Issues

Santorum wins in Kansas

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum will win the Kansas caucuses on Saturday, CNN projects. He will receive at least 20 of the state's 40 delegates.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Lawmakers from both parties read to kids

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Briana Keilar reports on the 'Power Lunch' program, where lawmakers from both political parties read to children.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Hartford Courant: "Feel Like You're Being Watched? It's Because You Are"

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42

Hartford Courant: Feel Like You're Being Watched? It's Because You Are by David McGuire:

Imagine a government that can track everyone, all the time, with license plate scanners, cellphone signals and networks of cameras mounted on buildings, traffic lights — even flying drones.

You don't have to imagine. Law enforcement agencies in the United States already use these technologies and are starting to collect, indiscriminately and on a massive scale, data on the movements and associations of innocent Americans. It's happening everywhere, including Connecticut.

As the surveillance state expands, it is rapidly developing the capacity to expose your whole life, the way an airport scanner exposes your body. The damage to privacy and constitutional protections is incalculable. The potential for abuse is staggering.

D.Del.: Police arrival and defendant's response not police-created exigency

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42

Arrival of the police at defendant’s house led to likely destruction of evidence, and that was exigency for an entry by the police. United States v. Boney, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30947 (D. Del. March 8, 2012)*:

31. Having found probable cause, the issue becomes whether the record establishes that exigent circumstances were present to support the warrantless, forcible entry into the residence. In finding that exigent circumstances warranted the entry of the residence, the court recognizes that the events unfolded very rapidly, increasing an already precarious undercover investigation. This fluid chain of events began when Hughes surmised that Gonzalez had discovered the police presence and was warning the people inside the house, ostensibly, to destroy evidence and/or arm themselves. The decision to arrest Gonzalez further heightened the danger through the noise and attention drawn to the area. In fact, defendant averred that the sounds of screeching tires drew him to the window to open the curtains and that he saw people running toward the residence. During those split seconds that the curtains were open, Collins, at very close proximity, observed an individual place something in the couch before the curtains were quickly closed. Defendant's own affidavit corroborates the observation. Further, while standing in front of the residence, Hughes heard loud noises and movement coming from inside. With officers stationed in vulnerable positions, Hughes made the decision to forcibly enter the residence to protect themselves and prevent the destruction of evidence.

32. The record does not support defendant's contention that officers created the exigency. Rather, the quickly unfolding events satisfactory demonstrate that officers acted reasonably. There was nothing of record to suggest that officers' conduct caused or manipulated the events to create the need to forcibly enter the residence.

Then what is a police created exigency? The police just show up, and exigency is a self-fulfilling prophecy in Delaware?

OH9: Inventory policy needs to cover container within a container

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42

Inventory law requires that there be a standardized policy which need not be in writing. The policy has to include inventorying containers within containers, and this one doesn’t, so that part would be invalid, if it applied here. State v. Goss, 2012 Ohio 857, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 747 (9th Dist. March 5, 2012).

Defendant’s MySpace page came into evidence, and he only challenged it as a search on appeal, for which he cited no law. That argument was waived. State v. Yates, 2012 Ohio 919, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 809 (8th Dist. March 8, 2012).*

Search claim not raised in original case procedurally barred in § 2255. Grose v. United States, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153875 (S.D. W.Va. December 19, 2011).*

Defendant conceded his traffic stop was lawful, and that led to a plain view of a gun. Since defendant was known to be a felon, that was probable cause for an arrest. United States v. Chivers, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30123 (W.D. Mo. February 10, 2012).*

D.Mass.: SW for defendant at house did not permit search anywhere

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42

A search warrant that named defendant at his house did not permit a general search of defendant wherever he was found; a frisk yes. United States v. Andrews, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30523 (D. Mass. March 8, 2012):

I find that the warrant in this case did not permit a general search of the defendant away from the premises, 452 Kempton Street, although the pat-frisk of him was reasonable. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Commonwealth v. Santiago, 410 Mass. 737, 741-742 (1991), and Professor LaFave indicate that, in the context of the language in the search warrant in this case, the officers were authorized by the warrant to search Andrews only at 452 Kempton Street. See 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure, §4.9(a) ("Sometimes the search warrant which is being executed will describe not only certain premises but also a person. There is no inherent defect in a single warrant which authorizes the search of a place and also a person, and thus a search of the named person when he is found at the place will be a valid search under the warrant.").

The warrant was for contraband, not for mere evidence of a crime. Andrews was a felon and known to be a felon. It was a federal crime for him to possess a gun. See 18 U.S.C. §922(g). In addition, he did not have an FID card. See M.G.L. c. 140, §129C. The search for guns at 452 Kempton Street was a search for contraband in the circumstances of this case.

LA3: Anonymous tip of man with gun led police to observe defendant move a rifle from one car to another; this wasn't RS

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42

The police got an anonymous and unverifiable tip that a suspicious man had a gun in a car. Finally, defendant’s car is stopped parked, and officers see the defendant move a rifle from the trunk of his car to another. This was not reasonable suspicion. Numerous police officers arrived and defendant and others were held at gunpoint, on their knees, and handcuffed. Defendant was Mirandized and incriminated himself. There was no break in the causal chain for the statement. State v. Charpentier, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 264 (La. App. 3d Cir. March 7, 2012).

Dispatch told the officer that there was an active warrant on defendant, and the officer arrested him on the warrant and searched his person. Herring governs, and the good faith exception applies. State v. Brock, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 248 (La. App. 2d Cir. March 7, 2012).

Defendant had no expectation of privacy in his clothes seized from him at the jail on his arrest for a sex offense. The day after his arrest, the clothes went to forensics. What was taken from them was of such limited value in the case, it didn’t matter anyway. People v Woodard, 2012 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1700, 2012 NY Slip Op 1694 (3d Dept. March 8, 2012).

The Jobs Rally

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
The resilience of the private economy, despite Washington.


Stephen Moore: What North Dakota Could Teach California

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
While one plays host to a modern-day Gold Rush, the other shuns evil fossil fuels and wallows in debt.


China at 7.5%

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
The good news: Beijing will do less of the wrong thing.


Jason Riley: What About the Kids Who Behave?

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
A new Education Department study reveals disturbing sensibilities on the left when it comes to education in general and black education in particular.


Michio Kaku: Captain Michio and the World of Tomorrow

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Physicist Michio Kaku: Humans are born with the curiosity of scientists but switch to investment banking.


The Keystone Democrats

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
The Senate's pipeline fan dance.


Adam Meyerson: When Philanthropy Goes Wrong

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Henry Ford didn't intend to be 'giving folks things.'


Jenkins: Newt Is Right About Gas Prices

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Washington was against cheap gasoline before it was for it.


Notable & Quotable

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Philosopher David Hume on the stability of property rights.


Best of the Web Today: The Privilege to Dissent

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
How academic freedom coexists with stultifying conformity.


Modern Love

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
Two new books provide a history of love while probing the sexual muddles of today. Kenneth Minogue reviews.


America in All Its Ugly Beauty

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2024-11-28 10:42
A biography of Thomas Hart Benton, an artist who painted sinister, sentimental, and often beautiful paintings. Henry Allen reviews.


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