Two police officers involved in the shooting death of 92 year old Kathryn Johnson pled guilty in Atlanta to manslaughter today in state court and federal civil rights charges in federal court, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website this afternoon: Officers plea guilty in killing of elderly woman in her home / Murder charges dropped because men agree to help federal investigation of APD.

Two Atlanta police officers made a second appearance in court today to plead guilty to felonies in the fatal shooting of a 92-year-old woman in her home.

Officers Gregg Junnier and Jason R. Smith made their second stop Wednesday afternoon to plead guilty to violating the civil rights of Kathryn Johnston by killing her during a botched drug raid at her home Nov. 21. 2006.

Earlier in the day, the men were in Fulton Superior Court where they admitted to voluntary manslaughter charges along with several other state felony counts.

Sentencing in both courts has been deferred until later to allow the men to cooperate with a federal investigation into the Atlanta police department's narcotics unit. The men are expected to serve at least 10 years in prison on the federal charges alone.

Before the hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes the two officers sat side-by-side on a bench. Junnier stared ahead while Smith read silently from a Bible opened to the book of John.

Junnier was direct and spoke clearly as he answered Carnes' questions.

Smith, with a few tears, could barely be heard as he agree he was guilty to the federal charges.

Atlanta police chief Richard Pennington sat in the back corner of the courtroom watching his officers admit they had broken the law.

"Justice was served," Pennington said after the pleas. "We don't condone criminal misconduct. It's unfortunate any time you have a police officer [who feels] that they have to create false reports to enforce the law. It's a terrible day. And it's a sad day for them."

I posted several articles on this shooting incident on an innocent person's home, apparently based on false information to obtain a search warrant, and the last is here. To get the other eight posts, just search "www.ajc.com" in this website.

Defendant was stopped and was alleged to have consented to a search. The officer who allegedly received the consent was sitting in the courtroom at the suppression hearing and was not called by the government. The court finds that the consent was not validly given. There was, however, reasonable suspicion, and then a dog alerted and that gave probable cause. United States v. Dyson, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30030 (S.D. Ohio April 24, 2007):

The testimony further shows that, subsequent to the canine sniff, when Lyons informed Defendant of the result and requested permission to search the Maxima, Defendant responded to the effect of "I don't want you to but you're going to search anyway." Such statement is akin to an expression of futility in resistance to authority, rather than a knowing, voluntary, and unequivocal consent, as required under United States v. Worley, 193 F.3d 380, 386 (6th Cir. 1999). The Court finds well-taken Defendant's position that at this point in time of the investigation, the government has failed to establish Defendant's consent to a search of his vehicle.

Warrant for seizure of "electronic equipment" included a tape recorder and the tape in it. United States v. Freeman, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29987 (D. Kan. April 23, 2007):

The court also finds that the seizure of the tape itself was authorized under the warrant because the tape bore a "reasonable relation to the item[s] named in the warrant." United States v. Gentry, 642 F.2d 385, 387 (10th Cir. 1981). "When a logical nexus exists between seized but unnamed items and those items listed in the warrant, the unnamed items are admissible." Id. at 387 (citing Mesmer v. United States, 405 F.2d 316 (10th Cir. 1969)) (further citations omitted). The warrant in this case specifically authorized the seizure of items which could contain records of drug transactions, namely: paperwork, tax records, computer hardware, software, storage components, disks, CD ROM, photos, and video tapes. Certainly there is a logical nexus, as described in Gentry, between these items and a microcassette tape, which is reasonably related to records of drug transactions.

Officer's hunch that something was amiss with the defendant parking his car near parking lot exit and hearing a thud which could have been a dropped weapon turned out to be right, but it was still a hunch that the defendant was up to no good. People v. Perrusquia, 150 Cal. App. 4th 228, 58 Cal. Rptr. 3d 485 (4th Dist. 2007):

The officer in this case had a hunch that something was amiss with defendant, and he turned out to be right. That he was right, however, cannot be used to retroactively justify a detention. As the trial court noted at the hearing's conclusion: "[T]his is why police work is difficult, complex and challenging[,] because it's difficult from a moral or practical standpoint to criticize the officer's actions." We agree, yet at the same time we also agree with the trial court that the facts did not meet the legal standard for a detention. The officer must have "specific and articulable facts causing him to suspect that (1) some activity relating to crime has taken place or is occurring or about to occur, and (2) the person he intends to stop or detain is involved in that activity." (In re Tony C., supra, 21 Cal.3d at p. 893.)

Evidence supported trial court's conclusion that the defendant consented to officers' entry during a knock-and-talk. There was a plain view. While the officers conducted a protective sweep that was apparently unjustified, the protective sweep did not lead to the plain view, so it was not relevant. State v. Nicholas, 958 So. 2d 682 (La. App. 5th Cir. 2007), released for publication July 2, 2007.*

From a reader, a seriously troubling case from the Tenth Circuit not supplied by Lexis this morning:

The police conducted a knock-and-talk in a child porn case based on an investigation of a child porn website, and defendant's 91 year old father was the only person at home. A few leading questions later, nothing pertaining to equal access to the computer, the father was asked to consent to a search of his 51 year old son's bedroom where, with his government computer equipped with EnCase, the officer opened child porn pictures. The Tenth Circuit found the officers reasonably could rely on the father's apparent authority to consent to a search of his adult son's room, a finding that defies common sense (few 91 year olds know a thing about computers, and the record shows that this one did not). The son was contacted, and the police stopped the search and waited for him and then arrested him. The court noted that EnCase enables the officers to by-pass all passwords on the computer. This computer was password protected, but that did not bother the court. The majority of the court essentially puts the burden on the defendant to show that password protection of computers is common and shows an expectation of privacy like a locked container, and finds that he did not in this case. United States v. Andreas, 2007 WL 1207081, 483 F.3d 711 (10th Cir. 2007) (2-1).

Wife had common authority to consent to a search of the attic. United States v. George, 232 Fed. Appx. 392 (5th Cir. 2007)* (unpublished).

Search issue was outside the COA, so it would not be considered. Menendez v. United States, 228 Fed. Appx. 897 (11th Cir. 2007)* (unpublished).

Officers in near hot pursuit had exigent circumstances to enter plaintiff's house looking for a shooter just hours after the occurrence. Stoute v. Mink, 232 Fed. Appx. 881 (11th Cir. 2007)* (unpublished):

Here, Plaintiffs do not dispute that officers had probable cause to arrest Devon. n2 Therefore, the remaining issue is whether exigent circumstances justified the initial entry into Theola's home to complete the arrest. We conclude that exigent circumstances existed. Devon was suspected of attempted murder; and, because he was accused of shooting the victim just hours before his arrest, it was not unreasonable for officers to believe that Devon was armed and posed a danger to them and to the public. Officers had probable cause to believe that Devon committed the crime because the victim identified him by name and in a photograph line-up. In addition, the victim told officers that Devon was living at the address of Theola's house, which police research confirmed, and that he suspected Devon would attempt to flee. In the light of all of these circumstances, the district court did not err in concluding that exigent circumstances justified the initial entry into Theola's home to arrest Devon.