VoteKansas.org

The News Tribe | Fighting between regime troops and armed rebels doesn't stop for U.N. monitors

CBS Local Chicago | As per the usual routine, police claim the violence was allegedly instigated by protesters.

Reuters | Mexican investigators hold retired Mexican Army General and retired Lieutenant Colonel in Mexico City pending investigation into cartel connections.

VOA News | Taiwanese President begins second term pledging deeper relations with China.

NBC | Rubio states Obama is "a very different person" than the person who ran in 2008.

Democracy Now | Surveillance video from a 2009 cop stomp beating of Chad Holley does not land the officers in jail.

Richard E. Ralston | Care for the individual must be subordinated to supervision by a multitude of administrators.

Radley Balko | Police officer told her the dog had alerted to the presence of narcotics on the bills.

LA Times | Obama: “The loss of life continues in Afghanistan. There will be hard days ahead, but we’re confident that we’re on the right track.”

Time | Romney's Chicago Tribune op-ed tries to save face for NATO and perpetuates the illusion that the public has a choice in the election.

CBC News | Canadian protesters are arrested Saturday night after authorities declared the protest illegal.

Rodney Balko on HuffPo: Under Asset Forfeiture Law, Wisconsin Cops Confiscate Families' Bail Money (Wisconsin has no bailbondsmen, so cash, check, or credit card required):

When the Brown County, Wis., Drug Task Force arrested her son Joel last February, Beverly Greer started piecing together his bail.

She used part of her disability payment and her tax return. Joel Greer's wife also chipped in, as did his brother and two sisters. On Feb. 29, a judge set Greer's bail at $7,500, and his mother called the Brown County jail to see where and how she could get him out. "The police specifically told us to bring cash," Greer says. "Not a cashier's check or a credit card. They said cash."

So Greer and her family visited a series of ATMs, and on March 1, she brought the money to the jail, thinking she'd be taking Joel Greer home. But she left without her money, or her son.

A drug dog alerted on the cash, which we all know means nothing.

Steven Kessler, a New York-based forfeiture attorney and the author of the legal treatise "Civil and Criminal Forfeiture: Federal and State Practice," said he had never heard of simply confiscating bail. "It's abhorrent. You can reject bail if you suspect the money is dirty. But you don't simply take it and hand it over to the police department."

Virginia attorney David Smith, who also wrote a book on forfeiture, says he has seen other cases in which authorities have confiscated bail money, but adds, "No courts have ordered forfeiture simply on the basis of a dog alert. There has to be other evidence."

Forfeitures like these may not hold up in court, but failed cases wouldn't necessarily discourage police departments from continuing the practice. If the defendant never challenges the seizure, the department generates revenue. If the defendant challenges and wins, the department loses little.

Paul Joseph Watson | Romney policy advisors on defensive over secretive group's power.

Infowars.com | Luke Rudkowksi, Tim Pool, Jeoff Shively, Dustin & Jess were driving home after covering a NATO protest in Chicago only to have their car raided by police.

Infowars.com | Alex covers the shutdown of Chicago by NATO.

Infowars.com | Yes, the police say because the men stayed with a man who had home-brew making equipment that they are terrorists. This is the same state were you get life in prison for public filming of mafia/ police.

Infowars.com | They do not have the copyright but eOne continues to take my film End Game: blueprint for global enslavement off the free web.

The penis swabbing of defendant in the jail after his arrest for rape as a search incident without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment, but it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because of the DNA evidence found in the rape victim’s underwear. People v. Fulton, 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 585 (3d Dist. May 18, 2012):

Here, the seizure of the evidence from the defendant's penis is problematic. It involved a major intrusion on the defendant's dignity. There is a dispute in authority about the extent to which on proper showing the police can search intimate areas of an arrestee's person. (3 LaFave, Search and Seizure (4th ed. 2004) Post-Arrest Detention, § 5.3(c), pp. 168-170 & fns. 114, 116; id. 2011-2012 Supp., p. 32.) Yet the prosecution, bearing the burden of justifying the warrantless seizure, made no attempt to establish that the evidence would have been destroyed absent the warrantless seizure. At best, the People want us to assume that such is the case. That is no way to justify a warrantless seizure of evidence.

The stipulated facts established only what happened -- evidence was taken from the defendant's penis without a warrant. The prosecution did not put on evidence concerning the destructibility of the evidence or even that the police had a good-faith belief, or any kind of belief, that the evidence could be destroyed absent the warrantless seizure. (See Schmerber v. California, supra, 384 U.S. at pp. 770-771 [reasonable belief that evidence would be destroyed may justify warrantless seizure].) It should go without saying that the attorneys' arguments were not evidence. (See CALCRIM No. 222.) Therefore, we are left with a request by the Attorney General to condone a warrantless seizure based on speculation or supposition.

