Bail Bonds In Seminole – Harris County officials weighing options on bail reform court order

Source     : Chron News
By             : Brian Rogers, Mihir Zaveri, and Gabrielle Banks
Category :  Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Harris County officials weighing options on bail reform court order

Harris County officials scrambled Monday to decide what to do next after a federal judge’s ruling that the county’s cash bail system is fundamentally unfair to poor people charged with low-level crimes. With just two weeks until the 193-page order from Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal kicks in May 15, county officials are working to draft a plan to deal with the hundreds of misdemeanor offenders now behind bars and the new cases filed each day. County officials and more than a dozen lawyers spent Monday in meetings deciding whether to appeal the order, said Robert Soard, first assistant at the Harris County Attorney’s Office. He said he anticipates the legal team will have a recommendation about whether to appeal before the next Commissioners Court session May 9.

Jason Spencer, spokesman for Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, said the changes will require collaboration among multiple agencies to comply with the ruling so quickly. “It’s not just a flipping of a switch and now we can do these things,” he said. “It takes time and planning to put new systems in place that weren’t there before.” Paula Goodhart, administrative judge for the misdemeanor courts, was also among those in the meetings. “Like everyone else, we’re still trying to process it,” Goodhart said.

Goodhart declined to answer questions specific to the lawsuit, because she is one of the defendants. Instead, she spoke about changes that have been in the works for the past two years to reform the county bail system. “We do recognize that low- and moderate-risk people should be out pending trial,” she said. “We just want to balance public safety with individual liberty interests.” On any given day, between 350 and 500 people-about 5.5 percent-of the jail population are awaiting trial on misdemeanors. But about 50,000 people are arrested in Harris County on misdemeanors each year, so the number of people who would not have to pay a bondsman or plead guilty to get out of jail could be in the tens of thousands. County budget officer Bill Jackson said his office is working to understand how many people may be released by the judge’s order and how much that could reduce the cost of incarceration at the overcrowded jail. “This is such a moving target,” Jackson said. “There’s just way too many ‘what-ifs’ and variables.”

Sharp reactions
The county and top officials were sued in federal court last year by two civil rights groups – Texas Fair Defense Project and Civil Rights Corps – and local law firm Susman Godfrey on behalf of Maranda Odonnell, a single mother who was held for two days on a charge of driving without a valid license because she couldn’t afford the $2,500 bail. Similar lawsuits filed on behalf of two other people were merged into the case in August. On Friday, Rosenthal ruled that most misdemeanor suspects should be released without bail, sometimes called a personal recognizance bond, within 24 hours of their arrest, a big change for Harris County. Typically, suspects arrested in Harris County are processed at the jail where a magistrate judge sets bail within hours of arrest, assigns the defendant to court and sends them to a holding cell where they can either bail themselves out or stay in jail. Suspects accused of misdemeanors – the least serious crimes that can end in jail time – are sent to one of 16 county courts at law. They generally appear in court the next business day where a judge reviews the case and decides if the bail amount is appropriate. Rosenthal’s order would not apply to defendants involved in domestic assaults, or to those facing other warrants or charges. Some officials, however, bristled Monday at the judge’s opinion,which was handed down late Friday. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle said the ruling was an example of a federal judge changing Texas law. Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack wondered whether the release of inmates could impact public safety. “Just because somebody has been charged with a Class B or A misdemeanor doesn’t mean that’s a person that’s a real nice person, that’s real trustworthy and hasn’t been involved in an active assault,” Radack said. County Judge Ed Emmett and Precinct 2 Commissioner Jack Morman said they were waiting on further analysis from the county attorney’s office. Not all county officials have opposed the ruling. District Attorney Kim Ogg and Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis filed paperwork with the court siding with the plaintiff, saying defendants otherwise eligible for release should not be kept in jail because they are poor. The ruling was also praised by Houston’s defense attorneys and other advocates for bail reform. “I’m very pleased to see that a federal judge has stepped in to stop the plea mill in Harris County,” said Robert Fickman, a past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association who has written extensively on the situation. “It will improve the quality of justice because the poor people who cannot afford bonds will have the chance for a lawyer to fight for them rather than pleading guilty just to get out of jail.” Tom Berg, first assistant for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, said that office has been working toward bail reform since Ogg was elected DA in November. “We’re gratified by this,” Berg said. “This is a big, big step.”

