The Supreme Court has a chance to keep the Fourth Amendment from going to the dogs. Today it agreed to hear the case of Florida v. Jardines, in which it will decide whether police can use a drug-sniffing dog at the front door to a residence when they suspect the occupants of a drug offense but don't have a warrant.

The constitutional issue at stake is whether police must have probable cause — a belief that evidence of a crime will be found — before they may use a dog sniff at the front door of a suspected “grow house,” or a site where marijuana is being grown. The case grows out of a Miami police officer’s use of a drug-detecting dog, “Franky,” in December 2006 to follow up on a “crime stoppers” tip that the house was being used to grow marijuana plants.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled that police needed to have a probable cause belief in wrongdoing before they could use the dog at the home, on the premise that the drug sniff was a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.

The Florida opinion is here, the state's Petition for Cert is here, and the opposing brief is here. [More...]

The Pew Research Center has released a new poll on the death penalty.

62% favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder while 31% are opposed. That is generally in line with polling on the death penalty over the past several years.

Of those who responded they oppose the death penalty, 27% said it's wrong or immoral and 27% said they were concerned about wrongful convictions. In the poll 20 years ago, 41% of those opposed based their objections on moral grounds and 11% of them objected due to the potential injustice of a wrongful conviction.

The reasons for those supporting the death penalty haven't changed in 20 years: [More...]

Last night's open thread is about to hit 200 comments, which triggers our automatic thread closure. Here's another one so you can keep the conversation going. All topics welcome.

A federal judge in Virginia has refused to stay a federal subpoena issued to Twitter for three user accounts associated with Wikileaks. The opinion is here.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp had asked the Court to stay the subpoena pending an appeals court challenge. A federal magistrate judge upheld the subpoenas in November.

The [Magistrate]Judge rejected the users' claims under the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment as well as their other arguments. She says there is no right of privacy in your IP address if you turn it over to a third party like Twitter. Wikileaks has said in the past it believes similar subpoenas went out to Google and Facebook.

The Government sought the subpoenas in connection with its grand jury investigation into Wikileaks. You can read the subpoena here. The judge that issued Wednesday's opinion said the three had little chance of prevailing in the appellate court. [More...]

Joran Van der Sloot didn't plead guilty today. He had intended to plead guilty, making a "sincere confession" which would allow the judge, if he accepted it, to sentence him to 1/3 below the minimum penalty for "qualified murder". He's also charged with simple theft/robbery, which carries 3 years. From my earlier post on the Peruvian statutes available here (using Google translator):

Article 161. Effect of sincere confession confession .- If, additionally, is sincere and spontaneous....the court, specifying reasons make it necessary, may reduce the penalty to prudently in a third below the legal minimum.

But after the prosecutor laid out the facts, there were some Joran disagreed with, so he asked for more time to consider his plea. The judge postponed proceedings until Wednesday, Jan. 12. [More....]

Looks like we need another open thread. Here it is, all topics welcome.

Afghan President Karzai has ordered that the prison at Bagram AFB be turned over to Afghan control within a month.

A presidential statement said that keeping Afghan citizens imprisoned without trial violates the country's constitution, as well as international human rights conventions.

President Obama outlined the new Pentagon budget today.

I am so done with the massive advertising on mainstream media sites. Over New Years, I installed a security program called Kaspersky Pure on my computers and I haven't seen an ad or pop-up or under-pop since. It even blocks affiliate ads on blogs (unless you tell it not to.) [More...]

Former Mexican Cartel leader Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty Wednesday in San Diego. Imprisoned in Mexico since 2002, he was indicted in 2003 and extradited to San Diego in 2011. He's now 58 years old.

The agreed upon charges and plea agreement are here. There is no reference to cooperation, other a requirement he assist the Government with the forfeiture of his assets.

Arellano pleaded guilty to racketeering (RICO) which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years and one count of money laundering conspiracy which carries a maximum of 5 years. He agreed to a forfeiture of $100 million. The Government will ask the terms be imposed consecutively, for a 25 year total. His guidelines call for a life sentence, but the judge cannot by law impose more than the statutory maximum of 25 years. Under the agreement, Arellano cannot ask for a guideline variance or departure, so in essence, he's agreed to the 20 or 25 year sentence. (The agreement does not prevent him from asking that the sentences run concurrent, for a total of 20 years.)

His conditions of confinement at MCC San Diego are abysmal. He was appealing the denial of a motion to modify them, but agreed to dismiss the appeal as part of his plea deal. [More...]

Kevin Drum cites this NYTimes article:

President Obama and his campaign aides are facing a conundrum as they decide how to tarnish the man they see as their likely opponent in the battle ahead. Do they go the flip-flopper route? Or do they go the out-of-touch, protector-of-Wall-Street route?

After a very intelligent description of how the GOP race is likely to unfold (shorter: It's over and Romney is well positioned to remain an acceptable "anti-Obama"), Kevin then writes "if [Obama] has to choose, my guess is that he should forget about the flip-flopping and simply do everything he can to force Romney into the wingnut conservative camp." I prefer the NYTimes' formulation - "out-of-touch, protector-of-Wall-Street." I would add that I would tar Romney with the foibles of the entire GOP, which he has endorsed, more or less, in the primary campaign (think "ending Medicare as we know it.")

But most of this will be using Romney as a foil to define Obama as a champion of working Americans and against the excesses of the 1%. Since August, President Obama has been excellent in this regard in my view. As I commented yesterday, since August, Obama and his team have engaged in excellent politics. Yesterday's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB is another case in point-- a wonderful fight to pick with Republicans. Part of the timing I think is to goad Romney into denouncing the CFPB in a prominent way- to highlight the 1% vs. 99% argument.

In any event, I think the Obama reelection campaign is off to a good start. Sure, better policies would be preferable. But nothing good is going to happen in terms of policy for a while, given GOP control of the Congress.

Speaking for me only

More than 159,000 signatures were delivered to the Colorado Secretary of State today for the statewide legalization of marijuana initiative. Only 86,500 signatures are needed to get the initiative on the 2012 ballot.

The initiative is the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012, available here.

In a nutshell,

The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012 makes the adult use of marijuana legal, establishes a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol, and allows for the cultivation of industrial hemp.

If enacted, Colorado will be the first state to legalize adult marijuana use and possession. For more, go to Regulate Marijuana.

Via the Denver Post: An interesting case in federal court in Colorado: The feds seize a computer pursuant to a search warrant. But when they try to access the data, it's encrypted. Can the court force the computer owner who is now a criminal defendant, to unlock the data?

Ramona Fricosu and her ex-husband Scott Whatcott are indicted for bank fraud arising from an alleged mortgage scam in Colorado Springs. The feds say the incriminating evidence is on the seized computer.

The Government is asking the Court, under the authority of the All Writs Act, to force Ms. Fricosu to unlock the data. [More...]

Michelle Bachman, who came in 6th in the Iowa caucuses, has ended her campaign.

Here are the final Iowa caucus tallys. Romney won by 8 votes over Santorum.

Update: Rick Perry is staying in -- he's counting on South Carolina.