Washington, DC - Seven Nominations Sent to the Senate:

Washington, DC - The Department of Justice today announced the one-year anniversary of its Place to Worship Initiative, which focuses on protecting the rights of religious individuals and communities to build, expand, buy, or rent houses of worship and other religious facilities as guaranteed by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

Washington, DC - Thursday, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced a new initiative to work directly with interested employers seeking to hire newly-released inmates. Through the “Ready to Work” initiative, the BOP seeks to connect employers directly to inmates to improve reentry outcomes. This initiative is part of the BOP’s holistic approach to implementation of the First Step Act, which was enacted in December 2018 and seeks to reduce recidivism among federal offenders.

Washington, DC - In the June 12, 2019 memorandum to all U.S. Attorneys, Assistant Attorneys General, and the FBI, the Deputy Attorney General extended at least until the end of the calendar year the grace period on implementing the Office of Legal Counsel's (OLC) 2018 opinion finding that all but one of the prohibitions of the Wire Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1084, apply to non-sports gambling. 

Jackson, Mississippi - A federal grand jury indicted Sharalyn McClain, 28, a former Mississippi Department of Corrections officer, for using excessive force against an inmate at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. The indictment charges McClain with a felony civil rights offense for her role in the assault of the inmate, and for aiding and abetting others in committing the assault. The indictment also alleges that McClain used a dangerous weapon to commit the assault, which resulted in injury to the inmate.

New Orleans, Orleans - Holden James Matthews, 21, of Opelousas, Louisiana, was charged by a federal grand jury in an indictment unsealed today for setting fire to and destroying three churches in St. Landry Parish, announced Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph for the Western District of Louisiana.