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Fisticuffs on the floor of Congress, Southern threats of secession, saber-rattling over slavery in new states. And then: compromise. David S. Reynolds reviews "America's Great Debate."

HuffPo: The Supreme Court's Decision on Strip Searches Will Make Jails More Dangerous by Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director, Just Detention International:

The practice of strip searching all jail inmates, just because they are detainees, is a violation of basic human rights and unnecessary. It is also a recipe for sexual abuse. Sadly, earlier this month, five U.S. Supreme Court justices, a bare majority, found that policies that require strip searches of all inmates upon entry at a jail to be constitutional. In so doing, the Court has helped pave the way for more -- not less -- dangerous jails.

In Florence v. Burlington County, Albert Florence challenged the constitutionality of two strip searches he was forced to undergo in 2005 after he was wrongly arrested due to a records error. "After that all happened, I cried, and I hadn't cried since I was a child. I just had so much emotion from being scared, humiliated," Mr. Florence said at a press conference.

Here's what we know about the link between strip searches and sexual abuse. Just Detention International (JDI) receives thousands of letters every year from survivors of sexual violence behind bars. They describe horrific abuse, often at the hands of staff. In countless cases, the abuse began during a search. Their stories are borne out by Department of Justice data. According to the government's own studies, more than 40 percent of survivors of sexual abuse in detention were abused during a strip or pat down search. Many victims of staff abuse, including a shocking 30 percent of men, were abused within the first 24 hours of entering jail -- precisely the timeframe under consideration in Mr. Florence's case.

TUCSON, Ariz. — The parents of a missing 6-year-old Arizona girl asked their parish priest for prayers Sunday as volunteers passed out fliers across Tucson and scores of law enforcement officers tried to figure out whether she had been abducted.

Officers kept the whole neighborhood block where Isabel Mercedes Celis ...

A Senate committee will expand its probe into the U.S. Secret Service this week following a scandal involving prostitutes in Colombia in advance of a recent trip by the president.

Dean Obeidallah doesn't endorse Nugent's caustic view of the president, but says his statement wasn't a true threat and is protected by free speech.

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger whose posting of a sexually explicit photo of former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner led to the congressman's downfall, died of heart failure, the Los Angeles County Coroner said in an autopsy report released Friday.

Paul Waldman says Mitt Romney's strategy of chasing the president around the country to undercut his message before he even delivers it is smart manipulation of a media eager for content

Iran declared Sunday it has "cracked the codes" of the intelligence gathering system of a U.S. spy drone it captured last year for violating its airspace, the nation's semiofficial media reported.

David Axelrod Obama campaign senior adviser weighs in on the GSA, and Secret Service scandals.

The ranking member of the House Oversight Cmte. discusses the latest in the investigation into Secret Service officers.

Defendant’s identity is is not suppressible as the product of an unconstitutional arrest. United States v. Medina-Meraz, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55030 (E.D. Mich. April 19, 2012).

Because the vehicle was stolen, officers had probable cause to search it under the automobile exception. United States v. Smith, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55476 (M.D. Ala. April 2, 2012).*

Officers did not violate any expectation of privacy by conducting surveillance of a marijuana patch from open fields on defendant’s own property under Oliver and Dunn. United States v. Hardin, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55364 (S.D. Ga. March 26, 2012).*

Patdown of passenger was without reasonable suspicion to believe he was armed. Search suppressed. Westmoreland v. State, 2012 Ind. App. LEXIS 180 (April 17, 2012).

A minor delay in the length of the stop did not make it unreasonable. The conversation while waiting did not extend it. United States v. Ghoston, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55526 (W.D. Tenn. April 20, 2012)*:

So long as the questions do not extend the time of the stop, "an officer may ask unrelated questions to his heart's content, provided he does so during the supposedly dead time while he or another officer is completing a task related to the traffic violation." Everett, 601 F.3d at 492. Agent James asked questions while Trooper Fuller verified the licenses and conducted background checks. This was reasonable under Everett.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hushed up a vast bribery campaign that top executives of its Mexican subsidiary carried out to build stores across that country, according to a published report.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Wal-Mart failed to notify law enforcement officials even after its ...

Chuck Colson, a Watergate-era "hatchet man" for President Richard Nixon who became an influential evangelical leader after serving time in prison, died Saturday afternoon, according to his website.

Chuck Colson, 80, the onetime "hatchet man" to President Nixon who devoted his post-political career to Christian causes and an international ministry to prisoners, died Saturday at Inova Fairfax Hospital. Complications from bleeding on the brain are believed to have contributed to his final illness.

The burly ex-Marine captain and ...

