Allegation: Harrisburg, Penn. detective misrepresents and omits key facts in order to get man charged with a bevy of serious and not-so-serious crimes after 2017 shooting. Some charges are dropped, and he's acquitted of all the rest after spending 18 months in jail. Can he sue Detective Jacob Pierce for malicious prosecution? District court: Oh yes, he can.
Lansing, Mich. cop sees man passed out at the wheel of a running car early in the morning after a blizzard. Without knocking opens the driver's door to check. Man wakes up. Cop asks for ID. Things escalate quickly and cop finds a whole lot of bags of drugs and a gun. Man: Unreasonable search and the community caretaker exception does not apply. District court. Not unreasonable. Motion to dismiss denied. Here's a 204-month sentence.
Married guy with 3 kids and a household income of around $300 a week underreports that income to get food stamps. In 1995. Gets 3 years' probation. Otherwise has a clean record. Can that constitutionally bar him from owning a firearm today? Third Circuit (2023, en banc): Whoa, that's a Second Amendment violation.
Group of folks were smoking pot outside a Washington, D.C. apartment building. Officer stops and sees one guy back away and raise his hands. Cop: "Just making sure there's no guns, that's it." Show me your waistband. Guy: "No. I'm cool" and shows waistband. Cop: Noticing some bulges, says "lift your shirt again" and nodded at another cop who just arrived to approach guy. Man: Runs away, throws gun in bushes, is arrest and charged with felon in possession. Guy: that was an illegal seizure! District court: No, it wasn't!
New Jersey police arrest a robbery suspect in his hotel room, find car keys, and get permission from the rental car company to search what he says is his rental car. Turns out his girlfriend rented it. Ah hah! They find contraband. Suppress the evidence? District court: No. No, reasonable expectation of privacy. Third Circuit (over a dissent): Yes. Yes, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy as girlfriend gave him permission to use the car. Reversed.
Pennsylvania man gets pulled over and scarfs down a bag of cocaine and fentanyl to hide it from police. Police—unconvinced by the man's claim that the powdery substance around his mouth was left over from a candy cigarette—detain him. Ignoring the obvious danger to the man's health and in violation of policy, police take the man to jail instead of the hospital. Two hours later he has a heart attack, cracks his head on the floor, and dies. Third Circuit: No qualified immunity.
Cop in Frederick, Okla. (pop. 4k) arrests man for lightly tapping him on the cheek. Though the cop knows the man's mother lives three blocks away, he insists on towing the man's vehicle (a tow truck). Yikes! An inventory search of the truck yields an M-16 rifle that the man, a felon, is not permitted to have. Double yikes! Man: Suppress the evidence. District court: No way. Tenth Circuit: Yes way.
Given the stakes involved, a judge’s criminal docket should always be a top priority.
According to a team of investigative journalists and attorneys, a Cincinnati federal judge neglected criminal cases for so long that he has a dead person on his docket, and just now ruling on inmate COVID release petitions filed in 2020.