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America is peaceful. No, really.

Though Hollywood and the news media often portray the nation as a chaotic crucible of gangsters and crime, the U.S. is more "peaceful" now than in the past two decades. So says the United States Peace Index, released Tuesday by the Institute for Economics & ...

CHICAGO — The U.S. needs find a way to be a leader in global peace, former President Jimmy Carter said Monday at a gathering of Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama are just a few laureates expected in Chicago for the three-day summit, the first of ...

SANFORD, Fla. | George Zimmerman, who slipped out of jail on $150,000 bail in the early morning darkness, went back into hiding Monday and likely fled to another state to avoid threats as he awaits his second-degree murder trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin.

His release from jail came ...

GLASGOW, Mont. | Booming oil production across a wide expanse of the Northern Plains is forcing law enforcement from the U.S. and Canada to gird for a spike in crimes ranging from drug trafficking and gun offenses to prostitution.

Officials say up to 30,000 workers could descend on the Bakken ...

UNIONTOWN — A county detective says a man serving six months in a southwestern Pennsylvania county jail illegally hid a cellphone and charger in his prosthetic leg.

Christopher Greer, 27, faces a preliminary hearing May 22 on a contraband charge filed last week by a Fayette County detective.

Greer was ...

Carrie Bradshaw might not be a role model at the elementary school, but the Obama administration hopes Sarah Jessica Parker can be.

As part of its Turnaround Arts initiative announced Monday, the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities will dispatch Miss Parker and such other stars as Forest ...

CHICAGO — Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson broke down in tears Monday while testifying at the trial of the man accused of killing her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in a jealous rage four years ago.

Miss Hudson was the first witness called after prosecutors and attorneys for William Balfour finished their ...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — With the horrors of a deadly shooting rampage still a fresh memory, some students at a California Christian college returned to class Monday in a building where seven people were killed earlier this month.

Oakland's Oikos University — still draped with a memorial banner, wreaths and ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities on Monday finished excavating a Manhattan basement in connection to the disappearance of a 6-year-old boy three decades ago without finding any obvious human remains, law enforcement officials said Monday.

FBI and police had been searching the former workspace of a handyman since Thursday, after ...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A spring nor'easter packing soaking rain and high winds churned up the Northeast on Monday morning, unleashing a burst of winter and up to a foot of snow in higher elevations inland, closing some schools and sparking concerns of power outages.

"It's unusual, but not unheard of," ...

SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman, who slipped out of jail on $150,000 bail in the early morning darkness, went back into hiding Monday and likely fled to another state to avoid threats as he awaits his second-degree murder trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin.

His release from jail came ...

A suppression motion that says that defendant was subjected to a warrantless search is not enough to get a suppression hearing. What are the disputed facts? The motion is denied on the papers. United States v. Brissey, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55739 (S.D. Ind. April 20, 2012).

Officers had reasonable suspicion to believe defendant was in possession of a weapon when they arrived at a shots fired call and heard shots from behind defendant’s house and then saw defendant there. United States v. Huebner, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55821 (E.D. Tenn. February 13, 2012).*

Defendant was stopped by the police after they saw him in a high-crime area with his compatriots flagging down cars for drug deals, and, when he saw the police, he dropped something. That was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Johnson, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154810 (E.D. Mo. December 15, 2011), adopted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55837 (E.D. Mo. April 20, 2012).*

Following the Eighth Circuit, avoiding a DUI checkpoint alone is not enough to make reasonable suspicion. Here, however, there was more. State v. Rademaker, 2012 SD 28, 2012 S.D. LEXIS 28 (April 18, 2012).

2255 inventory claim fails on the merits. “I find no evidence in the record that the impoundment was unlawful or that officers conducted the inventory search before deciding to impound the vehicle.” Brunick v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55096 (D. Or. April 19, 2012).*

A young man brought defendant’s laptop to the police claiming there was teen gay pornography on the screen from websites defendant visited. The officer touched the mousepad and the screen came on showing what he said. The officer’s viewing of the computer went no further than the private search. Then a state search warrant was sought. United States v. Goodale, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55554 (N.D. Ga. April 19, 2012).*

A cadre of liberal groups has decided the scourge of the nation is a little-known conservative organization that provides model legislation to state legislators across the country.