Looking ahead
A bill in the Texas Senate that would change the jail-release system across the state had been scheduled for a possible vote in the full Senate on Monday. But it was not called up for debate, though it has strong support from Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht and Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller. The bill’s author and committee chairman, Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, conceded after the Senate adjourned Monday that he still lacks the votes to pass it because of continuing opposition from bondsmen. “It’s clear I’ve still got some work to do,” Whitmire said. Sandra Guerra Thompson, a University of Houston criminal law professor and an advocate for bail reform, said the county will need to take several steps to comply with the judge’s ruling, including processing inmates faster so they can be released on personal bonds within 24 hours. “How all of this comes together, now that you have this court order, it’s too soon to know,” Thompson said. “But it’s fair to say that there are going to be a lot more people who would have been stuck in jail who are now going to get PR bonds.” That doesn’t mean suspects won’t be held accountable if they jump bail. Even a personal bail has a dollar amount attached, and they will have to pay it if they don’t show up for court.

Read more here : chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Harris-County-officials-weighing-options-on-bail-11113241.php

Bail Bonds In Sanford – European Court of Justice lays down the law on Kodipocalypse

Source     : The Register News
By             : Andrew Orlowski
Category : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

European Court of Justice lays down the law on Kodipocalypse

Europe’s highest court has made it easier for member states to halt the sale of media sticks with preloaded pirate streaming links and add-ons. The past few months have seen significant growth in pre-configured streaming boxes or USB sticks. These use the Kodi platform, an open-source player, configured by a vendor with add-ons that enable access to pirate TV services.

The UK has approved realtime blocks by ISPs during popular Premier League games until the end of the English season to gauge the effectiveness of blocking the streams at source. Meanwhile, trading standards officers and police have launched raids on vendors. The European Court of Justice was invited to give its opinion on a Dutch district court case involving a vendor of one player, filmspeler.nl. The court today decreed that the vendor’s actions constituted a “communication to the public”.

This is a peculiar doctrine specific to European law, not found in the Berne Convention, which some of Europe’s top legal experts believe is based on a mistranslation. URLs were deemed not to be a “communication to the public” last September. It’s a cumbersome analog to the idea of secondary liability, which takes into account intent, as it did for Grokster in the US Supreme Court in 2005. But the advantage for legal wonks and lawyers in Europe is that they can continue to evolve the concept for years to come. Only a cynic would suggest that lawyers and legal academics profit from such confusion, so we won’t.

The ECJ decided that:
In the present case and having regard, in particular, to the content of the advertising of the multimedia player and to the fact that the main attraction of that player for potential purchasers is the pre-installation of the add-ons concerned, the Court finds that the purchaser of such a player accesses a free and unauthorised offer of protected works deliberately and in full knowledge of the circumstances.

The media player was clearly being sold for a profit, so that’s that, the court ruled.

Read more here : theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/ecj_kodi_addons/

Bail Bonds In Seminole – Colorado Supreme Court upholds state’s DUI laws

Source     : Denver Post
By             : Kirk Mitchell
Category : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Colorado Supreme Court upholds state’s DUI laws

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld the state’s drunken driving statutes in three cases that had warrantless blood draw evidence thrown out by lower courts, including a case in which a suspect had five times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream. “If this had been allowed to stand, it could have invalidated every breath or blood test that a driver in Colorado provides as part of a DUI investigation, which would obviously have huge ramifications,” said Arapahoe County deputy district attorney Jennifer Gilbert, who handled all three appeals. The three cases involved different elements of Colorado’s expressed consent law, according to a news release from Arapahoe County district attorney George Brauchler. The law says that by driving in Colorado, drivers consent to a blood or breath test to determine their blood alcohol content if the police have probable cause to believe that the driver has committed an alcohol-related driving offense.

In Fitzgerald v. People, the court held that the Fourth Amendment does not preclude prosecutors from using evidence at trial that a suspect refused to take a blood alcohol test, the news release says. In People v. Hyde, the Supreme Court held that an officer with probable cause to believe that an unconscious driver committed an alcohol-related driving crime can order the driver’s blood to be tested. In People v. Simpson, a judge ruled that the very act of reading a driver an expressed consent advisement made the subsequent test inadmissible. But the Colorado Supreme Court held that reading a suspect the expressed consent advisement does not render the test involuntary, the news release says. In the Simpson case, an officer saw William Paul Simpson drive a pickup truck into a curb four times before steering into oncoming traffic, the Supreme Court ruling says. The officer smelled alcohol on Simpson’s breath, the driver readily admitted he was drunk and was unable to climb out of the truck at the officer’s order.

