(Reuters) - In January, I wrote that I would be keeping an eye on the case against former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. As I expected, the case dominated courts and justice news in 2021, largely because the entire incident was captured on video. That same month, I wrote about the Black Lives Matter protests and President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, and the expected lessons that were sure to come about the near-future of our justice system in those storylines.
By July, the U.S. Supreme Court's new conservative majority had issued rulings making it harder for workers to unionize and easier for states to restrict voting, overturning a 45-year-old California regulation and further weakening the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
And by October, the high court was poised to begin one of the most momentous terms in generations, as the justices took up petitions about abortion, religious rights, gun rights and more.
Looking back, the biggest developments in the courts and access to justice space this year were generally discouraging. That said, there was some tangible progress in cities around the country, which provides a measure of optimism moving forward.
SENTENCING
A major blow to the reform movement by the court came in June when it held that certain low-level offenders couldn't have their sentences reduced under a 2018 law intended to address racial disparities in incarceration caused by nonsensical distinctions between crimes related to crack...
A Cuban national who became a U.S. citizen in 2015 has had her citizenship revoked after a federal court in Florida found that she had concealed her role in a money laundering scheme when she appl...