LEDFORD & ASSOCIATES

"Because (the driver) did not have apparent common authority over the backpack, the search of the backpack was not based on valid consent and is per se unreasonable unless another exception to the warrant requirement applies,” the court ruled.

The ruling is significant “because it cleared up an area in which the Supreme Court had gotten the law wrong,” said David Moran, a University of Michigan law professor who leads the Michigan Innocence Clinic. “…The Fourth Amendment is all about common sense and reasonable expectations of privacy and social norms. It’s just common sense that the police will now need to ask passengers: ‘Mind if I search that bag?’”

A recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling on police searches of passengers during traffic stops can give people more power to challenge such probes and is expected to affect police training in Metro Detroit and across the state, officials and legal experts say.
Read more at The Detroit News

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that a federal law requiring longer prison sentences for using a gun during a "crime of violence" is unconstitutionally vague.

The court voted 5-4 stating the law "provides no reliable way" to determine which offenses qualify as crimes of violence.
The case presented to the Supreme Court involved two men -- Maurice Davis and Andre Glover -- who were convicted of several robbery charges and another federal statute that required increased mandatory minimum sentences for a "crime of violence."
Read more at UPI

In a 6-3 ruling decided Monday, the Supreme Court struck down the Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) ban on “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks, calling it a violation of free speech

The ruling was decided by a mix of liberal and conservative justices. Kagan, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh all voted in favor.
Read more at Time.com