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Arizona v. Gant - Click here to read the full opinion.Today the U.S. Supreme Court limited the circumstances under which officers may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle after it’s driver had been arrested.  The Court ruled that an officer can only search a vehicle if it is for officer safety or if there is reason to believe that there is evidence in the car that relates to the crime which the driver was arrested for.The searches that we are talking about here are called searches incident to arrest.  Don’t confuse this with an inventory search, which is done whenever a vehicle is impounded.The practical application of this case will be moderate, but this isn’t a huge opinion for most people that get arrested.  People that have a sober passenger to drive the car, can turn the car over to them and avoid the inventory search.  If there is somebody that can come pick up the vehicle, that would work too.If the officers want to get around this, all they have to do is start towing every vehicle and do inventory searches instead of searches incident to arrest.  I guess I am a cynic.

Source: Rob Leonard

ATLANTA - A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a federal charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant’s arm to get to the lavatory, the FBI said Wednesday.

 Joao Correa, 43, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he had a bathroom emergency 30 minutes into a March 28 Delta Air Lines flight from Honduras to Atlanta, but found the single coach aisle on the Boeing 737 blocked by a beverage cart. He said he asked if he could use the lavatory in business class, but was told no.

 Transportation Security Administration policy requires passengers on international flights to use the restroom in their seating class.

 When the cart wasn’t moved after a few minutes, Correa said, he ran for the business class lavatory. He said the flight attendant put up her arm to block him, and he grabbed it to keep his balance.

 A Delta flight attendant said Correa grabbed her right arm, pulled it down and twisted it, according to authorities.

 The man was arrested after the plane landed in Atlanta after a three-hour flight and Correa was held for two days in jail, authorities said. He was charged with interference with a flight crew, said Gregory Jones, head of the FBI in Atlanta, and released on bond after appearing before a U.S. magistrate.

 ”I’m devastated,” the Concord, Ohio, man told the paper. “I’ve never had any event with the police in my life.”

 Correa could not be reached Wednesday by The Associated Press. A message was left on his home telephone.

 Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott released a statement saying flight crews “do everything within the limits of the law to ensure the safety and security of our passengers.”

Source: Rob Leonard

After a 7 week trial, Helio Castroneves was acquitted of the federal tax evasion charges he was facing.  The two time Indy 500 winner and Dancing with the Stars Champion had this to say after the trial:

It’s been a long seven weeks. I’m a foreign person and I’ve been judged in a foreign country. I’m very thankful to have received a fair trial. I do love this country.

Source: Rob Leonard

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/01/15/tesler_conviction_overturned.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

Source: Rob Leonard

Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided  Herring v US

The Court basically extended the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule to cases where the police make negligent decisions that violate the Fourth Amendment.

Source: Rob Leonard

Today Judge Jim Bodiford sentenced Brian Nichols to four life sentences without parole, seven life sentences plus 485 years all running consecutive to one another.  Brian Nichols will never see the outside world again.  The Judge suggested that the Feds house him at the Federal Supermax prison in Colorado, although he has been convicted of State crimes.

I don’t know if this is the last of the courtroom days that we will see for Brian Nichols, the Feds may still prosecute him and try for the death penalty again.  Hopefully, we can all be glad that this nightmare of a case is over for now.  It has single handedly nearly bankrupted the public defender system.  I should note that this is not the only cause of that problem, the legislature is mostly to blame for failing to appropriate all of the money collected from the public defender surcharge on criminal cases, but that is a topic for another day.

I am not rejoicing in Paul Howard’s office losing another high profile case.  I am not rejoicing that Brian Nichols did not get the death penalty.  There is a strong argument that he deserved the death penalty.  However, the last three death penalty verdicts handed out across the metro area, were all arguably more heinous than this case.  This was definitely a bad case, but it was an attention-getter because of who the victims were.  If he would have escaped and shot four homeless men, I doubt whether prosecutors would have sought the death penalty.