Defendant’s arguments in the trial court were not the same ones made on appeal, so his appeal is governed by the plain error standard, and he doesn’t succeed for lack of a record supporting his argument. He was shot during what was found to be a Terry stop with guns drawn. Under Graham v. Connor, it appeared, on this record, it was justified enough to support the district court's conclusion. United States v. Hill, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 8072 (4th Cir. April 19, 2012)*:

Hill argues that when we weigh the three factors enumerated in Graham — the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight — it is apparent the officers "did not have an objectively reasonable ground to shoot Hill." Appellant's Br. at 25. As to the severity of the crime, he argues it weighs in his favor because at no point did the officers suspect Hill of having committed a crime; other than knowing that Bennett had written "help" on the receipt and herself carried a gun, all their information came from their observations of Hill inside the car. As to the third factor, he argues, Hill was not actively resisting arrest or attempting to flee.

The reasonableness of the officers' actions thus comes down to whether Hill's movements inside the car rendered reasonable the officers' belief that Hill posed an imminent threat to them, justifying the use of deadly force. The government argues the officers were justified in interpreting Hill's movements as evidence that he was reaching for a gun. Hill argues that belief was unreasonable because "the movement of a suspect's hands, without more, while he is under arrest is insufficient to give rise to an objectively reasonable basis for the police to use deadly force." Appellant's Br. at 26. Only if "the police had seen him with a gun, or had reliable and specific information that he was known to be armed," might this have been a "significant factor," he argues. Id. He also points out that the officers' descriptions of Hill's precise movements were inconsistent, and that it was Bennett, not Hill, whom the officers knew was armed.

Here again, our problem is the absence of adequate information to find that it was "obvious" that Hill did not pose an imminent threat of serious physical harm to the officers. Had Hill raised these issues in the district court, the risk of non-persuasion on these issues would have been cast upon the government to justify a warrantless seizure. See, e.g., United States v. Basinski, 226 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 2000); United States v. Burke, 605 F. Supp. 2d 688, 693-94 (D. Md. 2009). But under the plain error standard we apply here, Hill must shoulder the burden to prove the contrary. Without findings by the district court on these and related issues, and particularly inasmuch as the surveillance video does not show Hill's movements in the car, we may not plausibly notice plain error on this record and we decline to do so.

As the debate over who presumptive nominee Mitt Romney should pick as his running-mate gets into full swing, a question also remains about how valuable the selection really is. Read about the top VP contenders for 2012.

How important a bottom-of-the-ticket nominee is may be overstated. Typically, pundits ask what state or demographic a nominee might bring, as well as what experience void the individual may fill. Both Sarah Palin and Geraldine Ferarro failed to carry their lackluster presidential nominees very far. In 2004, John Edwards was supposed to be the young, attractive, allegedly Kennedy-esque candidate to put John Kerry over the top. That didn't work out so well either.

Yet the list of past vice-presidents reads like an all-star induction into the boring hall of fame: Dick Cheney, Al Gore, and Joe Biden have held the spot for nearly 20 years. So while many are hoping for an exciting or out-of-the-box kind of pick, historically those have not worked out so well.

A recent poll finds former Bush Secretary of State Condi Rice tops a poll of Republican voters with 26%, followed closely by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at 21%, while Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum are chosen by 14% of Republican voters.

Read about the top VP contenders for 2012.

How much is a VP Pick Worth? originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Monday, April 23rd, 2012 at 08:14:42.

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WASHINGTON — High energy prices and an economy that has been slow to rebound are worsening Social Security's finances, shortening the life of the trust funds that support program by three years, the government said Monday.

Those trust funds will now run dry in 2033, according to a report issued ...

I don't know how many times I've seen liberal commentators look back with nostalgia to the days when a young man fresh out of high school or military service could get a well-paying job on an assembly line.

Young people gave Obama their votes. Obama has given them debt and despair.

President Obama has a unique capacity to draw the media's attention away from the serious and significant and toward the trivial and tedious.