Arkansas: Court OKs police search of shop without warrant
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court says it was appropriate for the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office to seize a stolen paint sprayer from a pawn shop, even though officers didn’t have a warrant.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the owners of EZ Cash Pawn Shop in Little Rock against the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office and several of its officers. The pawn shop sued after a sergeant seized the paint sprayer, which was reported stolen and had been pawned for $300.
The court says police don’t need a warrant to seize items that are “in plain view.” The court says the pawn shop’s manager willingly showed the sprayer to the officer, who was on the property legally, and that a warrant was unnecessary.
Montana: Man sentenced in prostitution case faces jail time
HAMILTON, Mont. (AP) — A 31-year-old Stevensville man who was given a deferred sentence in a drug case is back in court after being sentenced in a Missoula prostitution case.
The Ravalli Republic reports Sean Snow appeared Wednesday before District Judge Jeffrey Langton on a petition to revoke his five-year deferred sentence in the 2009 methamphetamine case. Snow’s plea agreement in the drug case required him to forfeit $8,100 in cash and gave him the opportunity to have the conviction removed from his record if he remained law-abiding for three years.
Last month, Snow was given a six-month suspended sentence after admitting to paying women for sex after calling an escort service advertised on Craigslist.
Maine: State high court to hear Cookson murder appeal
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A man serving two life sentences for killing his former girlfriend and a toddler she was baby-sitting in the town of Dexter is asking the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to order DNA tests that could lead to a new trial.
The attorney for Jeffrey Cookson is expected to ask for DNA tests on clothes and a wig worn by a man who claimed to have killed 20-year-old Mindy Gould and 21-month-old Treven Cunningham, but later recanted.
Oral arguments in the case are set for Thursday.
In 2009 a superior court judge refused a request for DNA tests.
Cookson was convicted in 2001 of shooting Gould and Treven execution-style on Dec. 3, 1999. He has maintained his innocence.