Today, I am worried about what will happen in the legislature next year.  Bad cases usually make bad law.  It will take some serious restraint for the legislature to not have a knee-jerk reaction to this case.  I would bet my house and my kids college fund that one of the first bills introduced next session is a non-unanimous death penalty bill.  A similar bill was defeated two sessions ago.  It is appropriate that a death verdict must be unanimous.

I also worry about the backlash that he three hold-out jurors will face.  They will face public scorn, ridicule and possibly threats of violence like they have never known their whole lives.

In the end, it was a huge waste of millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to try to kill Brian Nichols.  This case could have been resolved with a guilty plea and this sentence years ago.  I do also understand the prosecutor’s argument that if they don’t seek the death penalty on Brian Nichols, then how would they ever justify it on anyone else.

Maybe Judge Bodiford was right when he talked about how some people feel at sentencing.  “If only Agent Wilhelm would have gotten the draw on Mr. Nichols.”

Source: Rob Leonard

http://www.gasupreme.us/pdf/s08a1057.pdf

Bradshaw v. State.

I am not going to summarize it because it is a “must read” opinion.  But the quote of the day is “grossly disproportionate.”

Source: Rob Leonard

The story from the AJC is printed below.  To me, it is ridiculous that this execution was scheduled the way it was.  The Supreme Court was scheduled to decide if they would hear the appeal from the Georgia Supreme Court (which was a 4-3 decision).  Instead of letting the appeal run its course, the powers that be in Georgia tried to beat the high court to the punch by hastily scheduling his execution prior to the high court’s decision on whether they would hear the appeal.  If you kill a police officer, sure you deserve the death penalty.  But before it’s given, let’s at least be sure that the man is guilty.  From what I have read about the case, there appears to be an abundance of reasonable doubt and if the case was tried again, he would most likely be acquitted.  The court’s have continued to give great defference to the original jury’s verdict, despite the recantations.  Read on.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a stay of execution for Troy Anthony Davis less than two hours before he was to be put to death by lethal injection.

Davis’ family and supporters, who for years have pressed for a new trial on claims Davis is innocent, broke into tears and song when they learned the high court had at least temporarily postponed the execution.

Troy Davis received a stay of execution just before he was set to receive a lethal injection for the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer.

“I’ve been praying for this moment forever,” said Davis’s sister and most outspoken proponent, Martina Correia. Davis’ mother, Virginia Davis, said God had answered their prayers.

Just a few hours earlier, the mother and sister had given Davis what they thought could be their final good-byes at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Davis, 39, sits on death row for the Aug. 19, 1989, killing of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. He was scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m.

Annelie Reaves, MacPhail’s sister, said the victim’s family was furious but would wait for the execution to be rescheduled.

“It should have happened today,” she said, “but justice will be served.”

At least two members of MacPhail’s family were to witness the execution, and they will return when the execution is rescheduled, Reaves said.

In response to Davis’ hope that the real killer will be found, the officer’s family and friends all laughed. “He knows who the killer is,” Reaves said of Davis.

It was the second time that Davis, whose claims of innocence have attracted international attention, was granted a stay hours before he was to be put to death. In July 2007, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles postponed his execution less than 24 hours before it was to occur.

This time, the stay came from the nation’s highest court.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s justices are scheduled to meet Monday to decide whether to hear Davis’ appeal of a ruling issued by the Georgia Supreme Court in March. In that 4-3 decision, the state Supreme Court rejected Davis’ bid for a new trial or a court hearing to present new evidence.

In its order, the U.S. Supreme Court said if the justices decline to hear Davis’ case, “this stay shall terminate automatically.” If the court agrees to hear the case, the stay will remain in force until the high court issues its ultimate ruling, the order said.

The high court did not say when it would announce its decision whether to hear or deny Davis’ appeal.

Davis disclosed the news of his stay in a phone call to his sister and civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton.

“I truly feel blessed and I know we still have work to do,” Davis said, according to Sharpton. “With God, all things are possible.”

