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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wounded in both legs and wearing a U.S. Army field coat peppered with bullet holes, 1st Lt. Robert Schmitt led a desperate U.S. hilltop assault against advancing Chinese forces in one of the bloodiest battles of the Korean War. He never returned....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wounded in both legs and wearing a U.S. Army field coat peppered with bullet holes, 1st Lt. Robert Schmitt led a desperate U.S. hilltop assault against advancing Chinese forces in one of the bloodiest battles of the Korean War. He never returned....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Iro Uikka clutches his throat as he describes the violent clash that led to spending his nights sleeping in New York City subway cars....

Officers were let into an apartment building by tenants and the manager, and they did a dog sniff outside defendant’s apartment door. That was support for a search warrant. [This issue is pending in SCOTUS in Florida v. Jardines, 11-564 granted Jan. 6 (ScotusBlog), not yet calendared for argument, so not this Term.] United States v. Sample, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29278 (E.D. Mich. March 6, 2012).

Co-occupant of hotel room who occupied it, had clothes there, and told police he had counterfeiting tools there had standing, and therefore could consent, despite the fact he didn’t sleep there the night before. United States v. Yates, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29028 (D. R.I. March 6, 2012).

2255 ground that defense counsel didn’t file a motion to suppress was wrong; one was filed and heard. Schmitz v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29274 (N.D. Ala. January 19, 2012).*

2255 is not a method to relitigate the search and seizure already denied on direct appeal. Kapordelis v. United States, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153854 (N.D. Ga. December 12, 2011).*

A San Francisco apartment building was rendered uninhabitable from a fire, and occupants were locked out while clean up was going on. Defendant approached a construction worker and asked him to retrieve a gun from the motor compartment of a refrigerator, and that was reported to the police. The fire rendered the building de facto and de jure abandoned by operation of law, and the landlord could consent to the police entry. At the time, all personal belongings appeared to have been moved out of the apartment except for large pieces of furniture. United States v. Allen, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28790 (N.D. Cal. March 5, 2012):

The first is that under California law, either party to a lease may terminate the lease if the premises are destroyed. Cal. Civ. Code § 1932(2) ("The hirer of a thing may terminate the hiring before the end of the term agreed upon: ... (2) When the greater part of the thing hired, or that part which was and which the letter had at the time of the hiring reason to believe was the material inducement to the hirer to enter into the contract, perishes from any other cause than the want of ordinary care of the hirer."); Cal. Civ. Code § 1933(4) ("The hiring of a thing terminates: ... (4) By the destruction of the thing hired."). Based on this principle of California landlord-tenant law, coupled with the representations the property manager made to the SFPD dispatcher about the apartment being vacant, see Scafani Decl. ¶ 3, it was objectively reasonable for Officer Scafani to believe that Ms. Wilson's lease had been terminated as a result of the fire and, thus, that the property manager had the authority to consent to a search of Ms. Wilson's apartment. This belief was an objectively reasonable mistake of fact, not law, and if the mistaken fact were true, it would have conferred authority to consent on the property manager.

The second reason it was objectively reasonable for Officer Scafani to believe the property manager had authority to consent to a search is the condition of Ms. Wilson's apartment and the building as a whole at the time of the search. There is no definitive list of facts that may lead to a reasonable belief of abandonment, but in Sledge the Ninth Circuit found apparent authority where the tenants had given their landlord thirty days notice of their intent to vacate, had removed all personal belongings from the apartment, and the apartment was "empty of furnishings not belonging to the landlord" at the time that the landlord consented to the police search. 650 F.2d at 1076, 1082. Similarly, in determining whether eviction had actually taken place, the Ninth Circuit in Young considered whether the defendant's personal belongings had been removed from his hotel room and placed into storage and whether his room key worked. 573 F.3d at 717.

Here, as in Sledge, it was objectively reasonable to believe that the apartment had been vacated. Most of the personal belongings inside had been removed from the apartment and placed into storage. ...

DENVER (AP) -- Authorities all along had the DNA evidence to link a convicted triple-murderer to three additional murders from 1979, and they say he could have been responsible for as many as 20 slayings....

I Am Now A Candidate For Montana Lieutenant Governor 11-17-11

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The largest solar storm in five years was due to arrive on Earth early Thursday, promising to shake the globe's magnetic field while expanding the Northern Lights....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One of the strongest solar storms in years engulfed Earth early Thursday, but scientists say the planet may have lucked out....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. should customize emergency plans for each of the nation's 65 nuclear power plants, a change that in some cases could expand the standard 10-mile evacuation zone in place for more than three decades, an expert panel is recommending....

It took 11 days and the help of dozens of strangers, but police have finally been able to locate the family of a pair of reclusive twin sisters who were found dead in their California home last month....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wounded in both legs and wearing a U.S. Army field coat peppered with bullet holes, 1st Lt. Robert Schmitt led a desperate U.S. hilltop assault against advancing Chinese forces in one of the bloodiest battles of the Korean War. He never returned....

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- An Oregon nursing assistant convicted of taking graphic photos of elderly or disabled patients and posting them on Facebook was sentenced to jail and ordered to write an "insightful" apology....

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- An Oregon nursing assistant convicted of taking graphic photos of elderly or disabled patients and posting them on Facebook was sentenced to jail and ordered to write an "insightful" apology....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Space weather forecasters say the solar storm that seemed to be more fizzle than fury got much stronger overnight. It's now the most potent solar storm since 2004....

Romans 13: Setting It Straight 7-28-11

TULSA (AP) -- With the temperature pushing 70, the young, barefoot man didn't seem out of place on a downtown plaza - until he pulled out a handgun and began shooting indiscriminately into the air....

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Authorities say a man involved in a shootout with sheriff's deputies outside a Tulsa courthouse is the brother of a murder suspect who was shot to death by police officers more than six years ago....

TULSA (AP) -- With the temperature pushing 70, the young, barefoot man didn't seem out of place on a downtown plaza - until he pulled out a handgun and began shooting indiscriminately into the air....

SAN MARCOS, Texas (AP) -- For more than five weeks, a woman's body lay undisturbed in a secluded Texas field. Then a frenzied flock of vultures descended on the corpse and reduced it to a skeleton within hours....