Two United States Postal Service employees challenged MSPB dismissals, for lack of jurisdiction, of their removal appeals. The MSPB found that the employees did not have appeal rights because they did not meet the definition of “employee” under 5 U.S.C. § 7511(a)(1)(B)(ii), which requires one year of current continuous service. The United States Court of Appeals affirmed the MSPB’s dismissals. On April 1, 2019, the United States Supreme Court denied the petition for writ of certiorari appealing the appeals court decision, thereby affirming and making final the dismissal of the employees’ MSPB removal appeals.

Last year, FEDagent reported on the Supreme Court’s decision in Collins v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1668 (2018). The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which recently issued its decision on remand.

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.

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that cell phones are not tracking devices for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3117. The First Circuit also held that the good-faith exception applies to a warrant issued in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41.

On March 1, 2019, the Federal Labor Relations Authority issued a press release stating that it was inviting amici curiae briefs on an issue in U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Michael E. DeBakey Medical Center, Houston, Texas, and American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Local 1633, Case No. 0-AR-5354. The issue involves whether the Federal Labor Relations Authority should reconsider relying on the factors in Allen v. U.S. Postal Service, 2 M.S.P.R. 420 (1980), when considering awards of attorney’s fees.

“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.

Retired federal law enforcement officers are entitled to the same state tax benefits as “similarly situated” retired state law enforcement officers, the U.S. Supreme Court held this week.

Last week, the Fifth Circuit utilized the common-law trespass test to find that a state trooper’s tapping of a car tire was a search.

Recently, the Ninth Circuit held that officers may not extend a lawfully initiated traffic stop because a passenger refuses to identify himself absent reasonable suspicion that the individual committed a criminal offense.

Last week, FEDagent reported on the Federal Circuit’s decision in Siler v. EPA, on the issue of whether EPA adequately asserted the attorney-client privilege to withhold documents from Siler during the discovery phase of his MSPB appeal his removal from federal service. This week, we report on the portion of the court’s decision that vacated the MSPB’s denial of Siler’s whistleblower reprisal affirmative defense and remanded the matter to MSPB for further proceedings.

Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a decision of an Merit System Protection Board Administrative Judge, and found that the EPA made no evidentiary showing to prove its claim of the attorney-client privilege to prevent the discovery of draft proposed disciplinary actions.  

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, via a panel decision, held that when a federal employee is removed from service on a charge of “positive test for illegal drug use,” there is no requirement for the government to prove that the employee intended to use an illegal drug.

The First Circuit recently affirmed a district court judgment dismissing a FTCA claim based on the “clearly established” step of the qualified immunity analysis applied in Bivens. In doing so, it questioned the availability of the qualified immunity defense in a FTCA claim in Puerto Rico, but left this question open as the plaintiff did not raise this issue.

Former U.S. Senate Candidate Barry Michaels has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether felons may ever become “law-abiding and responsible,” to overcome a felon disarmament statute and possess a firearm.

Recently, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Nieves v. Bartlett, a case that addresses whether an officer’s probable cause acts as an absolute bar to a citizen’s First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim.

In oral argument today on Gamble v. United States, a majority of justices were critical of an appeal seeking to overturn the “separate sovereigns” doctrine exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a case previously reported in FEDagent.

Recently, the Ninth Circuit held that Network Investigative Technique (“NIT”) warrants relied on to authorize a search beyond the jurisdiction of the issuing magistrate judge is void under the Fourth Amendment. Still, the court of appeals found that the good faith exception applied to admit the evidence obtained as a result of the unconstitutional search.

In a consolidated multidistrict class action against the Office of Personnel Management following a severe data breach of OPM’s cybersecurity that affected millions of federal employees and former federal employees, federal employees and the union alleged gross negligence and a violation of constitutional rights to informational privacy. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case on September 19, 2017. On October 12, 2017, the employees appealed the dismissal to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit.

Shooting dogs during a lawful search constituted an unconstitutional seizure, the Sixth Circuit recently held, allowing a plaintiff’s §1983 claim against officers to proceed.