Federal Judge: Flock Cameras 'a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance'

 

A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled Thursday that a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a woman accused of meth trafficking when he searched her license plate in Flock’s automated license plate reader system simply because her license plate was from California, then used her travel history as part of the reason to search her car. The judge’s opinion is one of the first times a federal judge has decided Flock searches can be unconstitutional, and suggested that Flock’s network is “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance,” reported 404 Media.

The officer’s “use of the ALPR Systems was an Unconstitutional Warrantless Search,” and “was not supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant in violation of [the defendant’s] Fourth Amendment rights,” the judge, Sara Hill, wrote, implying that the law enforcement officer should have obtained a warrant before searching for the vehicle in Flock’s system. There are currently more than a hundred thousand warrantless searches of the Flock system every month, according to audit logs viewed by 404 Media. Hill's decision will not set a binding precedent and there are several other cases throughout the nation considering the legality of warrantless ALPR searches.

Hill argued that previous judge opinions saying Flock searches were not a Fourth Amendment violation because they track cars in public do not consider the context that Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice,” and that courts should update their understanding of the technology moving forward. 

The circumstances of the court case are really interesting and highlight how commonplace Flock searches have become for police, and the depth of the information they can reveal. In May, a Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff named Freddie Alaniz was parked along the side of the highway in Oklahoma when he saw a Mazda SUV driven by a woman named Melisa Kyle with a California license plate pass by. “Alaniz then pulled his vehicle on the highway to follow the Mazda for no apparent reason other than the fact that it had a California license plate. Alaniz also ran a query on the Flock system for the California license plate number on the Mazda SUV,” Hill wrote. Alaniz then ostensibly pulled Kyle over for changing lanes without a turn signal.

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University punishment meted out to the Cornell 7

The lightest punishment called for writing a paper and completing training. The most severe was expulsion from the school for the Cornell 7, reported The New York Times.

After a woman attending Cornell University accused seven fraternity members of sexually assaulting her in 2024, the university convened a closed proceeding to determine what had occurred and whether those men should face discipline.

Since then, the sanctions imposed on each of the men, and the reasoning behind those decisions, have remained secret. The school has said little.

But detailed summaries of the punishments obtained by The New York Times provide the first look at how Cornell administrators apportioned blame for the alcohol and drug-fueled gathering that the woman has said left her shattered and degraded.

Two of the fraternity members were expelled. Another, who had already graduated, was barred from campus. Two more were suspended. The remaining men were handed lighter punishments, the summaries show.

All of them have denied any wrongdoing, and the Tompkins County district attorney declined to prosecute in 2024. None of the men have been charged with a crime. Their fraternity, Chi Phi, has been banned from campus.

Still, since allegations from the woman who has become known as Jane Doe surfaced in a lawsuit on Sept. 16, they have touched off intense anger over sexual abuse on campus and why more is not done to punish those responsible. Others have criticized what they see as a rush to judge the seven men involved.

In her lawsuit, Jane Doe claimed that, from the start of her encounter involving the seven fraternity members, she was incapable of consent because she was severely intoxicated. The lawsuit inflamed particular ire by stating that the defendants were all “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell,” an assertion Cornell has said did not accurately reflect what occurred.

Combined with more than 1,000 pages of interview transcripts, police reports and other records gathered by Cornell investigators and previously obtained by The Times, the discipline summaries show that the university based its decisions on a broad and complicated body of evidence.

In the end, the punishments handed out by the three-member panel, which met on Zoom over 12 days in May 2025, varied widely. The panel, which enforces federal civil rights at the university under Title IX provisions, did not conclude that Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by all the men she had accused, according to the discipline summaries.

The university investigative files outline in excruciating detail what the fraternity members were accused of doing on the night of Oct. 19, 2024.

It was Matthew Ingalls whom Jane Doe originally went to visit at the Chi Phi fraternity house at about 11 p.m. She walked there alone from a bar to see him, with her intoxication level from drinking through the evening at about a 5 out of 10, she told investigators.

After she arrived, Mr. Ingalls asked her if she wanted to have a threesome with Jonathan Newell, Jane Doe said. During that encounter, she said, the men gave her ketamine and alcohol. Eventually, other men engaged in sex acts with her without her consent and while she was incapacitated, she said.

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Supreme Court to hear issue of indefinite detention of immigrants

The Supreme Court agreed to review the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely detaining immigrants who crossed the border illegally years ago, signaling the court plans to weigh in on major pieces of President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda as it begins its new term on Monday.

The policy is a departure from past practice, when such migrants were generally allowed an opportunity to seek release after a hearing before a judge.