At a hospital, Simpson signed a consent form for a blood test. In doing so, however, he signed his name on the officer’s signature line and initialed it on the line labeled “blood.” Simpson’s blood alcohol was measured at 0.448, or more than five times the legal limit of 0.08, the ruling says. At an Arapahoe County District Court motions hearing, Simpson’s attorneys argued their client had been too drunk to consent to a test. Judge F. Stephen Collins ruled that the officer was coercive because he told Simpson that he had already consented to the blood-alcohol test. Collins then suppressed the blood test. The Supreme Court ruled that by choosing to drive in Colorado, Simpson consented to the terms of the expressed consent statute, including its requirement that he submit to a blood draw. “Because Simpson never revoked that consent, the blood draw was constitutional,” the Supreme Court ruled. Suspected drunk drivers were using some recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to challenge Colorado’s drunken driving laws in order to throw out evidence, according to Brauchler’s news release. Had they succeeded, drunken driving laws across the country would have been in jeopardy, he said.

Read more here: denverpost.com/2017/04/17/colorado-supreme-court-state-dui-laws-upheld/

Bail Bonds In Seminole – Supreme Court right in reversal on Ohio Supreme Court

Source     : Advertiser Tribune News
By             : Editorials
Category : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Supreme Court right in reversal on Ohio Supreme Court

Ohio Supreme Court justices did something exceedingly unusual this week: They admitted they were wrong just a few months ago. Late last year, a case involving a man convicted of buying more than 100 grams of cocaine went before the court. It was important because prison sentences are dramatically longer for those guilty of possessing large quantities of illegal drugs.

But the man’s attorney argued state law pertains to the quantity of pure drugs in a defendant’s possession. Because what his client was caught with had been diluted, or “cut,” with other substances, he should not fall above the 100-gram standard for longer sentences, the lawyer said. Incredibly enough, the justices bought it. They ruled sentences must be based on how much of a pure drug was involved.

Monday, in a 5-2 ruling, the high court reversed itself. In the future, sentences can be based on the total quantity, even if it is diluted with a legal substance such as baking soda. Good. Pushers who think they have a certain quantity of cocaine and are selling it as such should be held accountable for the whole thing. The justices were right to throw out what amounted to a technicality benefiting drug pushers.

Read more here: advertiser-tribune.com/opinions/editorials/2017/03/supreme-court-right-in-reversal/

Bail Bonds In Sanford – Why high court’s ruling on special education meant so much to parents

Source     : CS Monitor News
By             : Josh Kenworthy
Category :  Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

high court’s ruling on special education meant so much to parents

When Robert Curtis read the United States Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on special-needs children, he was elated. “Huge!” says the father of a special-needs fifth-grader. “Really heartwarming.”That is in part because the opinion, signed by Chief Justice Roberts, was unanimous; and in part because the wording, squarely on the side of parents, was in sharp contrast to what educators had sometimes told him when he worked with a school team to plan his daughter Hannah’s education.“We’re running a school here, not a hospital. If she needs to be in a wheelchair then she needs to be at a school that can handle it,” he recalls one school administrator telling him.

The high court’s decision last week will give parents a powerful tool to demand higher standards for their special-needs children, advocates say. Overturning a lower court ruling that said a school was only required to provide a “merely more than de minimis” education, the high court said that the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) meant that such children “must be given an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress.” It will force schools to loosen their purse strings and allow educators, who often want the same rigor as parents, to write bolder individualized education programs (IEPs). “There was actually compassion being projected from the Supreme Court,” Mr. Curtis says. “In the current political climate, I had become resigned to the fact that things were just going to get harder.” Beyond the legal implications, the court’s bipartisan decision is evidence of the leaps-and-bounds shift over the past 40 years in the way America thinks about people with disabilities, special needs advocates say. Stigma and low expectations have been replaced with a conviction that every child should have the right to reach their potential. “The fact that it’s unanimous shows we know a lot more about educating kids with disabilities … and that we recognize that kids with disabilities can make progress and can succeed,” says Laura Schifter, a lecturer of special education at Harvard University who consults with states and advocacy groups. “When you think about it, education generally in the last 100 years has not changed much, but that’s not the case in special education.” Before the IDEA Act, children with disabilities were seen as uneducable, and often sidelined in institutions, she says. Now, research suggests the gold standard is to have them at least partially included in mainstream classrooms.

