Issues

Tornado-wrecked Dallas begins assessing damage

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 ...

M.D.Ga.: Wrongfully deported citizen stated claim against government

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01

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.

S.D.Ind.: When two vehicles are traveling together, occupants of one don't have standing in the other

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01

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.

Epic failure by Washington sets us adrift

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
The U.S. has a health care crisis. So, Gloria Borger asks, what do we get? A one-party law heading for a partisan court ruling.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Trucker harassment class-action suit backfires

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 ...

Stanley: Can Romney win over women?

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
Tim Stanley says Romney appears to be trailing Obama with women voters. If he wants to be president, he needs to rediscover the empathetic side that got him elected governor in Massachusetts
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Five things we learned Tuesday

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney had what could be a game-changing night Tuesday, sweeping three primaries and putting more distance between himself and closest pursuer Rick Santorum in the race for delegates.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Santorum predicts Pennsylvania win

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
Despite disappointing finishes in all three of Tuesday's Republican primaries, Rick Santorum showed no sign of letting up in his quest to win the Republican presidential nomination.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Oakland mourns victims of deadly campus shooting

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Civic and religious leaders pleaded for an end to violence in Oakland after seven people were gunned down at a small Christian college by a suspect who police say was angry about being expelled and teased for his poor English skills.

Several hundred friends, family and ...

Win validates Romney strategy

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
When Mitt Romney heard he had won Wisconsin's primary -- capping off a trio of victories on Tuesday -- he jumped up and said: "Let's go!"
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

RollingStone: "Mike Bloomberg's New York: Cops in Your Hallways:

FourthAmendment.com - News - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01

RollingStone: Mike Bloomberg's New York: Cops in Your Hallways by Matt Taibbi:

An amazing lawsuit was filed in New York last week. It seems Mike Bloomberg’s notorious "stop-and-frisk" policy – known colloquially in these parts by silently-cheering white voters as the "Let’s have cops feel up any nonwhite person caught walking in the wrong neighborhood” policy – isn’t even the most repressive search policy in the NYPD arsenal.

Bloomberg, that great crossover Republican, has long been celebrated by the Upper West Side bourgeoisie for his enlightened views on gay rights and the environment, but also targeted for criticism by civil rights activists because of stop-and-frisk, a program that led to a record 684,330 street searches just last year.

Now he’s under fire for a program he inherited, which goes by the darkly Bushian name of the "Clean Halls program." In effect since 1991, it allows police to execute so-called "vertical patrols" by going up into private buildings and conducting stop-and-frisk searches in hallways – with the landlord’s permission.

. . .

If you live in a Clean Halls building, you can’t even go out to take out the trash without carrying an ID – and even that might not be enough. If you go out for any reason, there may be police in the hallways, demanding that you explain yourself, and insisting, in brazenly illegal and unconstitutional fashion, on searches of your person.

Romney's Sweep

Opinion Journal - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
Santorum hasn't become the conservative alternative.


Romney wins three to widen Santorum gap

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
After winning all three primaries on Tuesday night, Mitt Romney looks to Pennsylvania for what could be a decisive blow.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Romney: We won victory to restore America

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
Mitt Romney wins all three of Tuesday's Republican presidential primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington DC.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Pelosi: We cannot fail the women of Arab spring

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
Nancy Pelosi: Women helped bring about Arab spring and need long-denied rights of participation for building the new democracies.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Santorum: 'Pennsylvania, you know me'

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum energizes a crowd of supporters during a campaign speech in Mars, Pennsylvania.
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Obama looking ahead to Romney face-off?

CNN - Politics - Thu, 2025-05-15 00:01
After criticizing Mitt Romney by name in a speech for the first time, is President Obama preparing for a one-on-one race?
Categories: CNN, Issues, Politics

Aging baby boomers take wheel for rules of the road

The nation's baby boomers, now entering into their golden years in record numbers, are not giving up the car keys without a fight.

As the leading edge of the massive boomer generation turned 65 in 2011, a study suggests that America's roads will be facing a "silver tsunami" of older ...

Solar Trust files for bankruptcy protection

BLYTHE, Calif. — The latest setback in a stalled 1,000-megawatt solar plant in the Southern California desert came nearly 10 months after Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar and Gov. Jerry Brown broke ground on what was then touted as the world's largest solar project and a keystone of the Obama ...

American Scene: University police chief retires amid hazing probes

TALLAHASSEE — The police chief at Florida A&M University is retiring less than a week after reports surfaced that Tallahassee authorities didn't receive timely information about an off-campus hazing incident from 2010.

The university announced Tuesday that Calvin Ross will retire May 1 after 11 years with the university and ...

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