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BOSTON (AP) — Lawyers for a gay and lesbian legal advocacy group told a federal appeals court panel Wednesday that a federal law denying benefits to married gay couples that heterosexual couples get is discriminatory.

A lawyer for a bipartisan congressional group argued Wednesday in Boston that Congress had a ...

SFGate.org: Why cell-phone tracking should require a warrant by James Temple:

The American Civil Liberties Union released a troubling report this past weekend demonstrating that law enforcement agencies around the nation routinely track personal cell phones, often without warrants. Conspicuously absent from the survey was information about the tactics of Northern California police departments.

That's because, among the roughly 20 local agencies that received open records requests, only a handful provided substantive responses, said Linda Lye, staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. The rest declined to shed light on their practices, she said.

DENVER (AP) — Sam Lucas was among the first to begin calling 911 about a wildfire burning near his home on the outskirts of Denver.

But the dispatcher, already having answered a handful of calls about the fire, cut Lucas off to tell him that it was a controlled burn ...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Police at a California college pepper-sprayed as many as 30 demonstrators after students angry over a plan to offer high-priced courses tried to push their way into a trustees meeting, authorities said.

"Let us in, let us in," protesters shouted on video posted online Tuesday. "No ...

Where a search under a warrant for a body under cement in a basement couldn’t possibly be completed in a day, it was not unreasonable for officers to return the next day. People v. Nevarez, 2012 Ill. App. LEXIS 251, 2012 IL App (1st) 93414 (March 30, 2012):

[**P48] This record indicates that the search team proceeded with diligence on the first day of the search, uncovered evidence the cadaver dog's "hit") that the body was indeed somewhere in the apartment, but was unable to complete the search that day because the long process of excavation had physically drained the searchers. They left for the night, but demonstrated their intent to continue the search the next day by boarding up the site and posting overnight police guards at both entrances. As the search could not have been completed in a single day, the resumption of the search the next day was not a separate search requiring a second warrant, but was simply a reasonable continuation of the original search for which no new search warrant was required. See United States v. Squillacote, 221 F.3d 542, 557 (4th Cir. 2000) (where search could not have been completed in a single day, "the subsequent entries were not separate searches requiring separate warrants, but instead were simply reasonable continuations of the original search").

“Reasonable suspicion of criminal activity can found [sic] on the combination of a driver's extreme nervousness and contradictory statements. United States v. Morgan, 270 F.3d 625, 631 (8th Cir. 2001).” United States v. Felix, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46377 (N.D. Iowa April 3, 2012).*

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The tornado hurtled toward the nursing home. Physical therapist Patti Gilroy said she saw through the back door the swirling mass barreling down after she had herded patients into the hallway in the order prescribed: walkers, wheelchairs, then beds.

"It wasn't like a freight train, like ...

Plaintiff’s claim he was a U.S. citizen wrongfully deported and rejected when he came back to the U.S. through ATL customs when they discredited his newly issued passport relying on the original bogus records survives as to the government under Bivens. Most of the officers get qualified immunity. Lyttle v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46211 (M.D. Ga. March 31, 2012):

After being detained for fifty-one days by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of the Department of Homeland Security ("ICE"), Mark Daniel Lyttle ("Lyttle"), a United States citizen with diminished mental capacity, was flown to Hidalgo, Texas, transported to the Mexican border, forced to disembark, and sent off on foot into Mexico with only three dollars in his pocket. Wearing his prison-issued jump suit from the Stewart Detention Center, a privately managed ICE facility in Georgia, and speaking no Spanish, Lyttle wandered around Central America for 125 days, sleeping in the streets, staying in shelters, and being imprisoned and abused in Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua because he had no identity or proof of citizenship. Ultimately, Lyttle found his way to the United States Embassy in Guatemala, where an Embassy employee helped him contact his family in the United States to arrange for his return home.

In his Complaint, Lyttle alleges that ICE employees detained him without probable cause and subsequently deported him unlawfully to Mexico, knowing that he was a United States citizen with a diminished mental capacity. 1 Lyttle seeks damages from the responsible ICE officers in their individual capacities pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), for violating his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment and his rights to due process and equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.

. . .

Defendants' motions to dismiss (ECF Nos. 47 & 49) are granted in part and denied in part. Specifically, the Court dismisses the following claims: (1) the official capacity claims against Defendants James Hayes, Eric Holder, John Morton, Janet Napolitano, and Thomas Snow; (2) the individual capacity Bivens equal protection claims as to all Defendants against whom they are asserted; (3) the individual capacity Bivens Fifth Amendment due process claims against Defendants Johnston, Keys, and Moore; and (4) the individual capacity Bivens Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure claims against Johnston, Keys, and Moore. The following claims remain pending: (1) the Bivens Fifth Amendment due process claims against Defendants Collado, Moten, Mondragon, Simonse, and Hayes; (2) the Bivens Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure claims against Defendants Collado, Moten, Mondragon, Simonse, and Hayes; and (3) the Federal Tort Claims Act claims against the United States for false imprisonment, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Correct Formatting Error (ECF No. 62) is unopposed and moot after issuance of this Order.

The stop of two vehicles traveling together did not give each standing to challenge the stop of the other. As to one, the stop was invalid and suppressed, but not the other. United States v. Peters, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46977 (S.D. Ind. April 03, 2012):

When law enforcement conducts a traffic stop of a vehicle, both the driver of the vehicle and its passengers may challenge the legality of the stop. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 251 (2007). Accordingly, as passengers in the respective vehicles, Mr. Holmes can challenge the stop of the Denali, and Mr. Peters can challenge the stop of the Scion.

Unlike Mr. Holmes, [dkt. 153 at 10], Mr. Peters contends that because the Scion and the Denali were traveling together, the occupants of each vehicle can challenge the search of the other vehicle, too, [dkt. 151 at 6-7]. Neither Mr. Peters nor the Government could direct the Court to any authority directly on point. Nonetheless, the Court's own research has revealed authority from the Seventh Circuit that, by analogy, requires the Court to reject Mr. Peters' claim. If absent owners of vehicles cannot challenge the search of their vehicles because "the intrusion a vehicle stop causes is personal to those in the car when it occurs," United States v. Powell, 929 F.2d 1190, 1195 (7th Cir. 1991), mere passengers in a separate vehicle in a convoy would likewise lack the ability to raise a constitutional claim about the stopped vehicle.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — They were learning to become truck drivers but wound up in a nightmare. In detailed accounts to a federal agency, dozens of female employees of one of the nation's largest trucking companies told of being propositioned, groped and even assaulted by male drivers during cross-country training ...