New to the AELE Website
—
2008 —
Added June 2008
AELE has added a RSS news feed to this website, which will feature links to news and information of interest to law enforcement, including new court cases, new articles, and other documents. To subscribe to this free service, click here.
Added May 2008
AELE has added an illustrated Guide to help readers navigate our publications, the libraries of case summaries, the search engine and other resources. Click here to view, save or print the 19 page document.
Added
Mar. 2008
AELE, joined by the IACP &
NSA, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an Arizona ruling that had
invalided the search of a vehicle because the driver had been handcuffed and placed
in the rear of a patrol car. Click here to
see the Arizona decision, and here
to read our amicus brief.
—
2007 —
Federal court finds that only the first three of five applications of the TASER were objectively reasonable.
Added Jan. 2007
In January, AELE inaugurated a Monthly Law Journal with at least three articles a month. Like the periodicals, they address police civil liability, public safety discipline or employment law, and jail & prison litigation. Access the Law Journal or our periodicals here. These are free publications, and no registration or password is required.
Article: Number of officers killed with head or neck shots in 2006 or injured by head wounds, by Stanley Cohen, Attorney at Law.
—
2006 —
The AELE Board of Directors decided
to remove the password gateway from the monthly publications, the library of
more than 20,000 case summaries, and the search engine. Access is now free to
all visitors to the AELE website. AELE ceased billing renewal subscriptions in
May.
Added June 2006
Last December, AELE, joined by the
IACP and NSA, asked the Supreme Court to affirm the conviction of a parolee who
was searched by a police officer. As a condition of parole, California inmates
agree to be subject to search by a parole or police officer at any time of the night
or day, with or without a search warrant and with or without cause. The
Justices, by a 6-3 vote, in an opinion written
by Justice Thomas, has held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a
police officer from conducting a suspicionless search
of a parolee.
Added May. 2006
Last February, AELE asked the Supreme Court to overturn a Utah decision that held that police officers, who were called to the scene of a loud party, were not allowed to enter the home to stop a violent fight that they observed through a back window. The Justices have reversed the Utah court, 9-to-0, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts.
"Distinguishing Between True and False Confessions," a chapter from the book, "Criminal Interrogations and Confessions - Jones and Bartlett (2004).
AELE Law Training Bulletin “Potential Civil Liability for Coercive Interrogations,“ by James Manak
—
2005 —
AELE learned that the software used
to signup for free e-mail Alert bulletins has not
been working, possibly for several months. If you signed up and did not get a
confirmation, or did not get the Alert e-mail sent out on October 18th,
please sign up again by clicking here.
Added June 2005
AELE will sponsor a new seminar in 2006, on the Legal, Psychological and Biomechanical Aspects of Officer-Involved Lethal and Less Lethal Force.
Added April 2005
Added January 2005
AELE has published a Specimen Policy to implement the Law Enforcement
Officers’ Safety Act of 2004: The statute authorizes
current and qualified retired officers to carry a concealed firearm throughout
the
— 2004 —
Added December 2004
AELE has uploaded papers and
PowerPoint presentations (or added links) of the 2004
Annual Conference of the IACP Legal Officers Section in
Added November 2004
Interviews
and Interrogations of Public Employees: Beckwith, Garrity,
Miranda and Weingarten Rights, an article appearing in the Law Enforcement
Executive Forum (Nov. 2004).
Added July 2004
LEO Concealed-Carry Law: New federal law allowing current
and retired law enforcement officers, HR 218, adding 18
Added
July 2004
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in State of New York v. Tanella,
374 F.3d 141, a case in which AELE and the IACP filed an amicus brief (see Jan.
2004 below), has issued an opinion upholding the dismissal of manslaughter
charges against a federal agent who fatally shot a resisting suspect. The court
found that the agent was immune from state prosecution under the Supremacy
Clause of the United States Constitution. It also found that the agent honestly
believed his life to be in danger at the time of the shooting and that his
belief was objectively reasonable. Click here to
view the appeals court opinion. You also can
read the AELE-IACP brief, the lower court decision, and the prosecution’s
brief.
Added
April 2004
Article: “Criminal Justice Compliance Officer:
A new title and duties for self-governance responsibilities within law
enforcement and corrections agencies.” Compliance by police and correctional
agencies has been the subject of oversight efforts from a variety of sources,
primarily political, citizen and judicial. This article discusses those systems
and then focuses on a fourth concept, the creation of an internal compliance
office. [PDF]
Added
Jan. 2004
Supreme Court
decision – crime information roadblocks: If the primary purpose of a
roadblock was not to determine whether a vehicle’s occupants were committing a
crime, but to ask the occupants, as members of the public, for help in
providing information about a crime in all likelihood committed by others, the
checkpoint does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Information-seeking highway
stops are less likely to provoke anxiety or to prove intrusive, the questions
asked are not designed to elicit self-incriminating information, and citizens
will often react positively when police ask for help. Illinois v. Lidster, #02-106, 540
St. Louis University School of
Law has published two articles on police officer decertification and “gypsy”
cops. The full text of both can be viewed on our website.
• Revocation of Police Officer Certification: A
Viable Remedy for Police Misconduct?
• New Approaches to
Ensuring the Legitimacy of Police Conduct: De-Certification: Achieving
Interstate Reciprocity,
— 2003 —
Added Oct. 2003
AELE has uploaded papers and
PowerPoint presentations (or added links) of the 2003
Annual Conference of the IACP Legal Officers Section in
Added July 2003
AELE has added links for the booklet “Guidance
regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies,” issued by the DoJ’s Civil Rights Div. (June 2003) and the racial
profiling amendments to Illinois Statutes (July 2003).
Added April 2003 – updated Dec. 2003
AELE filed a “friend of the court” brief in U.S.
v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 124 S.Ct. 521, where police waited only 15-20
seconds after knocking, before a forcible entry was made to serve a drug search
warrant. The 9th Circuit’s decision favoring the defendant was
overturned in a 9-to-0 opinion
in Dec. 2003.
Added March 2003
AELE Law Training Bulletin “Miscellaneous
Interrogation Issues,“ by James P. Manak, Esq.
Added February 2003
Article: “New Challenges for Law Enforcement Professional
Standards Officers.” It explains how internal affairs investigators also
should have the responsibility to identify their agency’s policy or training
failures that have caused or contributed to a justified citizen complaint or
lawsuit.
— 2002 —
Added December 2002
Eighth Circuit reverses a lower court ruling that had suppressed the
evidence obtained by a search warrant that was faxed to Yahoo. “The Fourth
Amendment does not explicitly require official presence during a warrant’s execution, therefore it is not an automatic violation if no
officer is present during a search.” U.S. v. Bach, #02-1238, 310 F.3d 1063
(8th Cir. 2002). [PDF]
Added November 2002
AELE Board authorizes a “Certified Legal
Specialist” designation for qualified seminar attendants
Added June 2002
AELE Law Training Bulletin: Consent Searches
[revised]
Added May 2002
Text of a federal appeals court decision: No liability for an armed
standoff at a home which ended with suspect’s decision to kill himself and his
son. Emolski v. City of Brunswick, 287
F.3d 492 (6th Cir.).
Added March 2002
AELE Law Training Bulletin: Community
Caretaking Function.
Added February 2002
Amicus Curiae Brief of AELE, the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police,
and the National Sheriffs’ Assn. in the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Drayton, #01-631. Read
the text of the Court's decision.
Added January 2002
Racial Profiling: “What Does the Data Mean? A Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding Data Collection
& Analysis.” By Captain Ronald L. Davis, Regional Vice
President, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).