The Attorney General's argument that this was merely a search incident to arrest does not fare any better. Seizure of evidence from an arrestee's genitalia is a major intrusion on the arrestee's dignity. To seize evidence from a person's genitalia, as part of a search incident to arrest and without a warrant, there must be an exigency justifying the seizure, such as officer safety or imminent destruction of evidence. (See Schmerber v. California, supra, 384 U.S. at pp. 770-771; see also State v. Lussier (Minn.Ct.App. 2009) 770 N.W.2d 581, 589-590.) As noted, there was no such showing here.

While we cannot agree with the Attorney General that the warrantless seizure of evidence from the defendant's penis was justified, we also disagree with the defendant that this must result in reversal of the judgment against him. Any error in admitting the evidence obtained from the defendant's penis was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt considering the credibility of the victim and the evidence obtained from the victim's underwear.

The government seized 61 hard drives to copy and copied four others then took its time analyzing them. The court finds the delay was unreasonable and was a “flagrant disregard” of the rights of the owner of the computers and target of the search and suppresses. United States v. Metter, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155130 (E.D. N.Y. May 17, 2011) [apparently should be a 2012 citation]:

This conclusion leaves the Court with a final determination to make: What is the appropriate remedy in this case? It is well-settled that "[g]overnment agents 'flagrantly disregard' the terms of a warrant so that wholesale suppression is required only when (1) they effect a 'widespread seizure of items that were not within the scope of the warrant,' ... and (2) do not act in good faith." United States v. Liu, 239 F. 3d 138, 140 (2d Cir. 2000) (quoting United States v. Matias, 836 F. 2d 744, 748 (2d Cir. 1988)). "The rationale for blanket suppression is that a search that greatly exceeds the bounds of a warrant and is not conducted in good faith is essentially indistinguishable from a general search." Liu, 239 F. 3d at 141. "[T]o satisfy the first prong of the two-part test described above, the search conducted by government agents must actually resemble a general search." Id. Thus, "the extreme remedy of blanket suppression should only be imposed in the most extraordinary of cases." United States v. Foster, 100 F. 3d 846, 852 (10th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted.)

The lack of good faith by the government can be inferred from its conduct in this case. In the affidavits in support of the search warrants issued in this case, the government promised to review the evidence seized offsite to determine whether any evidence fell outside the scope of the warrants. (See McGuire Home Aff. ¶ 58; Carrano Aff. ¶ 60; McGuire Email Aff. ¶ 130.) The government then failed to commence the review, despite repeated requests from defense counsel and directions from the Court to do so. In fact, the government seemed shocked that the Court would require such a review, and, as mentioned above, threatened to provide all of the evidence seized and imaged to each defendant in the case, without conducting any such review. (See 2/4/11 S/C Tr. 24-26, 29-30; 2/28/11 Gov't Letter at 2.) The government's own conduct and statements indicate that it had no intention of fulfilling its obligations as promised in the search warrants. Nor has the government presented any evidence or arguments to the effect that it failed to fulfill this obligation due to limited resources, such as it has argued in other cases.

The Court has not reached this conclusion lightly. However, the Court cannot, in the interest of justice and fairness, permit the government to ignore its obligations. Otherwise, the Fourth Amendment would lose all force and meaning in the digital era and citizens will have no recourse as to the unlawful seizure of information that falls outside the scope of a search warrant and its subsequent dissemination. Accordingly, Metter's motion to suppress is granted. This conclusion is limited to the electronic evidence seized and imaged pursuant to the Metter Home Search Warrant, Office Search Warrant, and Email Search Warrant and does not include the paper documents and currency seized pursuant to those warrants.

Udpate: I've looked a couple of times today to find the order, and I can't without paying for it. Even then, I don't have the capability of posting it as a pdf yet (well, never asked to learn). At any rate, here is a link from the USAO about the case which, of course, doesn't mention this order. It does show, however, a status conference for this week as to Mr. Metter, and all the other defendants have apparently pled guilty. One of the letter briefs by the government appears here.

The stopped motorist pulled his license and registration from his rear pants pocket. His later gesture to the center console of the vehicle was cause for police concern and justified a frisk of the console under Mimms [and Long]. United States v. Colen, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 10059 (3d Cir. May 18, 2012):

Here, the police acted reasonably. Their suspicion was aroused when they saw Colen quickly shut the center console as they first approached the car. They did not conduct a search at that point although they clearly could have under Mimms. Thereafter, Colen removed his license and registration from his rear pants pocket, thus negating a possible explanation for his gestures toward the center console. When the officers returned to their car, they both saw Colen again reaching for the center console. Only then did the officers remove him from the car, frisk him, and search the portion of the interior of the car that would have been within his immediate control when they allowed him to get back in. It was during that protective search that Officer Mason found the loaded handgun.

When deciding to conduct the kind of limited search that occurred here, "an officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed' so long as the officer's concern was objectively reasonable." United States v. Kithcart, 218 F.3d 213, 219 (3d Cir. 2000) (quoting Moorefield, 111 F.3d at 13-14). The officers' decision to check the center console for weapons was completely justified by the circumstances here.