Releases reported in court in icy spell (6-2)
I believe the answer is:
freeze-up
'icy spell' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'releases reported in court' is the wordplay.
'releases' becomes 'frees' ('free' can be a synonym of 'release').
'reported' shows a homophone (sound like).
'in court' becomes 'up'.
'frees' is a homophone of 'freeze'.
'freeze'+'up'='FREEZE-UP'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for freeze-up that I've seen before include "Icy spell" , "Period of extreme cold" , "Cold snap" .)