At the same time, the ruling will likely spur fresh debate over what constitutes an adequate education. It also, education experts say, will raise school costs.  “That does mean less money always for everybody else,” says Sasha Pudelski, assistant director of policy and advocacy for the School Superintendents Association in Alexandria, Va. “The greatest unfunded mandate in education for the last 40 years is special education… I think there is absolutely a need for Congress to step up and support schools with the funding they need to be compliant.” For the parents of America’s roughly 6.5 million children with special needs, however, the ruling is a boost, especially for those who have endured the indignity of low expectations from local educators. From the time Hannah was 3 until age 6, Mr. Curtis battled his school in Cambridge, Mass., to give her what he considered a rigorous and inclusive IEP. He would always attach an IEP he drafted himself to the one the school issued, just for the record. Feeling like the message wasn’t getting through, he opted to withdraw her on medical leave and home-school her in first grade, binding the district to pay for a host of at-home education and therapy services. Eventually, as those costs mounted, the district agreed to pay around $80,000 a year for Hannah, who was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy, to attend a private school for special-needs children, a legal requirement if it’s agreed a school can’t meet a student’s needs.  In last week’s ruling, the eight-member high court decided in favor of the parents of Endrew F., an autistic boy, who sued the Douglas County School District, Colo. for the cost of his private school fees. They withdrew him from public school because they believed his progress had stagnated and the fifth-grade IEP proposed for Endrew would see his progress stall. He was doing much better in his new school.

‘Unexpected warm embrace’

“In the context of cold-hearted austerity policies toward public schools, and cuts to special education programs and services, the court’s unanimous decision …  felt like an unexpected warm embrace,” says Lisa Guisbond, executive director of Citizens for Public Schools, who got involved in advocacy in the late 1990s when her special-needs son Max was in school. “The unanimous decision sends the crucial message that every child deserves the opportunity to reach his or her full potential.” Indeed, massive shortfalls in federal funding have been at the heart of the tensions between parents who want more, and schools that are strapped for funds and resources. While the IDEA Act stipulates that the federal government will pay 40 percent of the per-head cost of educating each child, Ms. Guisbond says this has always been underfunded, meaning the buck is passed to states and districts who have been increasingly strapped for cash, especially in the wake of the Great Recession. The federal government currently fund about 16 percent of per-student costs with 2014 government figures indicating around $17.6 billion in costs were passed onto states.“Are we ever going to put our money, at a local, state and federal level, where our mouth is when it comes to students with disabilities and public schools in general?” she asks.

However, as Congress has gradually improved the IEP process, the percentage of students with disabilities who have graduated high school increased from 41 percent in 1993 to 65 percent in 2013, according to the National School Boards Association. The percentage of students with disabilities who enroll in a postsecondary program within four years of finishing high school rose from 26.3 percent in 1990 to 45.6 percent in 2005. Guisbond’s son Max had an overwhelmingly positive and rigorous school experience in the Brookline, Mass., schools he attended. Now 23, he recently graduated with liberal arts degree from Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley and has a job in his former district as teacher’s assistant to special-needs kids. Massachusetts has been a leader on special-needs education, including its own 1972 special education law on which the federal IDEA Act was modeled. But Guisbond knows many special-needs families within the Bay State have not always benefited from the relatively high rigor and funding the system provides. Furthermore, progress across the nation has been uneven. In some states, the Supreme Court ruling may mean even more.

For example, over the past five decades, Georgia has had an entirely separate and separately funded program for children with emotional and behavioral disorders called Georgie’s Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support (GNETS). The Atlantic reported recently that it falls far short of its promise, placing students in entirely separate classrooms within public schools where they receive a “paltry” education. Such reporting is often one-sided, counters Ms. Pudelski of the superintendents association. She knows a number of teachers in Georgia who think the GNETS program is strong. Nevertheless, the US Department of Justice wrote up the results of a years-long investigation in 2015, and filed a suit in 2016 that claims GNETS violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Fostering collaboration

Back in Massachusetts, Julie Messina, whose son Evan is diagnosed with Down syndrome and now attends a “partial inclusion” program at a middle school in Cambridge, says it is all about striking a “reasonable” balance. On the one hand, she believes the Supreme Court ruling will help parents demand that schools don’t place artificial limits on their children by lowering IEP standards just so they can tick a progress box. On the other hand, she believes the overwhelmingly positive schooling experience Evan has had can be attributed in large part to fostering a spirit of collaboration, not war, with the team of educators, therapists, and administrators who are assembled to come up with, and carry out, her child’s IEP. “That’s what goes a long way when it comes to this time of the year when you have to craft high goals, but you have to be realistic about what’s achievable within a one-year period,” Messina says. “Assume competence of your school team, give them the respect they deserve as professionals.” For example, she thinks one parent’s demand that their school pay for Hippotherapy – an effective but expensive treatment involving horses – went a step too far. Still, for Messina “realistic” expectations do not mean setting the bar low for Evan. Whether he achieves his current goals – to be an astronaut or designer for Tesla – she sees the new Supreme Court mandate as an opportunity to challenge perceived limits.“If we have high expectations, our kids will rise to them,” she says.

