At a Glance

 LAD plans outreach clinic in Fraser

Legal Aid and Defender Association, Inc. (LAD) will conduct a free outreach clinic on civil legal services for income-eligible residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties on Friday, February 21 at the HOPE Center in Fraser.

Hours of the clinic are 9 a.m. to noon; the center is located at 33222 Groesbeck Highway.

Attendees are asked to register before 10 a.m., as a LAD attorney will assist only those persons who have done so by that time.

For further information, call LAD's Macomb County office in Mount Clemens at (586) 465-1344.

 

MSU plans conference on cybercrime

EAST LANSING (AP) — Michigan State University is hosting a global, interdisciplinary conference in March on how to fight cybercrime.
 
The East Lansing school says the event will bring together researchers from the social and technical disciplines. It says the goal is "to generate discussion and collaboration that will improve our knowledge of cybercrime and the policy response to this issue."

The Conference on Cybercrime is will be held March 20 at the Henry Center for Executive Development.

Among the speakers is Alice Hutchings, senior research analyst with the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Other speakers include Hsinchun Chen of the University of Arizona and Thomas Holt, a Michigan State criminal justice professor who studies online credit card theft, youth cybercrime and other issues.
 

Lawsuit by former  informant can proceed

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has denied a government bid to dismiss a lawsuit by a former confidential informant working for the United States in Colombia.
 
Astrid Hurtado’s lawsuit claims that the U.S. government abandoned her when she got into legal trouble for her undercover money laundering operations, and she wound up spending three years in a Colombian jail. She’s seeking $15 million in damages.
 
The Justice Department had sought the suit’s dismissal. The department argued that Hurtado failed to plausibly allege that U.S. government officials she worked for had the authority to obligate the U.S. to protect her.

But Judge Elaine D. Kaplan of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims this week called the government’s argument “unpersuasive.”

 

Court upholds evidence from improper search

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin appeals court has upheld a Milwaukee man’s drug conviction, saying evidence from an improper search of his house was admissible.
 
Police went to Gary Scull’s home with a drug-sniffing dog in 2010 after they got a tip from an informant. A detective walked the dog around the house and the dog alerted on the front door. The officers left, returned with a search warrant and found drugs and drug paraphernalia in the house.

Scull was convicted on cocaine and drug house charges. He argued police conducted a warrantless search.

The 1st District Court of Appeals ruled recently the warrant wasn’t valid but evidence from the search was still admissible because police believed in good faith that their conduct was constitutional.
 

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