On Wednesday, a three-judge panel from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia ruled that the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant before searching historical location data from a person’s cell phone. The case involved defendants Aaron Graham and Eric Jordan, who were accused of several Baltimore-area robberies. The
The New York Times paid tribute yesterday to a man whose death nearly went unnoticed in a national sense, but whose life needs to be celebrated. Dr. Donald L. Rasmussen died on July 23rd in Beckley, West Virginia at the age of 87. According to his stepdaughter, Julia Holliday, Dr. Rasmussen died from complications following
7/21/2015 Reasonable dialogue took a back seat on Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing regarding controversial “Sanctuary Cities.” These municipalities have some form of explicit agreement that bars employees from discussing residents’ immigration status with federal officials. Begun in the 1980s by church groups seeking to protect refugees from war-stricken Central American countries, the
7/16/2015 Three non-profit groups are suing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in D.C. Appeals Court for its failure to comply with a 2011 court order requiring the agency to write formal rules regarding its controversial body scanners. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday, which marked the four-year anniversary of the order. The same court ruled
7/14/2015 A week after reaching a settlement agreement with six Occupy Wall Street Protesters for conduct that occurred in the early days of the 2011 protest; New York City agreed on Monday to give the Estate of Eric Garner $5.9 million. Garner was killed last July in Staten Island after being detained by police after
7/13/2015 Tomorrow will be one of the biggest dates in book history, not Fifty Shades of Grey history, perhaps more like Grapes of Wrath history. After more than five decades, a companion to America’s most beloved book, To Kill a Mockingbird, will be released in stores nationwide. Go Set a Watchman was actually submitted to
7/9/2015 After a raucous 13-hour debate Wednesday bleeding into Thursday morning, South Carolina’s House of Representatives voted to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds by a 94-20 margin in the bill’s required third reading, passing despite a last-minute attempt to delay the measure by proposing a barrage of amendments. The quick action in
7/9/2015 On Wednesday, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia has affirmed the federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s 2-1 decision last year that the Washington Redskins’ nickname and logo are offensive to Native Americans. Last year, the board voted that the trademark violated terms of the Lanham Act, which
7/8/2015 The senseless killing of 32 year-old Kathryn Steinle, who was shot in the upper torso by a complete stranger, 45 year old undocumented immigrant Francisco Sanchez on July 1st on San-Francisco’s popular Pier 14, has re-inflamed the immigration debate. Sanchez, a seven-time felon, had been deported back to Mexico on five separate occasions, yet
7/7/2015 New York City has agreed to pay six Occupy Wall Street protestors between $52,500 and $60,000 each, totaling $332,500 in a settlement over being illegally pepper sprayed by police in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. The incident happened in the early days of the original September, 2011 anti-inequality protest, when police Deputy Inspector, Anthony Bologna, was