Read more here: csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2017/0330/Why-high-court-s-ruling-on-special-education-meant-so-much-to-parents

Bail Bonds In Seminole – Arizona Supreme Court rejects minimum wage challenge

Source     : ABC 15 News
By             : Associated Press
Category : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Arizona Supreme Court rejects minimum wage challenge

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a challenge brought by business groups to a minimum wage increase approved by voters in the November election. The brief order from the high court said the seven justices were turning away a challenge brought by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other business groups. Chief Justice Scott Bales said a written ruling explaining the court’s thinking will come later. The groups argued that higher state costs for elderly and disabled care trigger a state constitutional provision requiring a new funding source. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office and the backers of Proposition 206 argued before the court last week that the increased costs were indirect and didn’t require new funding. An estimated 700,000 low-wage workers got an increase to a minimum $10 per hour from $8.05 on Jan. 1, and their wages will increase to $12 an hour in 2020. The measure also requires most employers to provide sick time to their workers.

Jim Barton, who represented the group backing the measure, said he was pleased but not surprised by the ruling. “The Arizona Supreme Court, they follow the law,” Barton said. “They’re not an activist court, they do not go outside the boundaries, and I think that’s what you had today.” Business groups opposed the measure from the start, filing a legal challenge to keep it off the ballot that was rejected. Fully 58 percent of voters approved the measure, a large margin for a voter initiative. The high court refused to keep the wage increase from going into effect, and held a full hearing on the challenge last week.

The Chamber’s attorney pointed to a minimum $21 million in additional state costs in the 2018 budget year to help contract providers cover higher wages for caring for the elderly and disabled. They said the law failed to require a constitutionally-mandated funding source to cover those costs. But justices sharply questioned attorney Brett Johnson about how they could overturn the measure and still leave intact citizens’ right to pass laws that’s been in place since statehood. They wondered how any measure could be legal if such indirect costs had to be measured and funded. Chamber President Glenn Hamer said in a statement that while disappointed, he respected the ruling and said it gives clarity to the state and employers. “Lawmakers and the governor can now craft a state budget that considers the law’s impact on state revenues, and employers can calibrate their operations with the understanding that the minimum wage and paid leave law will stand,” Hamer said. Brnovich issued a statement saying he did his job in defending the law and took a swipe at the efforts to have the law overturned.

“The constitution is designed to protect our rights,” Brnovich said. “It’s not a tool to be used to undermine the will of the people.” Disturbed by the minimum wage increase, the Chamber is now pushing for changes to the citizen’s initiative process at the Legislature, concerned that out-of-state groups are able to push through voter-approved laws that they oppose. Majority Republicans are on board, with proposals to change how qualifying signatures are gathered, and to repeal or diminish the scope of a law which limits their ability to change voter approved laws. The changes to the Voter Protection Act require voter approval. Democrats call the efforts cynical attempts to sidestep the rights of citizens to bypass the Legislature when it ignores policies with wide popular appeal.

Read More : abc15.com/news/state/arizona-supreme-court-rejects-minimum-wage-challenge

Bail Bonds In Sanford – Is it legal for officials to search your phone when you’re traveling?

Source      : LA Times News
By              : Catharine Hamm
Category  : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Is it legal for officials to search your phone when you’re traveling?

Question: I’ve been confused by various articles about a policy whereby the authorities are demanding travelers provide them with their passwords so they can check the contents of their smart phones and/or laptops. What is happening and is this legal?
Answer: Concerns about requests for electronic devices heightened after Sidd Bikkannavar, a NASA engineer, was recently detained in Houston, where Customs and Border Protection asked for the PIN number for his employer-issued phone.

Bikkannavar, born in the United States, was returning from South America when he was detained, according to news reports. He was reluctant to give Customs the PIN because the phone contained employer-related information. He ended up doing so.