According to Sharpton, Davis said he had already recorded his last statement, as is customary for death-row inmates before they are to be executed. Davis said he had also prayed for the family of MacPhail, a 27-year-old father of two who was gunned down at a Savannah Burger King parking lot.

Because the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce whether it will hear the appeal in the next week or so, Davis may not be spared for long, Sharpton said.

“One week may not seem like a long time, but when you have only two hours to live it’s a lifetime,” he added.

Lester Davis, Troy Davis’ brother, said, “I’ve got to stay focused because it’s not over yet. Hopefully, this gives them enough time to understand the injustice of this case.”

Since his 1991 trial, seven of nine key prosecution witnesses who testified against Davis have recanted their testimony.

In March, a deeply divided state Supreme Court turned down Davis’ appeal, saying the recantations of seven witnesses who testified against him were not enough to win him a new trial or court hearing.

“We simply cannot disregard the jury’s verdict,” Justice Harold Melton wrote. The majority, he added, could not ignore the trial testimony, “and, in fact, we favor that original testimony over the new.”

Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears issued a strong dissent.

“If recantation testimony, either alone or supported by other evidence, shows convincingly that prior trial testimony was false, it simply defies all logic and morality to hold that it must be disregarded categorically,” she wrote.

The new testimony, if found credible, could lead a new jury to find reasonable doubt of Davis’ guilt or enough residual doubt to impose a sentence other than death, she wrote.

Source: Rob Leonard

ATLANTA (AP) — A death row inmate who has drawn international headlines with claims that he is innocent of killing a Savannah police officer is scheduled to be executed later this month, Georgia authorities said Wednesday.Troy Davis, who is on death row for gunning down a Savannah police officer in 1989, is scheduled to die Sept. 23. Davis contends he should be granted a new trial after several witnesses who testified against him have recanted their statements.The execution order was signed by Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker six months after the Georgia Supreme Court narrowly denied his request for a new trial. An appeal has been filed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court is not scheduled to discuss the case until days after the impending execution.The state’s decision drew a sharp rebuke from Amnesty International, a human rights group that has worked to draw media and public attention to the case.”We’re shocked and appalled that the attorney general short-circuited justice by setting an execution before letting the Supreme Court weigh in,” said Jared Feuer, the group’s southern regional director.Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of 27-year-old officer Mark MacPhail, who was working off-duty as a security guard at a bus station.MacPhail had rushed to help a homeless man who had been pistol-whipped at a nearby parking lot, and when he approached Davis and two other men, he was shot in the face and the chest.Witnesses identified Davis as the shooter. A jury convicted him in 1991 and sentenced him to death. At the trial, prosecutors said he wore a “smirk on his face” as he fired the gun, according to records.But Davis’ lawyers say new evidence could exonerate their client and prove that he was a victim of mistaken identity.Several witnesses who initially testified against Davis have since recanted or contradicted their testimony. And three others who did not testify have said another man, Sylvester “Red” Coles — who testified against Davis at the trial — confessed to the killing.Coles refused to talk about the case when contacted by The Associated Press during a 2007 Chatham County court appearance on an unrelated traffic charge, and he has no listed phone number.Prosecutors have called the witness statements “suspect,” and contended in court hearings the case is closed.They also say some of the witness affidavits simply repeat what a trial jury has already heard, while others are irrelevant because they come from witnesses who never testified.Davis was one day away from being put to death July 2007 when the state Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay of execution.The state’s top court rejected Davis’ appeal in March and a plea to reconsider the ruling in April by identical 4-3 votes. The Supreme Court is scheduled to discuss whether to hear the case at a Sept. 29 conference.The Attorney General’s office said the state does not need to wait for the Supreme Court to act, and that Davis has already completed “the regular appeal track.” Davis supporters, meanwhile, urge the Supreme Court to stay the execution until it can consider the case.”We would hope the U.S. Supreme Court would grant a stay to allow their decision to be issued,” said Feuer. “And I do have to say we are absolutely shocked that the attorney general would not allow legal avenues to be pursued.”

Source: Rob Leonard

Source: Rob Leonard