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Killer gets life without parole; victim's wife now a suspect

DECATUR | A corporate engineer who fawned over a female subordinate was found guilty but mentally ill Thursday of fatally shooting the woman's husband in an ambush outside a suburban Atlanta preschool.

After a judge sentenced Hemy Neuman to ...

It's been confirmed: They are down with living in the basement.

About 30 percent of young Americans age 25 to 34 who once left their family homes have moved back in, says a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

Not only is there no stigma attached to being ...

Just months after falling victim to a recall effort, the author of Arizona's immigration crackdown is weighing whether to jump back into another legislative race.

A leader of the movement against illegal immigration, Russell Pearce is slated to announce his plans Monday at a Red Mountain Tea Party meeting in ...

The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, looking to draw attention to the dangers of "huffing" helium, called Thursday for new restrictions on the sale of the gas - as well as a more serious approach in the media to coverage of its misuse.

"Did you know that a ... 6-year-old can ...

ALBANY, N.Y. — School districts soon will be able to opt out of a common ammonia-treated ground-beef filler critics have dubbed "pink slime."

Amid a growing social-media storm over so-called "lean, finely textured beef," the Agriculture Department announced Thursday that starting next fall, schools involved in the national school ...

The Justice Department initiated more than 120 cases against human traffickers during 2011 — a record number — in what Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday was a part of the department's commitment to preventing human trafficking, bringing traffickers to justice and assisting their victims.

Mr. Holder, speaking ...

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — A corporate engineer was found guilty but mentally ill Thursday in the 2010 shooting death of a father who had just dropped his toddler off at day care in suburban Atlanta.

Hemy Neuman was charged with murder in the death of Russell Sneiderman. Prosecutors and defense ...

A bungled Justice Department investigation and prosecution of the late Sen. Ted Stevens were permeated by the "systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence," in some instances intentionally, that would have independently corroborated his defense and testimony, a court-ordered report said Thursday.

In a blistering 514-page report, Special Counsel Henry F. ...

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama administration is poised to deal a major blow to U.S. oil and natural gas, a leading industry group charged Thursday.

Domestic production of both fuels could plummet if proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations, designed to limit emissions from well sites, go into effect ...

Attenuation was found with a two hour delay, (unnecessary) Miranda warnings, defendant counseling with his father on his cell phone who told him not to cooperate, and finally thinking about his predicament for at least an hour. United States v. Conrad, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 5285 (7th Cir. March 14, 2012)*:

If ordered, suppression of unconstitutionally obtained evidence can permit "[t]he criminal ... to go free because the constable has blundered." People v. Defore, 150 N.E. 585, 587 (N.Y. 1926) (Cardozo, J.). Given a blunder that the Government does not dispute here, Defendant David Conrad argues that the district court should have suppressed all the evidence of child pornography that was recovered following an illegal entry into his father's home. As we explain below, however, the district court correctly denied exclusion of evidence obtained from Mr. Conrad's own home—an hour's drive away from the home that had been illegally entered and which Mr. Conrad authorized the Government to search. That evidence was sufficiently attenuated from the original illegal entry so as to have been purged of the unconstitutional taint.

. . .

Consistent with existing precedent, the district court identified intervening circumstances that favored attenuation: Mr. Conrad's repeated consents to search and his waiver of Miranda rights (which law enforcement was not even required to give because he was not in custody), about two hours after the underlying constitutional violation and in a completely different location. As for the different location, we note that in contrast to cases where no attenuation was found after the defendant was taken, for example, to a police station, e.g., Taylor, 457 U.S. 687, here Mr. Conrad volunteered to go from his family home, a location where, according to the unchallenged findings of the district court, he "was undoubtedly comfortable," Conrad, 578 F. Supp. 2d at 1037, to a location that was as yet unknown to the agents, the Chicago Apartment. He was likely as or more comfortable there, and thus in a better position to decide whether to stand on his constitutional rights there. Furthermore, because the Chicago Apartment was independently protected under the Fourth Amendment, extending the scope of the exclusion would have little additional deterrent effect. Cf. Harris, 495 U.S. at 20 ("Even though we decline to suppress statements made outside the home following a Payton violation, the principal incentive to obey Payton still obtains: the police know that a warrantless entry will lead to the suppression of any evidence found, or statements taken, inside the home. If we did suppress statements like Harris', moreover, the incremental deterrent value would be minimal.").