The justices previously announced that they would fast-track a separate case testing the administration's policy of deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties, including nations that have faced allegations of human rights abuses.

Between the two cases, the justices will consider the legality of some of the most controversial aspects of the Trump administration’s efforts to rapidly expel millions of migrants living in the United States.

The justices also added two other cases to the docket of issues they will hear and decide by next June.

One is a Kentucky case about whether a federal religious discrimination law protects a group of Catholic priests who want to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary over neighbors’ objections. The other is a divorce dispute over military benefits originating in North Dakota.

The immigration case the court accepted on Thursday involved noncitizens who entered the United States illegally but had been living in the country for years. For decades, such people could be released on bond pending additional court proceedings, so long as they were not found to be a threat to public safety or a flight risk.

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Mangino discusses botched execution on New Nation

 

The execution that wasn't meant to be--Christa Pike survives two lethal doses in Tennessee

Christa Pike's attorney said she is still alive a day after she survived two doses of lethal injection drugs on Wednesday. The inmate is in critical condition and is receiving life-saving medical care, her legal team told reporters Thursday afternoon, reported Yahoo.news.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has since paused executions in the state.

Pike, 50, remained alive and snoring loudly after being given two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys and other witnesses said. She was subsequently taken to a hospital.

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Lee ordered "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred" and said that another scheduled execution later this year had been paused.

"There are very few answers this morning. It's very early," Lee told reporters Thursday morning. "There are a lot of questions. The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered.

"This is a tragedy. There is no one who wanted what happened last night to happen. It's deeply disturbing to me that this has happened in this state."

May Martinez, the mother of Pike's victim, Colleen Slemmer, told NBC News the execution attempt had been a "mess," adding, "They didn't say anything, and then, all of a sudden, they asked all the victims to leave. We didn't know anything until we got up to the office and saw the commissioner. And he said that it didn't work ... and she's on her way to the hospital."

In a statement posted on Facebook, Sen. Marsha Blackburn called for the state to return to the electric chair as a means of execution. "This situation is tragic," she said. "Christa Pike should have been executed long ago. Now, this botched process is extending the pain for the family of Colleen Slemmer. While there should be a thorough review of what happened and why the process failed, the answer is simple: bring back the electric chair and deliver justice for these victims swiftly."

Pike had been scheduled for execution at 10 a.m. Wednesday for killing Slemmer in 1995, at the age of 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start, a stay that was subsequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Media witnesses said officials raised the curtains to the execution chamber at 7:27 p.m., showing Pike strapped to a gurney. "I'm going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love," she said in her "last" words.

However, Pike remained conscious after the first dose. Nashville Banner reporter Steven Hale said she lifted her head off the gurney at 7:54 p.m. She also reportedly asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way.

Tori Gessner, a journalist with WKRN News 2 in Nashville, said Pike was seen pointing at her arm and asking, "Does this happen like that?"

By 8:26 p.m., witnesses reported that the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered.

Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at 8:53 p.m. At that time, an announcement was made to escort media witnesses out of the area.

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Florida executes 77-year-old man for 1995 murder--the state's 16th execution of the year

The 29th Execution of 2026

A 77-year-old Florida man was put to death Tuesday for a deadly hammer attack on a woman decades ago, becoming the 16th person executed this year in the nation’s busiest death chamber, reported The Associated Press.

Curtis Wilkie Beasley was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and grand theft auto in the 1995 killing of Carolyn Monfort at her home south of Orlando.

The death chamber curtain opened at 6 p.m. with Beasley already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm. A spiritual adviser sat at his feet, remaining there throughout the execution.

When a warden asked whether he wished to make a final statement, Beasley said, “I want to apologize for all the mistakes I made.”

The execution began immediately afterward. Beasley breathed heavily as the drugs began flowing. His labored breathing eventually subsided, and the warden checked Beasley’s eyes and shouted his name, but he did not respond.

A medic entered the chamber at 6:11 p.m. and declared Beasley dead soon afterward.

No relatives issued any public statements afterward and it was not apparent whether any of the victim’s family had witnessed the execution.

Last week, the Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments that executing a man of Beasley’s age who was suffering from cognitive decline would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Tuesday. Beasley was the seventh Florida prisoner over 70 to be executed this year.

Beasley also was the 29th person — all of them men — executed in the U.S. this year. On Wednesday Tennessee plans to execute a woman for the first time in 200 years. Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection for killing a classmate in a jealous rage when both were teenagers.

Arrested while working under a fake name

Court records show Beasley had been staying at Monfort’s home in Dundee in August 1995 while he was pressure-washing and painting nearby apartments owned by her son-in-law. Monfort’s daughter went to the woman’s home after being unable to reach her for two days and found her body in a blood-splattered laundry room.

