FEDagent recently reported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Babb v. Wilkie. In Babb, the Supreme Court reversed a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and held the prohibition against age discrimination in the federal workplace was broader than that applied in the private sector. We update you now that plaintiff Noris Babb is requesting the full Eleventh Circuit to apply the Supreme Court’s holding to lower the bar to establish EEO reprisal claims in the federal workplace.

Whether an unsuccessful attempt to detain a suspect by use of physical force is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, in a case where officers shot a suspect who temporarily eluded capture and subsequently sued for civil damages, is set to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Fall Term.

Officers who tased a plaintiff up to eight times where the plaintiff acted violently and uncooperatively, even after being handcuffed, were entitled to qualified immunity in §1983 action, the Eighth Circuit this week held.

A warrant authorizing a search of property and the seizure of a vehicle implicitly included a search of the property for police to seize the vehicle’s keys, the Eighth Circuit recently held.

Congress did not intend to give the Department of Veterans Affairs carte blanch to impose penalties against non-executive career employees without review, the Federal Circuit held this week.

Ken Cuccinelli’s appointment as acting Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is unconstitutional, a federal district court held this week.

Onlookers have a right to observe police-citizen interactions at a distance, and an onlooker’s refusal to provide his full social security number does not create a basis for an officer to detain him.

The Arizona Attorney General recently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to decide that an unauthorized alien is categorically barred from establishing an ineffective assistance of counsel claim based on erroneous advice regarding the immigration consequences of a plea agreement.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide Hernandez v. Mesa for a second time.

Whether the criminal prohibition against encouraging or inducing illegal immigration for financial gain violates the First Amendment will be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court this term.

Convicted “D.C. sniper” Lee Boyd Malvo’s appeal of his sentence to life in prison without parole was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

Whether the mere offer to buy or sell a controlled substance can, by itself, constitute the crime of an “attempt” to violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is currently on petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On August 4, 2015, the United States Postal Inspection Service in Honolulu executed a search warrant and found approximately six pounds of methamphetamine in a package from Las Vegas, addressed to Bryant Kazuyoshi Iwai’s condominium. The next day DEA agents obtained a second warrant to track a controlled delivery of the package to Iwai’s building, with a GPS tracking device that would activate a rapid beeping signal when the package was opened.

The Supreme Court ruled this week on Gamble v. United States, first reported in FedAgent in October 2018.

Mark Turner persuaded Demontae Bell to help him sell several stolen firearms. When Turner later was arrested on charges related to manufacturing methamphetamine, he cooperated with law enforcement, provided them information about the firearms sale, and aided the government in targeting Bell. After a controlled transaction, Turner showed FBI Special Agent Jason Nixon a photo of an AK-47 on his phone, which he said Bell had texted to him.

Starting in early February 2015, Ronnie Cornell Cosby used his cell phone to take photos of T.L., a 15-year old runaway, post the photos to the internet, and negotiate with men who then paid Cosby to have sex with the girl in Hammond, Indiana.

A suit against the City of Saginaw and an officer in her personal capacity for “chalking” the plaintiff’s vehicle to issue her parking tickets, alleging a violation of the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights, may proceed, the Sixth Circuit recently held.

Typographical errors, including the defendant’s IP address, were not a basis for excluding evidence on child pornography charges, the Fifth Circuit recently held.

Federal agents should have reasonably known that arriving at a defendant’s front door with ten agents to address a false exigency would have impermissibly coerced the defendant into consenting to a search of his home and computer, the First Circuit recently held.

“Absolute consistency of belief is not a prerequisite to proving predisposition” to overcome an entrapment defense, the Fourth Circuit recently held in a case involving a former law enforcement officer who supported militant Islamism, Nazism, and white supremacy.