Wednesday round-up

CONOR MCEVILY OCT 31, 2012 9:23 AM

Today the Court will hear oral argument in two cases, both of which have their origins in the use of drug-sniffing dogs by Florida law enforcement officials.  In Florida v. Jardines, the Court will consider whether a dog sniff at the front door of a suspected grow house by a trained narcotics detection dog is a Fourth Amendment search requiring probable cause, while the issue before the Court in Florida v. Harris is whether an alert by a well-trained narcotics detection dog certified to detect illegal contraband is sufficient to establish probable cause for the search of a vehicle.  Lyle previews both cases for this blog; other coverage comes from David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times,  Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor, Joe Palazzolo of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, and David Kravets of Wired.  At PrawfsBlawg, Michael Dimino predicts that “Jardines should lose,” but that “Harris is a bit tougher.”   

Briefly:

• At the Daily Beast, Richard L. Hasen argues that “Congress has been gravely irresponsible in not drafting . . . contingency plans” for postponing elections when disaster strikes and observes that, had Hurricane Sandy forced a state to postpone the election, “we’d be facing the potential for the Supreme Court to step in and pick the president—again.”
• At this blog’s Relist (and hold) watch feature, John Elwood reviews Monday’s relisted and held cases.
• Also at this blog, Ronald Mann previews Marx v. General Revenue Corporation, a case involving the standard for awarding costs in litigation under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
• Ben Cheng lists this blog’s “Petitions to watch” for the Court’s November 2 Conference.

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