was filed, Labrador sent a follow-up letter stating it was procedurally improper and therefore void, but didn’t say his interpretation was incorrect. The 9th Circuit panel wrote Labrador’s withdrawal of the opinion “did not disavow the Attorney General’s interpretation” and he “remained free to enforce” it. Idaho is surrounded by several states where abortion is legal, including Washington, Oregon and Montana. Idaho physicians have historically referred patients to clinics in those states if they need care that is unavailable in Idaho, such as termination for medical reasons related to fetal anomalies or complications that put a pregnant patient’s health at at risk. The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho and the Planned Parenthood affiliate that covers Idaho said Labrador’s opinion “poses a clear threat to Idahoans’ health, their lives, and their freedom.”

Ronald Rowe, acting director of the Secret Service, is promising accountability for what he called the agency’s “abject failure” to secure the rally where a gunman opened fire on Donald Trump during his presidential campaign. Rowe said Thursday that the agency is “reorganizing and reimagining” its culture and how it operates, reports the Associated Press . Members of a bipartisan House task force investigating the attempt on Trump's life pushed Rowe on how the agency’s staffers could have missed such blatant security vulnerabilities leading up to the July 13 shooting at a rally in Butler, Pa. At one point, the hearing devolved into a shouting match between Rowe and a Republican congressman.. The agency’s previous director resigned, and the Secret Service increased protections for Trump before he won the election. Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), said it was “just wild to me” that at a time of tech advances, the Secret Service was using text messages and emails to communicate in real time about threats. Rowe said the agency is putting a much stronger emphasis on training — something previous investigations found was lacking, and on doing more regular reviews of events to see what went right and where improvements can be made. Rowe and Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), shouted over each other as other members pleaded for order. Fallon displayed a photo of President Biden, Trump and others at a Sept. 11 ceremony in New York and suggested that Rowe attended to improve his prospects at getting the director job permanently. “I was there to show respect for a Secret Service member that died on 9/11. Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes!” Rowe shouted. “You wanted to be visible because you were auditioning for this job that you’re not going to get!” Fallon said Rowe roared back: “You are out of line, Congressman. You are out of line!” Fallon responded, “You’re a bully.”

California prisons no longer withhold money they are supposed to give people at the time of their release. The policy change is meant to ensure that thousands of people leaving prison receive their $200 "gate money" allowance that they are entitled to under a 51-year-old state law. The stipend is intended to help people cover basic necessities in their first days of freedom, the Associated Press reports. The new directive follows a class-action lawsuit and a legislative order mandating the department to stop withholding cash from former inmates. The corrections department did not deny that it deducted money from release allowances if someone did not have dress-out clothes or arrangements for transportation. “We’re frustrated and disappointed that it took a lawsuit ... to change an unlawful Department of Corrections’ policy, which should have been in compliance with the law from the very beginning,” said Chesa Boudin, a lawyer who filed the suit. The case filed by UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center and the law firm Edelson PC alleged that the agency illegally docked fees from over a million people since 1994. The lawsuit said state “routinely withholds some or all of the funds based on eligibility criteria of its own making, criteria that violate the plain language of the law.” Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a funding bill on Sept. 30 that gave the department an additional $1.8 million for clothing and transportation costs for a year. A 2008 report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center said that the first 72 hours after someone is released from prison are paramount to the success of their long-term reentry. The lawsuit describes the release funds as a “critical lifeline” and “small but vital aid.”The lawsuit seeks retroactive payments for those who had gate money funds deducted or were denied entirely.