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Scholars & Scribes Review the Rulings: The Supreme Court’s 2008-2009 Term

July 17, 2009, 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m; Location: The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Auditorium.

Directions.

The officers had PC for a vehicle search based on their surveillance, so Gant has no application. United States v. Almaraz, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54138 (S.D. N.Y. June 26, 2009).*

The stop in this case was not unreasonably extended. The officer’s questioning during the writing of the ticket led to answers that were more hesitant and gave reasonable suspicion. United States v. Suitt, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 13769 (8th Cir. June 25, 2009).*

Drug ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

I’ve argued often that the military drug policy is broken:  Alcohol the number one drug of abuse — a killer, a cause of injury, and a cause of physical damage and loss of military property — goes relatively free from regulation and consequence, military pharmacies distribute millions of prescription drugs and put the people back to work, and the one time user of marijuana goes to jail.  Now this.

U.S. military: Heavily armed and medicated: Prescription pill dependency among American troops is on the rise.

This is not news.  If the issue with drugs – legal or illegal – is safety, why do thousands of military personnel go back to work with drugs in their pocket after a visit to sick-call, etc?

Here is information concerning President Obama’s recent comments on DADT.

Obama urges lesbian, gay patience overturning ‘unjust laws’ (text from the L.A. Times)

Remarks by President Obama at the LGBT Pride Month White House Reception, June 29, 2009.

Here is Volokh Conspiracy’s multiple choice test on the comments.

Abu Ghraib Scandal Haunts Lynndie England

June 29, 2009

Associated Press

Here is part of Professor Colin Miller’s recent post about search incident to arrest after Arizona v. Gant was decided by the Supreme Court.  This is a good review of the issue.

[Quote]  In 1969, the Supreme Court established the boundaries of proper search incident to a lawful arrest in California v. Chimel, 395 U.S. 752 (1969). According to the Court,

When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape….And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule.

This seems to be the another post-Rodriguez case in which a petition has been denied.

No. 09-0030/AR.  U.S. v. Josh R. RITTENHOUSE.  CCA 20050411.  On consideration of the petition for grant of review of the decision of the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals and in light of United States v. Rodriguez, 67 M.J. 110 (C.A.A.F. 2009), said petition is dismissed as untimely filed.

EFFRON, Chief Judge (concurring in the result):

Here is a link to CAAF’s new decision in United States v. Chatfield.  The opinion is valuable for three issues:  what is custody, what is coercion, and a reminder to consider jointness of military and civilian investigations. 

When does a superiors words of actions create a custodial interrogation situation or make a person’s waiver of rights coercive?

[T]he Supreme Court defined custodial interrogation as “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.”  To answer the question whether an accused is in custody for purposes of Miranda, we consider “all of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation” to determine “how a reasonable person in the position of the [accused] would gauge the breadth of his or her freedom of action.” Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322, 325 (1994) (quotation marks omitted).

Here’s Stan Walters on the issue:

We need to start recording ALL interrogations, stop the abuse of the criminal justice system, and ALWAYS blame the cop first if the bad guy confesses, gets convicted or if Grandma gets tazed because she failed to follow a lawful order and resisted arrest.  Juries and ESPECIALLY the public needs to see what really goes on during an interrogation.

Alcohol Abuse on Rise Among Soldiers

June 20, 2009 Agence France-Presse

Nearly twice as many US Army Soldiers today compared to six years ago are either alcoholic or engage in damaging behavior such as binge drinking, according to army statistics. Data shows more than 11 Soldiers per 1,000 were diagnosed as suffering from alcoholism or alcohol abuse problems in the first six months of this year, a jump from 6.1 per 1,000 in 2003.