In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended (FLPMA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announces the availability of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Mojave Exploration Drilling Project.

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Report from Governmental Affairs

April 9, 2025, 6:00 am CDT

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How did the introduction of U.S. probation officers impact the federal criminal justice system?

Before the Probation Act of 1925, district judges lacked the authority to sentence defendants to probation. Some judges used a practice called “laying a case on file” to hold off on imposing a sentence so long as the defendant maintained good behavior. However, there was no formal way for the court to monitor the defendant’s conduct. 

With the passage of the Probation Act of 1925 and the creation of federal probation officers, courts gained the authority to impose a sentence of probation, and judges could rely on probation officers to supervise these people in the community. Additionally, with the help of probation officers, judges could review presentence reports to help identify good candidates to be placed on probation.

How has the role of U.S. probation officers changed since the position was first created?

Initially, probation officers were only authorized to supervise those sentenced to probation. However, the scope of their work expanded quickly. In 1930, probation officers became authorized to supervise federal parolees. After World War II, probation officers began to supervise military parolees. And in the 1980s, Congress created pretrial services and authorized probation and pretrial services officers to supervise defendants in the community. 

Most significantly, in 1987, when Federal Sentencing Guidelines became effective, officers began to supervise those placed on supervised release. Officers took on a legal-interpretation and legal-application role too – assessing and recommending sentencing guideline calculations in presentence reports. 

The work of probation and pretrial services has only become increasingly complex, with officers managing conditions, such as location monitoring and restrictions on technology access.

What common misconceptions do people have about the role of U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services?

Some people assume that probation and pretrial services work for the Department of Justice. But from the very start, the work of officers was closely related to the Judiciary’s role in sentencing, and in 1940, officers were formally moved into the Judiciary. The status of officers as employees of the court ensures their independence and promotes trust between the officers and judges whom they serve.

Another misconception is that officers have a singular mindset – either law enforcement or social worker – about how to best supervise people on their caseload. In fact, we know that the best officers are multi-dimensional. They understand that the goal of protecting the public includes, and is not separate from, the goal of rehabilitating the person on supervision. 

What obstacles has the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services system overcome over the past century?

Officers have been asked to adjust to whatever the nation’s pressing needs are. Over the years, officers have supervised bootleggers and mob bosses, draft dodgers, Wall Street tycoons, and violent street gang members. They have had to handle both domestic and international violent extremists, as well as sexual offenders and cyber criminals. It is a testament to the skills and adaptability of officers that they have been able to adjust to all these changes.

Another challenge has been keeping up with new legislative directives and changing trends in crime overall. For example, the Sentencing Reform Act created a seismic shift in the work of probation officers. They needed to learn and apply the sentencing guidelines and understand how the goals of supervised release differed from that of probation.

What major challenges does the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services system face today?

Securing adequate resources has always been a challenge. Most of our budget is spent on our staff. When we experience budget shortfalls, it means fewer officers and larger caseloads for the remaining officers. When caseloads get too high, there are delays in investigations and reports, which slows down cases. And large caseloads increase the risks that supervision issues are not promptly addressed. 

A significant obstacle that our system – like the rest of the nation – had to overcome was the COVID-19 pandemic. As the virus swept across the country, officers had to change the way they carried out their duties to keep themselves and the people they supervised safe. I was impressed to see the ingenuity and innovations deployed by officers, including virtual home contacts, remote-monitoring technology, and the use of telehealth services. Some of the pandemic-related innovations were so successful that they have been incorporated into today’s post-pandemic policies and procedures.

What technological advancements have most impacted the work of officers?

In the early days of the system, probation officers worried about things like typewriters, office space, and office supplies. But as the system grew, questions arose about what those records should look like. In 1959, at the request of the Judiciary, the General Services Administration conducted a study on recording and reporting of probation office statistics. A number of recommendations were made to promote consistency. These formal reports are still used today to inform the Judiciary, the Congress, and the public about our work. 

