Cambridge Couple Are Arrested For Federal Crimes Of Espionage

Cambridge Couple Are Arrested For Federal Crimes Of Espionage

Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr is having a field day on this one. Who can blame him?: The surface-layer ironies here are numerous!

“Hey”, he muses, “they don’t call it the Red Line for nothing.”

The rollicking news that some Cambridge residents have been arrested and accused of being Russian spies should be enough to keep us in stitches with puns focusing on titles like “Reds”, “Ruskies” and ( of course) “The People’s Republic Of Cambridge” for weeks to come.

Anyone out there miss the “good old days” of the 1950’s? Here is your chance to experience yesteryear.

The story treating us to all this hilarity is the arrests of accused Russian agent Donald Heathfield and his wife, Tracey Lee Ann Foley (hereinafter, collectively, the “Defendants”), among others in other locations not as humorous, for espionage. According to federal authorities their investigation shows that they are a part of a Russian spy ring arrested this past weekend.

It remains in doubt, according to the federal prosecutors, how much useful information from the Defendants or their co-defendants actually reached Moscow. It is clear, however, that the Defendants and their alleged cohorts were in places where valuable information was available.

Washington Mayor Offers Strict Gun Rules

“Washington Mayor Offers Strict Gun Rules”

This A.P. story is on the website of the New York Times:

CHICAGO (AP) — With the city’s gun ban certain to be overturned, Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday introduced what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the United States.

The measure, which draws from ordinances around the country, would ban gun shops in Washington and prohibit gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or garages, with a handgun.

Daley announced his ordinance at a park on the city’s South Side three days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live. The City Council is expected to vote on it Friday.

”As long as I’m mayor, we will never give up or give in to gun violence that continues to threaten every part of our nation, including Washington,” said Daley, who was flanked by activists, city officials and the parents of a teenager whose son was shot and killed on a city bus while shielding a friend.

Opinion striking down Washington handgun ban

Opinion striking down Washington handgun ban

McDonald v. City of Washington is here. Here is the syllabus:

Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. ___, this Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home. Washington (hereinafter City) and the village of Oak Park, a Washington suburb, have laws effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens. After Heller, petitioners filed this federal suit against the City, which was consolidated with two related actions, alleging that the City’s handgun ban has left them vulnerable to criminals. They sought a declaration that the ban and several related City ordinances violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. Rejecting petitioners’ argument that the ordinances are unconstitutional, the court noted that the Seventh Circuit previously had upheld the constitutionality of a handgun ban, that Heller had explicitly refrained from opining on whether the Second Amendment applied to the States, and that the court had a duty to follow established Circuit precedent. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, relying on three 19th-century cases—United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535— which were decided in the wake of this Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36.

Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.

567 F. 3d 856, reversed and remanded.

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–A, II–B, II–D, III–A, and III–B, concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right, recognized in Heller, to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense. Pp. 5–9, 11–19, 19–33.

Bilz on Experimental Examination of the Exclusionary Rule

Bilz on Experimental Examination of the Exclusionary Rule

Kenworthey Bilz (Northwestern University – School of Law) has posted Dirty Hands or Deterrence? An Experimental Examination of the Exclusionary Rule on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Historically, the Supreme Court has offered two justifications for the Exclusionary Rule: one, it protects the integrity of the judicial system from “dirty” evidence, and two, it deters illegal searches by the police. The former justification has mostly fallen out of favor. Today, decisions turn on whether the Rule would, in fact, deter illegal searches in a given class of cases. As such, most empirical studies about the Rule have focused on whether or not the Rule leads to fewer police searches (illegal or otherwise), or to fewer criminal convictions.

This study takes a completely different approach, assessing support for the two competing justifications for the Rule. Two experiments show support for the integrity justification for the Rule, but not for the deterrence justification. Specifically, when deciding whether to exclude evidence found during a search conducted without probable cause, participants are sensitive to a police officer’s motive (clean vs. dirty), but not to alternative means of punishing those officers (civil suit, citizen-police review board). A third experiment examines the integrity rationale in more detail. Participants who were obligated to use dirty evidence at trial disproportionately selected a bottle of Purell over a pen as a thank you gift, versus participants who excluded that evidence. In other words, the Exclusionary Rule protects the courts from being metaphorically tainted.

These findings are important given that the Rule is not constitutionally-mandated. The Supreme Court has held that the Rule can be ignored to the extent that it (a) does not achieve its goals and (b) undermines the perceived legitimacy of the courts by the public. Given this, the Court needs to be right about what those goals are, and whether or not its current deterrence-based jurisprudence enhances legitimacy. These experiments suggest the possibility that reinvigorating the integrity justification would serve the ends of the Rule better than current doctrine does.

Berghuis v. Thompkins- Speak Now or Forever Waive Your Right to Silence?

Berghuis v. Thompkins- Speak Now or Forever Waive Your Right to Silence?

Drug Case Dismissed After Police Illegally Enter Suspect’s Home

Drug Case Dismissed After Police Illegally Enter Suspect’s Home

In a recent trafficking in cocaine case that occurred south of Jacksonville, Florida, the criminal case was dismissed after the court found that the drugs were illegally seized when the police entered the defendant’s home without consent, a search warrant or exigent circumstances. In order for the police to lawfully enter one’s residence, they must either have consent to enter, a valid search warrant or emergency circumstances.

In this case, the suspect called the police after a robbery occurred at his apartment. The police arrived approximately 30 minutes after the robbers left the apartment. When the police arrived, the robbery was clearly over and there was no indication that any of the robbers were in the area. However, the police entered the defendant’s apartment without permission and found cocaine and other drugs inside. At that point, the person who called the police was arrested for trafficking cocaine and possession of illegal pills.

The criminal defense lawyer for the defendant filed a motion to suppress the drugs found in the apartment and asserted that the police did not have a right to be in his apartment in the first place since the defendant did not give them permission to enter, the police did not have a search warrant and there were no exigent circumstances allowing the entry and search. The state argued that the recent robbery provided the exigent circumstances to justify the entry and search. The state argued that because a robbery had just occurred and the suspects could be inside the apartment, the police had a right to look for them. This might be true and a legitimate basis for a search without a warrant if the robbery was recent and there were some specific facts leading the police to believe the robbers were still in the apartment. However, the police could not point to any specific facts indicating there was anything in the apartment related to the robbery that needed to be searched on an emergency basis. As a result, there was no legitimate basis for the police to enter the apartment, and the search for the drugs was found to be illegal. The drugs were thrown out of court along with the drug charges.