If you are faced with the same situation, should you allow your electronic devices to be searched?
The answer depends on your tolerance for inconvenience, your sensitivities about your privacy, and whether you agree with the reason for the searches. Before wandering down those paths, your first question may be about legality, given the 4th Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” In 2014 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that law enforcement may not search a phone without a warrant. In an article about the decision, David Savage of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “The decision is the court’s most sweeping and surprising criminal-law opinion in years, and it is likely to put a significant check on the government’s ability to routinely search other types of electronic devices, including laptops and tablets.” Maybe. But Title 19 of the U.S. Code, Section 507 says, “Every customs officer shall … have the authority to demand the assistance of any person in making any arrest, search, or seizure authorized by any law enforced or administered by Customs officers, if such assistance may be necessary…. If a person, without reasonable excuse, neglects or refuses to assist a Customs officer upon proper demand … such person is guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of not more than $1,000.”

Just what in the ho-hum do you do if you’re asked to give up your phone?
As with most things travel-related, the key may be planning for the worst, hoping for the best. “It’s important for everyone to think through the scenario in advance and decide what makes the most sense for them,” Emma Llansó, director, Free Expression Project of the Center for Democracy & Technology, said in an email. As you consider that, note too that there is a legal answer and there is a practical answer, and they may not be the same, said Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberty Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Here are some of the issues to consider:
Is privacy important to you?
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in that 2014 Supreme Court decision, “Modern cellphones are not just another technological device. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the ‘privacies of life.’” Wessler expanded on that thought: “Our cellphones and laptops and small electronic devices carry an unprecedented variety of personal and sensitive information … years worth of emails … perhaps intimate photos and more. That is why there are very strong rules that apply to domestic law enforcement … requiring a search warrant. Those same privacy concerns apply at the border.” Point to ponder: You may have nothing to hide. Maybe your friends and family have nothing to hide either, in which case you may feel comfortable turning over your phone. But letting someone roam through your digital life may give you the same disquieting feeling you have about a home burglary: You still have all your underwear, but you can tell that your stuff has been touched by someone who is not you.

How much time do you have?
“If you’re a U.S. citizen, border officials cannot force you to unlock your phone, but they may detain you for a limited time if you refuse,” Llansó said. “They can’t detain you indefinitely or deport you if you’re a citizen.” How inconvenienced could you be? Depends on the situation, but, Wessler said, “We’re talking hours, not days.”

Point to ponder: Are you in a hurry to get home or to catch your connecting flight?

Can you be without your device?
A forensic examination of your phone, laptop or tablet means you could “lose access to the device for weeks or even months,” Wessler said. Point to ponder: Are your files backed up in the cloud or saved on, perhaps, a hard drive at home? Or maybe you have an old-fashioned Rolodex that holds all the phone numbers you no longer must remember because your phone does that for you. There are other ways to mitigate damage or inconvenience. “Travelers who are concerned about being detained or having their private communications scrutinized by border officials should consider minimizing the amount of personal information on their digital devices,” Llansó said. “It might be safest to leave those devices at home.”

Whaaat?
“Unfortunately, we’re starting to hear from business travelers who are now making some of the same decisions about traveling to the U.S. [as they do] before traveling to China or Russia,” Wessler said. They may have a dedicated travel laptop or phone for those trips because they have sensitive or proprietary information they cannot afford to lose or disclose, he said. Assuming you have everything backed up in the cloud, you could delete everything from your phone, enter only the info you’ll need when you travel, then restore your phone when you get home, said Sebastian Harrison, founder of Cellular Abroad, which helps travelers with their cellular/data needs in foreign lands. Or you could take an unlocked (that is, you don’t owe money on it and are no longer tethered to any provider) phone, buy a SIM card for the country you’re visiting, use it, then get rid of the SIM, Harrison said.

How much trouble you want to endure depends on how concerned you are about these issues.
As my friends and family know, I often carry an extra phone abroad, not because I worry about privacy but because I worry about loss, given that my digital hygiene (I’m sloppy about backing things up) is imperfect. And now of course I have a digital fingerprint on my phone of a call to the ACLU.

What you do depends on your concerns and your needs. Your solution may be different from your neighbor’s or your sibling’s. The point is, as Llansó said, the time to think about this is now, not when you’re in the hot seat. Calm and cool, whether it’s finding out you’re going to miss your airline connection or your digital connection, will always win the day. That’s the beauty of a game plan you may never need.

