Police and prosecution roundup

  • Anonymous tip as basis for search? Thomas, Scalia divide in 5-4 SCOTUS decision [Tim Lynch/Cato; Popehat and Scott Greenfield vs. Orin Kerr]
  • Undercover police target Uber, Lyft drivers to “send a message” [Alice Truong, Fast Company; related on New York AG Eric Schneiderman; yet more from NY state senator Liz Krueger (claims AirBnB could also lead to gambling and drugs)]
  • Judge Rakoff on plea deals: “hundreds… or even tens of thousands of innocent people who are in prison, right now” [Tim Lynch, Cato]
  • “Everybody’s trafficked by something,” claims one Phoenix police lieutenant [Al-Jazeera via Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason] “Lies, damned lies, and sex work statistics” [Maggie McNeill]
  • Small town police get feds’ surplus armored military vehicles. What could go wrong? [Radley Balko, with reader comments on challenges of supplies and maintenance]
  • Good: “Obama to consider more clemency requests from nonviolent drug offenders” [CBS, Tim Lynch, my take in December]
  • Arkansas: “Mom Arrested for Breastfeeding After Drinking Alcohol in a Restaurant” [Free-Range Kids]

“Driver who killed teen is suing dead boy’s family for $1 million”

Ontario: “The family of a teenage bicyclist who died after being hit from behind by an SUV is now being sued for more than $1 million by the woman who was behind the wheel.” The suit is in the nature of the counterclaim; the family has a suit going against the driver. [Fox News] According to the Ottawa Citizen:

A collision-reconstruction team from the South Simcoe Police Service investigated the crash; their 26-page report found that the “lack of visibility” of the cyclists “was the largest contributing factor,” and that on a dark overcast night, “the driver of the Kia did not see the cyclists on the roadway and was unable to make an evasive reaction.”

Labor and employment roundup

Speaking of European labor-law rigidity…

The Wall Street Journal last month (paywalled, no link) reported on how the long-moribund British auto industry now has a striking success, BMW’s Mini plant in Oxford, along with a hopeful sign for the future, Tata Motors Ltd.’s plans to invest $2.5 billion in its Jaguar plant in Solihull:

Workplace flexibility is a big factor behind the success of the U.K.’s auto industry, experts say. The Mini plant operates under the “working time account” model, which lets employees build up extra working hours that they can then draw on in downtime. …

“This is impossible in the rest of Europe on any relevant scale because of local legislation that protects workers’ rights and pay,” said John Leech, head of the U.K. automotive section at consultancy KPMG.