By: Brett Ingerman/Jonathan W. Haray/Lindsay R. Barnes Recently, four days into what had been scheduled to be seven-week trial, the US Department of Justice voluntarily dismissed the last of the criminal charges it had brought in its money laundering and drug trafficking prosecution of FedEx. Such was the abrupt end of two years of litigation in the US District Court…

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Wednesday ordered [opinion] Ronald Reagan shooter John Hinckley Jr. released from a government psychiatric hospital. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1981 and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where he has remained for 35…

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] on Tuesday gave preliminary approval [order, PDF] to a $15 billion settlement [case materials] between German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) [corporate website] and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website], California officials and consumers. Judge Charles Breyer’s ruling…