Read More : latimes.com/travel/la-tr-spot-digital-privacy-20170312-story.html

Bail Bonds In Seminole – Supreme Court considers law banning sex offenders from Facebook

Source     : Independent News
By             : Samuel Osborne
Category :  Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Supreme Court considers law banning sex offenders from Facebook

The US Supreme Court is considering a law banning convicted sex offenders from social media sites such as Facebook. The lawsuit was sparked by a North Carolina sex offender who posted on Facebook after his traffic ticket was dismissed. “No fine. No Court costs. No nothing. Praise be to god. Wow. Thanks, Jesus,” Lester Packingham Jr wrote. Mr Packingham was forbidden by a 2008 North Carolina law from using social networking sites that children could join, because he is a registered sex offender.

He was convicted of indecent liberties with a minor when he was 21 and served 10 months in prison. A Durham police officer investigated the post and determined Mr Packingham used an alias rather than his real name. He was prosecuted, convicted of a felony and received a suspended prison sentence.

However, his lawyers say no evidence pointed to him using Facebook or his computer to communicate with minors, or that he posted anything inappropriate or obscene.  The Supreme Court will now decide whether the law, meant to prevent communications between sex offenders and minors, is so broad it violates the Constitution’s free speech protections. The case goes to the Supreme Court after it was upheld by North Carolina’s highest court in a divided ruling. The law addressed websites which might allow sex offenders to gather information about minors, the state court said.

But dissenting justices argued the ban extends further and could outlaw reading the New York Times and Food Network website. “Everyday Americans understand that social media — which includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram — are absolutely central to their daily life and how the First Amendment is exercised in America today,” said Stanford law professor David Goldberg, who will represent Mr Packingham at the Supreme Court on Monday. Though the intent of North Carolina lawmakers may have been to block sexual predators from finding and grooming prey online, Mr Goldberg said the law goes further and makes it a crime for someone on a sex-offender registry to say anything about any subject on social media. “That goes way, way too far,” Mr Goldberg said. “It’s a crime to do anything, including what Mr Packingham did, which was to say ‘God is good’ because he was victorious in traffic court. There’s never been any suggestion that he was up to anything but exercising his freedom of speech.” “We have to protect young people wherever they are, whether that’s at school, or at summer camp or increasingly online,” said North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, whose office is defending the law. “This North Carolina law keeps registered sex offenders off of social networking websites that kids use without denying the offenders access to the internet. It just keeps them off of certain web sites.”

Read More : independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/facebook-sex-offenders-paedophile-supreme-court-north-carolina-social-media-law-lester-packingham-jr-a7600201.html

Bail Bonds In Sanford – Supreme Court rules the ‘anti-love law’ does not breach human rights

Source    : Legal Cheek News
By            : Katie King
Category : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Supreme Court rules the ‘anti-love law’ does not breach human rights

The Supreme Court has ruled today that the controversial “anti-love law”, which bars non-European Economic Area (EEA) citizens from living here with their low-earning UK spouses, is in principle lawful. Since 2012 and under domestic law, UK nationals are allowed to bring their foreign spouses into the country to live with them, but only if they (the UK citizen) earn £18,600 a year or more. The minimum income requirement steadily increases if there are dependent children involved.

It has been estimated that 45% of people do not earn £18,600, with the average wages of chefs, florists, hairdressers and hospital porters, for example, coming in well below this requisite minimum figure. Lord Carnwath told the court this morning that imposing a minimum income requirement like this is, “in principle”, lawful and does not breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The lead claimant, MM, had argued that the law infringes article 8 of the ECHR, i.e. the right to family life. Campaigners have said up to 15,000 British children have grown up as “Skype kids” — having to keep in contact with one of their parents online — since the rule was introduced. While it’s undeniable this law has had a devastating impact on the family life of the people it affects, the court said today that just because the rules cause hardship does not mean they are unlawful. Manjit Singh Gill QC from No5 Chambers, acting for MM, also said the requirement was unlawfully discriminatory and irrational.

For starters, the rule — termed the “anti-love law” by the Refugee Council — does not take regional or gender-driven wage differences into account. The percentage of women not eligible to sponsor a third country national partner is nearly twice as high as the number of men, while figures fluctuate between 30% and 51% dependent on where in the country the partner lives. Campaigners have also taken issue with the fact that it is only the UK national’s income that is taken into account. This means that if a millionaire businesswoman married an English cleaner (in receipt of an average salary) then she wouldn’t be allowed in, regardless of the contribution her wealth would make to the economy.

The case was heard in the Westminster-based court almost a year ago to the day. Speaking at the February 2016 hearing before Lady Hale and Lords Kerr, Wilson, Reed, Carnwath, Hughes and Hodge, barrister Gill — who also appeared before the Supreme Court in the Brexit legal challenge — said:
For many, £18,600 is completely unachievable. It is not like the case of the English language test where you can put in so many hours. This is effective for life, for half the British population. Parliament cannot have intended the law to be used in that way.

