Source: Law & Crime

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the lone and blistering dissent in an opinion which increased the power of police officers to conduct vehicle stops while diminishing the protections of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“The majority’s justifications for [the opinion’s] new approach have no foundation in fact or logic,” the left-leaning justice notes.

Stylized as Kansas v. Glover, the 8-1 opinion concerns a man, Charles Glover Jr., whose license plate was run by a Douglas County Sheriff’s deputy for no discernible law enforcement purpose. Running the plate determined that the owner of the vehicle had his driver’s license revoked, so the deputy then pulled Glover over on the assumption that he was the driver.

Glover was ultimately charged with “driving as a habitual violator.”

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/in-lone-dissent-justice-sotomayor-blasts-majority-opinion-no-foundation-in-fact-or-logic/

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Five of the eight justices on the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday disqualified themselves from a case calling for an open election for Justice Keith Blackwell’s seat.

Justices Charles Bethel, Michael Boggs, John Ellington, Nels Peterson and Blackwell recused themselves from hearing appeals filed by former U.S. Rep. John Barrow and former state Rep. Beth Beskin. Both contend there should be an election that allows voters to choose a successor to Blackwell, who announced in February that he is resigning from the court in November.

Barrow and Beskin are appealing an order by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Emily Richardson, who ruled that Blackwell’s seat officially became vacant when Gov. Brian Kemp accepted Blackwell’s resignation. Per Richardson’s decision, an election is unnecessary because Kemp gets to appoint Blackwell’s successor.

In Monday’s order, Chief Justice Harold Melton and Justices David Nahmias and Sarah Warren denied a request filed by Barrow last week that they recuse themselves because of possible conflicts of interest. The three “carefully considered the motion to recuse him or her,” the court said in an order, without further explanation.

Read more: https://www.ajc.com/news/local/five-supreme-court-justices-remove-themselves-from-election-dispute/LFAw0Gfn4W41SAuz2Hzr3L/

Source: Axios

Justice Department prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to dismiss charges against the shell companies accused of financing the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that engaged in a social media disinformation scheme to interfere in the 2016 election.

The big picture: Prosecutors claim that the Russians were essentially able to evade accountability and punishment while taking advantage of the discovery process to potentially harm U.S. national security.

Context: The shell companies, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, were charged by special counsel Robert Mueller in 2018 along with 13 Russian individuals and the troll farm itself — known as the Internet Research Agency. The scheme, outlined in the 2018 indictment and again in the Mueller report, sought to sow political discord ahead of the 2016 election.

Details: The Concord companies sought to fight the indictment in court, unlike the other Russians charged by Mueller. In doing so, prosecutors say they were able to "obtain discovery" from the U.S. government regarding its efforts to "detect and deter foreign election interference" — while also ignoring court-issued subpoenas.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/justice-department-russian-trolls-internet-research-agency-9bf95c0d-2f6a-4377-84a5-c5f3eb8c4abb.html

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would withhold money from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions after a U.S. court ruled that his administration could block federal law enforcement funds to states and cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The Republican president, who is seeking re-election in the Nov. 3 election, has taken a hardline stance toward legal and illegal immigration. His battle against Democratic-led “sanctuary” jurisdictions focuses on laws and policies that limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

...

On Feb. 26, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in favor of the administration and said the funding cuts were valid. But three other federal appeals courts have ruled against blocking such funds, setting up a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

...

The 2nd Circuit overturned a lower court ruling directing the release of federal funds to New York City and the states of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-sanctuary/trump-says-he-will-block-u-s-funds-to-sanctuary-jurisdictions-idUSKBN20S1V0

Source: The Hill

California's governor signed a bill last week that allows state residents to switch their party affiliation on election day, a change expected to increase primary election participation.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the bill Thursday, allowing voters to fill out a short form at any point in the last two weeks before an election including the day itself declaring their party affiliation.

The bill ensures that a resident may vote in their intended party's primary even if they miss the official registration deadline, presuming that their application is accepted by county officials.