To track their work, officers would use logbooks and eventually Dictaphones to track case-related activities. In 1977, the Judicial Conference approved the system’s first case management system – the Probation Information Management System. A decade later, that system was replaced with the Probation and Pretrial Services Automated Case Tracking System (PACTS), and we are now nearing the end of the development of PACTS360, a secure, cloud-based system, which will enhance officers’ productivity and effectiveness. 

PACTS and PACTS360 provide vital information that impacts case-specific decisions, such as the risk level of the person being supervised, and system-wide decisions, such as the resource requirement for the system.

Today, officers have access to most case-related information on their smartphones. They also leverage new technologies to interact with the people they supervise, use location and computer monitoring, and the latest drug testing technology as part of the supervision process to aid them in planning and performing field work safely. 

“I realized I could effect change as well as be the change,” said Brough, who now works as a driver transporting medical supplies and other goods across the Midwest. “It was fulfilling to know that my testimony played a pivotal role in the commission’s decision to make a rule change retroactive and allow more people like me to be released early and get a second chance at life.”

The Judiciary is making increased use of early release from supervision as a way to allow low-risk former supervisees to get their lives on track earlier than they otherwise could.

With early release, people who satisfy the terms of their probation and prove that they pose no danger to the community are freed from supervision before the date originally established by the court. Judges make the decisions on a case-by-case basis and must be satisfied that “such action is warranted by the supervisee’s conduct and is in the interest of justice,” according to a new report by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO).

The study found that the rate of approved early releases increased to 28 percent of all case closures in 2023, up from 22 percent in 2014. People who were considered low-risk based on scientific methods employed by probation offices were three times more likely to receive early termination than people in the high-risk category.

Early release from supervision can also remedy the excessive terms of supervision given to non-violent drug offenders in recent decades. The study showed that people convicted of drug offenses were about two times more likely to receive early termination – 34 percent – than those convicted of weapons or public order violations.

“Some people on supervision are at a high risk of recidivism and do need help, but that’s not everyone in our system,” said Thomas H. Cohen, an AO researcher who conducted the study. “The majority of them skew low risk. They should be monitored for some time, but if they demonstrate they are unlikely to commit a new crime, why not consider them for early release?”

Robert Gumm was one of those low-risk people on supervision after serving nearly seven years in prison. His eyes welled with tears when his U.S. probation officer called him with the news that he had been approved for early release from supervision. For the first time in over a decade, Gumm was a free man and he was determined to right wrongs and rebuild trust within his community.

“Nick, my probation officer, took a chance on me, and I’ve not let him down and I won’t let him down. But I also won’t let myself or my family down,” said Gumm, who now owns and operates a concrete business in Somerset, Kentucky. “The fact that he trusted in me meant everything to me.” 

Gumm had been convicted of the illegal sale of the prescription drug oxycodone and served his time in a federal prison in Kentucky. Today, he is striving to be a positive force in his community. Gumm started a bass fishing team for junior and high school students and organized a fishing tournament for adults, which raised over $50,000 for Kentucky flood victims.

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Americans’ confidence in courts hits all-time low; did Trump cases have bipartisan impact?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 18, 2024, 10:25 am CST

Americans’ confidence in the courts hit an all-time low of 35% in 2024, a decrease of 24 percentage points in four years, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

Confidence declined among those who disapproved of President Joe Biden’s leadership, as well as among those who approved, according to an online Gallup summary. The poll did not ask about political party.

The Associated Press covered the findings.

“The results come after a tumultuous period that included the overturning of the nationwide right to abortion, the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the subsequent withdrawal of federal charges, and his attacks on the integrity of the judicial system,” the article says.

The only indictment that led to a conviction had alleged that Trump falsified business records to pay hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in a bid to bolster his election in 2016.

Confidence in courts among those disapproving of Biden’s leadership declined from 46% in 2021 to 29% in 2024. Among those who approved of Biden’s leadership, confidence remained steady at 62% between 2021 and 2023, before decreasing to 44% this year.