In court this morning were Lady Hale, Lord Carnwath and Lord Hodge. Deputy president Hale began by saying the court regrets it’s taken us longer than usual to give judgment in this case, especially because the minimum income rules have caused a “great deal of concern”.  Carnwath then announced that a requirement like that in question “has a legitimate aim of ensuring couples don’t have recourse to welfare benefits”. The income threshold chosen was rationally connected to this aim. However, Carnwath then said that the Supreme Court unanimously allows the appeals to a limited extent. He explained that the rules and instructions in relation to the minimum income requirement do not take proper account of the Secretary of State’s “s55 duty”. This duty is contained in the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. The Secretary of State is statutorily bound to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children when making decisions which affect them. In this respect, the Supreme Court said that the rules and instructions tagged to the minimum income requirement are unlawful.

Read More : legalcheek.com/2017/02/supreme-court-rules-the-anti-love-law-does-not-breach-human-rights/

Bail Bonds In Seminole – Centre College removes name of bigoted U.S. Supreme Court justice from building

Source     : Kentucky News
By             : Linda Blackford
Category : Bail Bonds In Sanford , Bail Bonds In Seminole

Centre College removes name of bigoted U.S. Supreme Court justice from building

Centre College has removed the name of U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Clark McReynolds from one of its buildings after a group of students researched his documented bigotry from the bench. McReynolds Hall will now be known as 762 West Main Street, its physical address. The Centre Board of Trustees unanimously approved the change at its winter meeting last month, spokesman Michael Strysick said. Strysick declined to identify the students, citing federal privacy laws. McReynolds was born in Todd County in 1862 and attended Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia. He was U.S. Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson, who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1914. He and three other justices became known as the “Four Horsemen,” and McReynolds tried to block numerous pieces of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. When he died in 1946, he left an unrestricted gift of $59,000 to Centre, and at the time, trustees voted to name a building in his honor, Strysick said. The gift would now be worth $730,000.

According to a history of the Supreme Court, McReynolds refused to have blacks, women, Jews or smokers as his law clerks. He refused to speak to fellow Kentuckian Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice, for three years, and he left the room whenever Brandeis spoke. He would not sign opinions authored by Brandeis or another Jewish justice, Benjamin Cardozo, according to a Supreme Court documentary by author John Fox, who also said McReynolds read a newspaper during Cardozo’s swearing-in ceremony. In his book “Injustices,” author Ian Millhiser described McReynolds as one of the five worst justices of all time because of laziness and bigotry. “There is no official photograph of the justices for 1924 because the court’s seniority-based seating chart required McReynolds to sit next to Brandeis, and McReynolds simply refused to be photographed next to his Jewish colleague,” Millhiser writes. “When Brandeis offered his views in conferences, McReynolds would simply stand up and leave.” As Centre President John Roush stated in a campuswide email, “the majority of accounts of his (McReynolds’) career focus on his discriminatory views, rather than his legal opinions or other work.”

The board of trustees acted “because the views for which McReynolds became most closely identified are completely inconsistent with the values fully embraced today by the college, those of inclusion, diversity, and tolerance,” Roush wrote. “A key factor for the board was that the values McReynolds publicly expressed were not generally accepted in his own time.” In addition to Centre, McReynolds bequeathed his estate to other charities, including the Children’s Hospital in Washington. During his lifetime, he also helped more than 30 children who were orphaned during World War II, bringing them to the United States. The building houses technology services and includes some student housing. Strysick said removing the building’s name represented college governance “at its best.” The students made a request to the school and Roush then convened a committee, which recommended the change to the board. Centre has other, more positive connections to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice Fred Vinson graduated from Centre in 1909; he was the court’s top judge from 1946 to 1953. Centre alumnus John Marshall Harlan served on the Supreme Court for 34 years; he cast the lone dissenting vote on Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which legalized racial segregation. Like Centre, institutions around the country are reconsidering aspects of their history. Last year, Princeton University announced that it would keep the name of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs despite Wilson’s support for segregation and defense of slavery. Other universities, including Harvard, Brown and the University of Virginia, have acknowledged and documented their history with and benefits from slavery. In 2015 University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto ordered a shroud for a mural in Memorial Hall that depicted slavery. Last year, a task force recommended uncovering the painting and providing more context about its meaning and history.

Read More : kentucky.com/news/local/education/article131265484.html