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — George Zimmerman is getting out of jail. Now his defense team has to worry about keeping the neighborhood watch volunteer accused of gunning down Trayvon Martin safe on the outside.

Defense attorneys for other high-profile clients who awaited trial on bail had advice for how to ...

Any illegality in the initial traffic detention was attenuated by defendant's probation search condition. Although the patdown search and discovery of the gun occurred shortly after the traffic detention, they did not occur until after the officer had recognized defendant as a person subject to a search condition. The search condition supplied legal authorization to search that was completely independent of the circumstances leading to the traffic stop. Nor was there any flagrancy or purposefulness to the alleged unlawful conduct by the officer. While the trial court found that the stop was made without reasonable suspicion, it specifically found the officer did not act in an arbitrary, capricious, or harassing manner. The officer was aware of defendant's probation condition before the search, and the existence of that probation condition dissipated any taint that might flow from the detention. People v. Durant, 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 442 (1st Dist. April 19, 2012).

Defendant was a corrections officer, and that helps show he voluntarily consented. United States v. Francis, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54244 (W.D. Ark. March 29, 2012).

The stop should have ended when the officer gave a warning ticket, and he was made to stand in the rain while the office continued on his investigative mission. United States v. Culp, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55494 (W.D. Mo. April 20, 2012)*:

Here, the unfolding of the circumstances makes the detention much more akin to a prolonged investigatory expedition with the singular mission of searching Defendant's vehicle than a permissible course of action reasonably directed toward the proper ends of the stop. The parties agree that the purpose of the traffic stop was concluded, at the latest, once Gillespie made the decision to only give Defendant a warning and not issue him a ticket, and so informed Defendant, returning his belongings, and asked Defendant if he had any questions. It was only after that point, that Gillespie embarked on an extensive course of investigation and questions aimed at conducting a search. ...

Although Gillespie testified that he had already decided not to issue Defendant a ticket for "following too closely" and only give him a warning, he nonetheless returned to the driver's side of Defendant's vehicle, directed Defendant to get out of the car and had him move to the back of the vehicle, where he was further detained while Gillespie pursued a mission entirely separate from the underlying traffic violation. It is clear from the video recording that Defendant remained there, standing in the rain, at Gillespie's behest, and would not have thought he was free to leave. Certainly, had Defendant believed that this was a mere consensual encounter at this point, he would not have remained in the pouring rain, in his shirt sleeves, while Gillespie ambled on with questions.

As the Sixth Circuit noted in Everett, "the touchstone of any Fourth Amendment analysis is reasonableness." 601 F.3d at 494. The Court "must conduct a fact-bound, context-dependent inquiry in each case." Id. Having fully considered the circumstances as they unfolded during the stop, as viewed on the video recordings, in conjunction with Gillespie's testimony, the Court finds no acceptable purpose for Gillespie's extended detention and prolonged questioning of Defendant, pat-down, and persistent requests to search the vehicle, all after the purpose of the traffic stop had undisputedly ended.

The officer had reasonable grounds to detain defendant. Tasering him was a seizure because the barbs in the Taser connected them. United States v. Davis, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54346 (E.D. Tenn. March 29, 2012).* [Remember, Taser® is a trademark.]

Defendant’s 2255 argument that defense counsel was ineffective for not arguing invalid inventory rather than search incident wouldn’t work because there was justification for an inventory, too. Brunick v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55096 (D. Ore. April 19, 2012).*

Even if defendant’s car was blocked on a parking lot, it didn’t rise to a seizure. But, the USPS Postal Inspectors had reasonable suspicion that defendant was involved in the theft of mail from their observations. United States v. Hampton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54421 (N.D. Ga. March 5, 2012).*

Searching a vehicle to “secure” it absent exigent circumstances was unreasonable. State v. Cleveland, 2012 Tex. App. LEXIS 3070 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) April 19, 2012):

Likewise, here, the plain-view exception does not apply because, as in Keehn, the officers had no lawful right to access the object in appellee's truck absent exigent circumstances. See id. Our review of the record reveals no exigent circumstance capable of supporting Jones's seizure of the pills. Jones stated that at the time he entered the vehicle to seize the pills, "everyone was secured" and in police custody. Thus, there was no opportunity for any of the people at the scene to drive the vehicle away or dispose of any evidence while the officers were securing a search warrant. The State asserts that the "exigent circumstance" present here was the automobile exception. But as discussed above, this ground was not raised in the trial court. Thus, we may not consider it for the first time on appeal as a basis to reverse the trial court's orders. See Martinez, 91 S.W.3d 331. Under these circumstances, we overrule the State's sole issue on appeal.