The legal cases against Trump likely affected the confidence of both sets of respondents, Gallup said. Those who dislike Biden may have been dissatisfied with the cases against Trump. Those who like Biden many have been dissatisfied with court decisions favoring Trump.

Only nine nations had greater decreases in confidence in the courts over the same four-year period, the New York Times points out. They were Myanmar, Venezuela, Croatia, South Africa, Syria, Hong Kong, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uzbekistan.

Lydia Saad, the director of U.S. social research at Gallup, told the New York Times that the results represent “a striking decline” in the global context.

“These drops are typically associated with pretty significant political upheavals,” Saad said.

A separate Gallup poll asked about Americans’ trust in the federal judicial branch headed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Forty-eight percent said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence, according to findings released in October.

But political party made a difference. Among Republicans, 71% had a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the federal judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. Among Democrats, only 24% had such confidence.

Gallup also asked whether respondents approved or disapproved of the job being done by the Supreme Court. Overall, 44% of Americans approved of the Supreme Court. Seventy-two percent of Republicans approved, while 15% of Democrats approved.

The Supreme Court ruled in July in Trump v. United States that presidents have absolute immunity when exercising core constitutional powers and at least presumptive immunity for acts “within the outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities.

The Supreme Court’s decision holding that there is no constitutional right to abortion, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was released in June 2022. The next month, Democratic approval of the court decreased to 13%.

“When we ask Republicans about the Supreme Court, they’re still very positive,” Saad told the New York Times. “When you don’t pin them down on the Supreme Court and talk about the courts, they’re saying the courts are misbehaving and engaging in quote-unquote lawfare.”

Could anything have been done to prevent the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge? Investigators say the bridge did have some kind of impact protection, but CBS News has learned that a majority of U.S. bridges do not. Stephen Stock has more.

Lawyers who expect generative artificial intelligence to significantly impact the practice of law see some of the greatest potential in legal research and writing.

In August, a LexisNexis Legal & Professional study of nearly 8,000 lawyers, law students and consumers in the United States and three other countries found 65% of these professionals believe generative AI tools could assist them in researching matters. Meanwhile, 56% believe the tools could help them draft documents.

Ed Walters, CEO and co-founder of online legal research software company Fastcase, is thrilled by the prospect of making legal research more efficient. Traditionally, researchers would have to come up with keywords and add them to mathematical strings of language that they plug into a search engine. They would then receive a long list of documents and often spend hours reviewing each result to see if it yields their answer.

“This way of doing research is clumsy and slow and often leads to wrong answers,” says Walters, who also became the chief strategy officer of vLex after the legal technology company merged with Fastcase in April.

But now Walters says lawyers could ask AI tools to pull together relevant documents, read them and instantaneously synthesize results for them. In October, his company released a new version of Vincent AI, a legal research assistant that, among other features, allows lawyers to get answers to legal questions with citations and links from verified sources.

He expects that with the advent of GPT-4 and other large language models that interact with vast quantities of text, more of these tools with similar and even expanded capabilities are just on the horizon.

“This generation of tools doesn’t really solve research tasks, but I think they point to a new generation of tools right after this that will, instead of creating statistically likely answers, understand there’s a question being asked and synthesize text to answer the question,” Walters says.

June Hsiao Liebert, the president of the American Association of Law Libraries, agrees that large language models show a lot of promise for improving legal research and writing. She says they are already useful for some steps involved in these tasks, including drafting and editing documents.

“Given how they work, tools utilizing [large language models] can be useful in modeling what the ‘average’ or ‘typical’ solution or document might look like for a particular question, since it essentially predicts words based on what it has been trained on,” says Liebert, the director of information services at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. “It can also give users different answers depending on the point of view, set of facts or purpose. This ability to model different options can be extremely helpful and time-saving.”

Liebert encourages lawyers who use generative AI to double-check their work but says legal tech companies are making progress in addressing problems with accuracy in available tools.

She anticipates they will continue to investigate and devise solutions for other issues, including authenticity and bias.

