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Not long ago, Advanced Placement exams were mostly for top students looking to challenge themselves and get a head start on college credit. Not anymore....

Not long ago, Advanced Placement exams were mostly for top students looking to challenge themselves and get a head start on college credit. Not anymore....

Not long ago, Advanced Placement exams were mostly for top students looking to challenge themselves and get a head start on college credit. Not anymore....

Defendant can’t relitigate his motion to suppress in a 2255 which was decided on the merits on appeal without an IAC claim. United States v. Reed, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61806 (N.D. Fla. March 8, 2012).*

The intrusion by detention was minimal here and led to consent, and defense counsel was not ineffective for not pursuing that ground because it would lose on the merits. Woodson v. State, 2012 Ind. App. LEXIS 214 (May 2, 2012).*

Officers who entered after no answer to knocking at a door of the location of a disturbance call were entitled to qualified immunity. This was a reasonable response to a perceived need. They were inside two minutes. Burke v. Sullivan, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9042 (8th Cir. May 3, 2012).*

It isn’t required that the affiant actually viewed child pornography to get a search warrant, at least as long as somebody did and reported it to the affiant. It is not required to attach the photographs to the search warrant application. Even if some were computer generated images, there was still probable cause. United States v. Ranke, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9118, 2012 FED App. 0471N (6th Cir. May 3, 2012)*:

Next, Defendant argues that the affidavit was insufficiently detailed. He points out that the affidavit does not indicate how Detective Pitts determined that the images were of a minor and that Detective Pitts' description of a boy "apparently masturbating" suggests that he never actually viewed the images personally. Defendant claims these deficiencies were compounded when Detective Pitts failed to attach the images to the affidavit for the state court judge's independent review.

The implication, to the extent one exists, that Detective Pitts never viewed the images personally, as well as his failure to attach the photographs to the search warrant affidavit, are both factors that should have played into the state court judge's probable cause analysis. However, neither precluded the judge from issuing the search warrant. First, an officer is entitled to rely on information supplied by other officers or agencies for the purposes of a search warrant affidavit, provided that the information and its sources are accurately described for the reviewing judge's independent evaluation. See United States v. Yusuf, 461 F.3d 374, 385, 48 V.I. 980 (3d Cir. 2006); United States v. Jenkins, 525 F.2d 819, 823 (6th Cir. 1975) (per curiam). Detective Pitts fulfilled that requirement when he provided an accurate description of the circumstances under which he "received information from federal authorities" regarding the greeting card, the accompanying photographs, and the incriminating evidence discovered in Brown's cell. Likewise, Detective Pitts' failure to attach the photographs themselves did not prevent the search warrant from being issued. A magistrate judge need not view all the evidence personally to make its decision, and the probable cause stage only requires an affidavit to show the "'probability or substantial chance of' possession of images of actual children; 'an actual showing' that the images depicted real children" is not required. Lapsins, 570 F.3d at 765 (citing Gates, 462 U.S. at 243 n.13).

NEW YORK (AP) -- Nearly 11 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, family members of some of the victims watched via closed-circuit TV as the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks and four co-defendants were arraigned Saturday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a proceeding that left one father emotional as he recalled the loss of his firefighter son....

How unthinkable it was, not so long ago, that a presidential election would pit a candidate fathered by an African against another condemned as un-Christian....

How unthinkable it was, not so long ago, that a presidential election would pit a candidate fathered by an African against another condemned as un-Christian....

How unthinkable it was, not so long ago, that a presidential election would pit a candidate fathered by an African against another condemned as un-Christian....

How unthinkable it was, not so long ago, that a presidential election would pit a candidate fathered by an African against another condemned as un-Christian....

How unthinkable it was, not so long ago, that a presidential election would pit a candidate fathered by an African against another condemned as un-Christian....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Lots of superheroes add up to lots of money for "The Avengers."...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Lots of superheroes add up to lots of money for "The Avengers."...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks repeatedly declined to answer a judge's questions Saturday and his co-defendants knelt in prayer in what appeared to be a concerted protest against the military proceedings....

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — While 81-year-old Warren Buffett's health has been on investors' minds, many shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting said Saturday that they aren't that worried about Buffett's prostate cancer diagnosis.

More than 30,000 people are expected to fill Omaha's downtown arena and overflow rooms to hear Buffett ...

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Bangladesh's feuding political leaders to work together and end their most recent bout of discord for the good of their impoverished country....

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Bangladesh's feuding political leaders to work together and end their most recent bout of discord for the good of their impoverished country....

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Bangladesh's feuding political leaders to work together and end their most recent bout of discord for the good of their impoverished country....

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Bangladesh's feuding political leaders to work together and end their most recent bout of discord for the good of their impoverished country....

Officers entered onto the curtilage of defendant’s property before they could smell a grow operation and hear the equipment. That was a Fourth Amendment violation, and it vitiated alleged consent and the good faith exception to a later warrant. United States v. Lopez, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61707 (S.D. Fla. May 2, 2012):

Here the Court finds that the area within the Target Residence's metal fence and gates—and specifically the areas occupied by Officers Bartra, Rios, and Benavides at the time they smelled marijuana and heard the sounds of marijuana-grow-house equipment— constituted curtilage subject to fundamental Fourth Amendment protections. The area was close in proximity to the residence, was enclosed within the metal fence and contiguous gates, and was shielded by the fence's white paneling to block observation from outside. Although the driveway may have been used for ingress to and egress from the property, and although the driveway gate did not contain obstructive paneling, the closed, locked mechanical gate clearly delineated the driveway as a private area which visitors—and thus the investigating officers—were not expected to encroach. See, e.g., Edens v. Kennedy, 112 F. App'x 870, 875 (4th Cir. 2004); United States v. Hambelton, No. 1:08cr26-SPM, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25139, 2009 WL 722284, at *4 (N.D. Fla. 2009). Moreover, although at one point Perez opened the gate so that he and Ricano could exit, one cannot say that this brief opening of the gate converted the driveway into only a semi-private area through which visitors were free to travel. See Fernandez v. State, 63 So. 3d 881, 884 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2011) ("[T]he momentary opening of the gate for the defendant to leave was not an open invitation to the public, or by extension to the police, to enter. ... No salesman or visitor could have entered the enclosed curtilage during the momentary opening. The momentary opening of the gate for the express purpose of leaving did not alter the Dunn expectation-of-privacy factors.") The Court thus finds that the area from which officers first smelled marijuana constituted "curtilage" and that the officers' physical entry into that area implicated Defendants' Fourth Amendment protections.