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Sept. 11: Hold Government Accountable 3-28-04

Handicapping The Race For The White House 3-24-04

The Power Elite Exposed 3-16-04

From World Citizenship to World Government 3-10-04

Powerful Political Forces Always at War 3-5-04

Economic Assault on African-Americans And Others in the US 2-7-04

Why The 28-Page Gap? 7-29-03

Expanded Addendum to Cover-Up, Government Spin or Truth? 4-26-03

Global Ethics and World Government 6-15-02

The Indiana Connection 4-29-02

SPLENDORA, Texas — Two children who were found living in a stench-filled abandoned school bus near Houston, its windows blocked and the lot around it covered in trash, are in the custody of Texas child welfare workers, officials said Thursday.

A postal worker discovered the children, ages 11 and 5, ...

WASHINGTON — Air fares are likely to stay high throughout this decade, as passenger travel grows but airline capacity shrinks, according to a government forecast issued Thursday.

In its annual economic analysis, the Federal Aviation Administration said travelers won't get much relief until airlines start getting more competition, which is ...

RICHMOND, Va. — More work needs to be done to keep young Americans from using tobacco, including creating smoking bans and increasing taxes on tobacco products, the U.S. Surgeon General's office said in a report released Thursday.

Almost one in five high school-aged teens smokes, down from earlier decades, but ...

Defendant had a driver’s license in his possession, but he was arrested for a suspended license, for which there were several possible reasons. It was never shown that there was not a valid warrant. If there was no valid warrant, Herring would apply. State v. Brock, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 248 (La. App. 2d Cir. March 7, 2012)*:

Based on the evidence presented, there was no showing that the arresting officers acted with reckless disregard of the constitutional requirements or were grossly negligent. Thus, the record supports the district court's finding that even if the warrant was not valid at the time, the deputies acted in an objectively reasonable manner in relying on the information of an active warrant to arrest the defendant. Consequently, as held in Herring, supra, the exclusionary rule is not applicable under such circumstances. Therefore, we cannot say the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress the evidence seized in the search incident to that arrest. The assignment of error lacks merit.

Officers suspected defendant for a robbery and surveilled his house after they got a line on where he lived. They saw him coming and going and then confronted him, and he produced a key and consented to the search. Nshaka v. State, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 3686 (Fla. 4th DCA March 7, 2012).*

Let the Sparks Fly, 3-8-12

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. ...

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

Kicking the can down the road. That's been the Obama administration's response to so many issues.

Romans 13: Setting It Straight 7-28-11