Monfort had suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to the head. Investigators found a bloody hammer head wrapped in a towel nearby.

Authorities began searching for Beasley after a witness reported seeing him driving what turned out to be Monfort’s car. Investigators determined that he had traveled to Miami and later moved to Alabama, where he was arrested while working under a false name for an electrical company. In 1998, Beasley was convicted and sentenced to death.

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Florida has conducted more than half of all U.S. executions this year

Florida is approaching last year’s total of 19 executions, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

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Two more executions are scheduled this year although Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has temporarily paused the next one.

William Lee Thompson, 74, is scheduled to be executed Oct. 13 for raping and fatally beating a woman at a Florida motel in 1976. After a doctor recently determined Thompson might have dementia, DeSantis ordered a panel of three psychiatrists to examine him and advise if he is competent to be executed.

DeSantis issued similar stays in 2023 and 2025 though both executions proceeded after evaluations.

William Reaves, 77, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 20. He was convicted of fatally shooting a deputy outside a convenience store in 1986.

All Florida executions are carried out via injections of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

Book Review Champion Magazine: Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do about It

Roger A. Mitchell, Jr., M.D. and J. D. Aronson, PhD

Johns Hopkins University Press

Review by Matthew T. Mangino

             The criminal justice system is facing a public health emergency – thousands of people die each year while in custody of U.S. law enforcement, concludes Roger A. Mitchell, Jr., M.D. and J. D. Aronson, PhD in their book “Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do about It.”

            Mitchell and Aronson take a deep dive into the history of deaths while in custody. From lynchings in the late 19th and early 20th century to the 1951 report by the Civil Rights Congress “We Charge Genocide” where it was argued that there exists a “seamless transition from slavery to lynching to Jim Crow to police brutality.”

            Why did lynching take off during and after Reconstruction? The end of slavery brought an end to the value of black lives. When black men and women were chattel they had value to slave owners. After slavery, black persons had no value.

            The Association of Southern Women for Protection of Lynching and the NAACP established a definition for lynching (1) a body; (2) an illegal killing; (3) killing by a group and (4) justification of the extrajudicial killing under the banner of justice.

            Three incidents in 1999 shaped co-author Roger Mitchell’s realization that police brutality was a public health issue. In February 1999 Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man, in the Bronx, was shot 41 times by four undercover NYPD police officers.

            In April of 1999, Earl Fasion was picked up as a suspect in the killing of a New Jersey police officer. Fasion was beaten by police while handcuffed and sprayed directly in the face with pepper spray. Suffering from asthma, his breathing became strained, and he died in police custody.

            The same year “Stolen Lives” was released as an effort to humanize the victims of police brutality in custody.

            Mitchell, a medical student, was the first to write about police brutality as a public health issue for the Student National Medical Association.

            Aronson and Mitchell wrote about Reuter’s work examining 7,571 deaths of incarcerated people between 2008 and 2019 including 4,998 individuals who had not yet been convicted of a crime. Reuters found a confluence of factors that can turn a short jail stay into a death sentence -- including a dysfunctional bail system, inadequate health care including mental health treatment.  

The authors did not ignore the major incidents of excessive force by police. In 1991, a video of Rodney King, an African American motorist, being brutally beaten by Los Angeles Police officers sparking a national outrage over police brutality. After the officers were acquitted at trial, L.A. erupted into a massive riot.

In 2014, Eric Garner, an African American man, was killed by New York City police after being placed in a banned chokehold while arresting him for selling untaxed cigarettes. Garner repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” before dying. Garner’s homicide fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

George Floyd, also an African American, was killed by Minneapolis police in 2020, when officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for over nine minutes during an arrest, for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill. The killing sparking global protests with a familiar reframe -- his dying words, "I can't breathe."

Aronson and Mitchell also offered a glimpse into a little known, but principled stand by a well-known person who challenged one of America’s most influential institutions. Dr. Bennett Omalu took on the NFL over Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. His efforts were memorialized in the major motion picture, “Concussion.”

After exposing the NFL’s secret, Omalu landed at the San Joaquin County Sheriff-Corners Office in California. Omalu lead a crusade, with help of one of the co-authors Mitchell, to expose the dangerously inadequate coroner system in the United States.

Aronson and Mitchell concluded by making a few common-sense suggestions for dealing with deaths in custody -- none more important than the collection of data. The Center for Disease Control is responsible for capturing, compiling, and reporting the national mortality rate. 

The lack of data on deaths in custody begs the question, why haven’t the CDC and related agencies taken the lead on ensuring that accurate data are collected on deaths in custody?

(Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino)

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