Judiciary

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and its Crime Subcommittee, today announced a $488,594 grant to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to discourage gang membership and address the traumas associated with exposure to gang violence.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today urged constituents who have received absentee mail-in ballots to take them to the Bartlett Post Office and drop them in the dropbox. With just days before this Tuesday's November 3 election, Congressman Cohen is concerned that the U.S. Post Office might not be able to deliver mailed-in ballots from remote locations in time to be counted.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, applauded today's commutation of the life sentence being served by 70-year-old Curtis McDonald but urged President Trump to use a more systematic approach to release thousands of similarly situated non-violent offenders before he leaves office.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, today announced a Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant of $2 million to the City of Memphis. Over the past decade, Congressman Cohen has been a leader in efforts to increase spending under the initiative, and Memphis has receive substantial resources under the program. At its peak, the rape kit backlog reached 12,000 untested kits in Memphis alone with an estimated 400,000 sitting in evidence rooms nationwide.

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties with jurisdiction over voting rights, today condemned vote-suppression efforts in Texas and Pennsylvania aimed helping President Trump just a month before the November 3 election.

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today released a statement after President Trump announced his nominee to succeed the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today presided over a hearing on Oversight of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

In his opening statement, Chairman Cohen spoke of the division's failure to defend and, on some occasions, active efforts to erode Americans' voting rights. He said in part:

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, today questioned expert witnesses at a Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet hearing on "Maintaining Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law: Examining the Causes and Consequences of Court Capture."

During his opportunity to question witnesses, Congressman Cohen said: