Criminal procedure - search and seizure - Tenth Circuit finds that thermal imaging scan of a home constitutes a search. - United States v. Cusumano, 67 F.3d 1497 (10th Cir. 1995)
Article Abstract:
The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in United States v. Cusumano that the defendants had a reasonable expectation of privacy to be free of the use of thermal imaging of the heat patterns emanating from their home. The 10th Circuit departed from rulings in three other circuits that had found that use of thermal scanning technology was not a search because residents had no reasonable expectation of privacy. The 10th Circuit's interpretation is preferable because it does not allow improved technology to erode expectations of privacy as the public develops an awareness of new investigatory techniques.
Publication Name: Harvard Law Review
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0017-811X
Year: 1996
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42 U.S.C. s. 1983 - qualified immunity - Eleventh Circuit finds students' Fourth Amendment rights not 'clearly established.'
Article Abstract:
The US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997's Jenkins v. Talladega City Board of Education incorrectly held that qualified immunity attached to the defendant educators who conducted strip searches on school children. The violation of the childrens' 4th Amendment rights was left unremedied as a result of the court's misinterpretation of two US Supreme Court precedents. The court incorrectly interpreted the principles concerning the underlying searches and the principles determining whether reasonable public officials should have known their actions violated a clearly established right.
Publication Name: Harvard Law Review
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0017-811X
Year: 1998
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Intellectual property - patent and trade dress law - Tenth Circuit applies "significant inventive aspect" test to determine whether utility patent precludes trade dress protection. - Vornado Air Circulation Systems, Inc. v. Duracraft Corp
Article Abstract:
The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in Vornado Air Circulation Systems v. Duracraft Corp. that utility patent issues raised precluded trade dress liability for copying the spiral design of the grill on a household fan. The Court established a test assering trade dress protection was unavailable where the design is a significant inventive aspect of a utility patent claim. The Court failed to provide any guidance on how to determine whether a design aspect is a significant component of the invention in question.
Publication Name: Harvard Law Review
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0017-811X
Year: 1996
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- Abstracts: Civil rights - availability of s. 1983 - Ninth Circuit holds that s. 1983 is available to enforce Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. - Freestone v. Cowan, 68 F.3d 1141 (9th Cir. 1995)
- Abstracts: Statutory interpretation - Ethics in Government Act - Eighth Circuit holds Attorney General's referral of matters to independent counsel to be nonreviewable. - United States v. Tucker, 78 F.3d 1313 (8th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 65 U.S.L.W. 3257 (U.S. Oct. 7, 1996)(No. 95-2013)
- Abstracts: Switzerland, international law and World War II. Important improvements in the functioning of the principal organs of the United Nations that can be made without Charter revision
- Abstracts: Lasting stigma: affirmative action and Clarence Thomas's prisoners' rights jurisprudence. Criminal trials - subpoenas - Connecticut adopts a "compelling need" test to limit the ability of prosecutors to subpoena defense attorneys