California's embrace of conditional voter registration for the general election in 2018 led to historic midterm turnout in the state during an election that saw the number of GOP House members in the state's 53-member congressional delegation fall to single digits.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/483331-california-moves-to-allow-voters-to-switch-party-registration-on-election

Source: New York Times

Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the criminal case against President Trump's former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, according to people familiar with the matter.

The review is highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors.

Mr. Barr has also installed a handful of outside prosecutors to broadly review the handling of other politically sensitive national-security cases in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, the people said. The team includes at least one prosecutor from the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, who is handling the Flynn matter, as well as prosecutors from the office of the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen.

Over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have begun grilling line prosecutors in the Washington office about various cases -- some public, some not -- including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them, according to the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/us/politics/michael-flynn-prosecutors-barr.html

---

Developing story.

Source: ABC News

Former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett was indicted Tuesday by a special prosecutor in Chicago investigating allegations he bogusly reported being the victim of a January 2019 hate-crime attack, officials said.

Smollett, 37, was indicted by special prosecutor Dan Webb, who was appointed by a Cook County judge to continue looking into his false allegations after the Cook County State’s Attorney Office dropped all charges against the actor, a source close to Smollett told ABC news.

The Cook County Clerk's Office confirmed to ABC station WLS-TV in Chicago that Smollett had been indicted.

Developing..


Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/empire-actor-jussie-smollett-indicted-special-prosecutor-chicago/story?id=68918453

Source: Associated Press

Utah kidnapping and rape survivor Elizabeth Smart said Thursday that she was sexually assaulted on an airplane last year while she was sleeping.

Smart, now a 32-year-old mother of three, referenced her kidnapping from her Salt Lake City home in 2002 in describing her reaction to the attack to “CBS News This Morning.” She said she was asleep during a flight when the man next to her began rubbing her inner thigh with his hand.

....

Smart’s spokesman, Chris Thomas, said Thursday the attack happened July 19 on a Delta Air Lines flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta.

He said it’s being investigated by the FBI and Delta.

“I called up my husband and I was like, ‘Do I just have a big badge on my forehead that says ‘Easy Prey’ or ’Victim?’” Smart told CBS. “Because I’m sick of it.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/6ce3ea316bd589a0f658b45e975caa8d

Source: Law & Crime

Sexual assault survivors in New York City are demanding the immediate resignation of Manhattan District Cyrus Vance Jr. over his long and documented history of leniency toward elite and wealthy sex criminals.

According to Politico’s local desk, several such survivors made their case for Vance’s swift departure at City Hall on Thursday, highlighting a recent sweetheart deal gifted to Columbia University gynecologist Dr. Robert Hadden.

The disgraced OB/GYN is accused of sexually assaulting no less than 19 of his former patients—including Evelyn Yang, wife of 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

“Most women don’t know what you’re supposed to get when you’re pregnant,” Yang recently said in an interview—adding that she was initially unsure about what happened and that she only decided to open up about Hadden after other survivors came forward.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/the-great-threshing/survivors-demand-manhattan-da-resign-immediately-over-lenient-treatment-of-wealthy-sexual-predators/

Source: CNBC

President Donald Trump told CNBC on Wednesday that Elon Musk is one of the world’s “great geniuses,” he likened the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX to Thomas Edison.

Musk is “one of our great geniuses, and we have to protect our genius,” Trump said in an interview with “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“You know, we have to protect Thomas Edison and we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the light bulb and the wheel and all of these things. And he’s one of our very smart people and we want to cherish those people,” the president said.

In a 2008 interview, Musk said Edison and Nikola Tesla, for whom he named his electric auto company, were both role models, but he preferred Edison. Tesla, the scientist, was a rival of Edison.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-likens-elon-musk-to-thomas-edison-as-one-of-our-great-geniuses.html?__source=iosappshare%7Ccom.apple.UIKit.activity.PostToTwitter