Although the district court did not explicitly rely on it for this second factor, we also attach particular significance to another, rather unusual, circumstance. Mr. Conrad not only could use his cell phone to obtain advice about his predicament, but he actually did—and was, as the district court found, specifically told by his father "not to talk to the officers." Conrad, 578 F. Supp. 2d at 1025. While he suggests that his decision to ignore that advice was in recognition that he had already confessed to so much that he had no choice but to continue, the district court found, and he does not contest, that his statements were voluntary. Id. at 1036-37. The voluntariness of his statements—made despite superfluous Miranda warnings, a specific warning from his father, and after an hour to think in the car and twenty minutes to think while tending to his cats and showing off music equipment—help establish that his conduct at the Chicago Apartment was "sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion." Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486 (1963) (footnote omitted).

A congressional committee has given the federal government a below-average C-minus grade on its ability to track basic information about the processing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests it receives, according to a report released Thursday.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that 11 of 17 Cabinet-level ...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — School districts soon will be able to opt out of a common ammonia-treated ground beef filler critics have dubbed "pink slime."

Amid a growing social media storm over so-called "lean finely textured beef," the U.S. Department of Agriculture was set to announce Thursday that starting in ...

NEW YORK (AP) — The accused madam of a multimillion-dollar Manhattan brothel could get out of jail if a judge OKs a defense lawyer's plan to put up his own apartment as bail and a house-arrest locale for her.

Anna Gristina was due in court Thursday for a hearing on ...

Officer’s waiting for backup to arrive before doing frisk of occupants of the car was not a separate seizure requiring a new analysis of reasonable suspicion. United States v. Boone, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33914 (W.D. N.C. March 8, 2012).

This started as a motorist assist and ended up as a warning ticket. The whole thing took nine minutes, which was not unreasonably long. As defendant was leaving, the officer asked if he could ask some additional questions, and that led to a valid consent. The granting of the motion to suppress was reversed. People v. Kats, 2012 Ill. App. LEXIS 158, 2012 IL App (3d) 100683 (March 9, 2012).*

“The 911 hang-up call, combined with the lack of answer on the return and Defendant's overtly aggressive and hostile behavior and refusal to answer basic questions, provided a reasonable basis for the officers to conduct a protective sweep of the house to ensure that no one inside was in need of immediate help. While Defendant had a right to respond as he did, this nevertheless did not dispel the officers' concern for the safety of the occupants.” United States v. Obbanya, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33627 (N.D. Cal. March 13, 2012).*

America Has No Caesar! 4-14-11

The Birth Of Christ And The Birth Of America Are Linked 12-23-10

LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) — Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich entered a federal prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin a 14-year sentence for corruption, the latest chapter in the downfall of a charismatic politician that seemed more like a bizarre reality TV show than a legal battle.

Followed by ...

Raising The Debt; Lowering The Boom 8-4-11

A police request to “take a look” in a car or to “check” it for contraband does not include looking in locked containers. Here, the officer did take a look, then took the keys and unlocked the glove compartment finding a gun. That exceeded the consent. The state's burden in a consent case is "heavy," and here not met. People v. McFarlane, 2012 NY Slip Op 01754, 2012 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1767 (1st Dept. March 13, 2012):

Here, the officer's request to "take a look" into the car or "check" it for contraband could reasonably have been understood to be a request to search the vehicle, possibly to include closed containers, but it did not reasonably imply a request for permission to open the locked glove compartment (cf. People v Gomez, 5 NY3d 416, 418-419, 838 N.E.2d 1271, 805 N.Y.S.2d 24 [2005] [general consent to search car did not authorize breaking into hidden compartment]). That the officer subjectively intended to search the glove compartment when he made the request is not determinative. Normally, a locked container can only be opened by breaking into it or using a key. A reasonable person in defendant's situation would have assumed that if the officer wanted to open the glove compartment with defendant's consent he would have asked for the key or asked defendant to open it. The officer did neither; after checking the seats and the center console, he simply took the keys from the ignition and opened the glove compartment.

In a probation search, the government must first have probable cause to believe the home is the defendant’s, a fact not in dispute in this case. This search was based on a CI saying that defendant as involved in a homicide, but the CI’s track record and information was clearly lacking. A shotgun was found at defendant’s house. A California probation search, however, can be suspicionless, so the gun was not suppressed after all. United States v. King, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 5262 (9th Cir. March 13, 2012).

Where defendant’s father signed a consent to search form, his mother’s refusal to sign because she disagreed with the search was not binding on the police. Brunetti v. Comm'r of Corr., 2012 Conn. App. LEXIS 125 (March 13, 2012).*

A “road closed” sign is a traffic control device, and disobeying it justified a stop. State v. Morrissey, 2012 Neb. App. LEXIS 52 (March 13, 2012).*