“As these tools improve and we become better at using them, [large language models] and other AIs of the future will become just another tool that is available to everyone in the legal industry, not unlike the spell-check tool or even calculators,” Liebert says.

Legal Rebels Class of 2024

Locked in: Criminal justice startups tap into generative AI’s early promise

Bridging the Gap: Lawyers trying to increase access to justice see promise in generative AI

Helping Hand: Generative AI already is making an impact on legal research and writing

Always on: Will generative AI alleviate burnout or make lawyers more miserable?

Head of the Class: Law schools consider post-ChatGPT coursework

e-Sign on the Dotted Line: When it comes to using generative AI and contracts, the devil is in the details

Age of e-Discovery: Generative AI could revolutionize e-discovery—but buyer beware

Rewiring Entry: How AI could blur the borders of immigration law

This story was originally published in the February-March 2024 issue of the ABA Journal.

In This Podcast:

Lawyers who expect generative artificial intelligence to significantly impact the practice of law see some of the greatest potential in legal research and writing.

In August, a LexisNexis Legal & Professional study of nearly 8,000 lawyers, law students and consumers in the United States and three other countries found 65% of these professionals believe generative AI tools could assist them in researching matters. Meanwhile, 56% believe the tools could help them draft documents.

Ed Walters, CEO and co-founder of online legal research software company Fastcase, is thrilled by the prospect of making legal research more efficient. Traditionally, researchers would have to come up with keywords and add them to mathematical strings of language that they plug into a search engine. They would then receive a long list of documents and often spend hours reviewing each result to see if it yields their answer.

“This way of doing research is clumsy and slow and often leads to wrong answers,” says Walters, who also became the chief strategy officer of vLex after the legal technology company merged with Fastcase in April.

But now Walters says lawyers could ask AI tools to pull together relevant documents, read them and instantaneously synthesize results for them. In October, his company released a new version of Vincent AI, a legal research assistant that, among other features, allows lawyers to get answers to legal questions with citations and links from verified sources.

He expects that with the advent of GPT-4 and other large language models that interact with vast quantities of text, more of these tools with similar and even expanded capabilities are just on the horizon.

“This generation of tools doesn’t really solve research tasks, but I think they point to a new generation of tools right after this that will, instead of creating statistically likely answers, understand there’s a question being asked and synthesize text to answer the question,” Walters says.

June Hsiao Liebert, the president of the American Association of Law Libraries, agrees that large language models show a lot of promise for improving legal research and writing. She says they are already useful for some steps involved in these tasks, including drafting and editing documents.

“Given how they work, tools utilizing [large language models] can be useful in modeling what the ‘average’ or ‘typical’ solution or document might look like for a particular question, since it essentially predicts words based on what it has been trained on,” says Liebert, the director of information services at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. “It can also give users different answers depending on the point of view, set of facts or purpose. This ability to model different options can be extremely helpful and time-saving.”

Liebert encourages lawyers who use generative AI to double-check their work but says legal tech companies are making progress in addressing problems with accuracy in available tools.

She anticipates they will continue to investigate and devise solutions for other issues, including authenticity and bias.

“As these tools improve and we become better at using them, [large language models] and other AIs of the future will become just another tool that is available to everyone in the legal industry, not unlike the spell-check tool or even calculators,” Liebert says.

Legal Rebels Class of 2024

Locked in: Criminal justice startups tap into generative AI’s early promise

Bridging the Gap: Lawyers trying to increase access to justice see promise in generative AI

Helping Hand: Generative AI already is making an impact on legal research and writing

Always on: Will generative AI alleviate burnout or make lawyers more miserable?

Head of the Class: Law schools consider post-ChatGPT coursework

e-Sign on the Dotted Line: When it comes to using generative AI and contracts, the devil is in the details

Age of e-Discovery: Generative AI could revolutionize e-discovery—but buyer beware

Rewiring Entry: How AI could blur the borders of immigration law

This story was originally published in the February-March 2024 issue of the ABA Journal.

In This Podcast: