D.Mass.: Power company was not a state actor in providing electrical usage information

“The aphorism that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ would certainly apply to the law enforcement officials who investigated this case.” Here, the city sanitation workers were seeing large amounts of marijuana debris coming in, and they called the police. The power company was not a government actor in revealing the defendant’s power usage to the police. “The very nature of marijuana cultivation conspiracies suggests, under some circumstances, that several year old information may not be stale. What’s more, the facts of the warrant affidavit give every reason to believe that such an extensive and long term conspiracy was present.” The warrant showed probable cause. United States v. Ly, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40854 (D.Mass. March 30, 2015).

The patdown was with reasonable suspicion and the drug packets were found by plain feel. Defendant failed to assign error to the trial court’s findings on inevitable discovery, so he can’t appeal that ground. Pork v. Commonwealth, 2015 Va. App. LEXIS 105 (March 31, 2015).*