Cultivated Compendium

A pro se plaintiff who got the U.S. Supreme Court to take his case over the razing of his property in Baltimore still can't be found, the Associated Press' Jessica Gresko reports. Bobby Chen has missed the December 22 deadline to mail his main legal brief. At issue in Chen's case is whether he was properly given an extension to notify the people he was suing that he had filed his lawsuit. Lawyers familiar with the case said that the Supreme Court "could dismiss the case. It could appoint a lawyer for Chen. And it could do nothing for now or mount a more extensive search for him."

A British photojournalist was arrested by police as he used a drone above the scene of a fatal fire, The Guardian's Ben Quinn reports. Even though Eddie Mitchell had permission from the landowner to use his drone and is one of the few journalists authorized by the Civil Aviation Authority (the UK equivalent to the Federal Aviation Administration) to fly drones, he was held in police custody for more than 5 hours and had the controller to his drone snatched from his hands. Mitchell told The Guardian "'it was an incredibly dangerous thing that they did. They didn’t know the dangers that they were putting myself, themselves and passing air traffic in. It could have flown off in any direction. They were passing the controller between themselves and eventually got it down with a thud.”'

The U.S. government missed a deadline at the end of 2014 to issue rules on drones, Reuters' Alwyn Scott and Robert Rampton reports. While the Federal Aviation Administration has given a draft of the rules to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget has not finished reviewing them yet.

Reuters also reports that the Motion Picture Association of America and other industry groups want the FAA rules to preempt state or city laws regulating the use of drones.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle has clarified that marriage licenses should be issued throughout Florida, not just in the county in which he ruled that it was unconstitutional not to give a same-sex couple permission to get married, BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner reports. The judge, however, said his current injunction applies only to couples who sued to have the right to marry, but he warned court clerks that "'the constitution requires" the issuance of marriage licenses and they could face more lawsuits in which plaintiffs could recover attorney fees and costs.

Cyrus Farivar, writing for Ars Technica, features five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court could grant certiorari in and take on privacy and surveillance issues involving the National Security Agency: Klayman v. Obama, First Unitarian Church v. National Security Agency, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) v. Clapper, United States v. Moalin, and United States v. Muhtorov. Farivar notes the Supreme Court held in United States v. Jones that law enforcement doesn't have the authority to use GPS tracking without a warrant and held in Riley v. California that law enforcement can't search a person's phone without a warrant, reflecting "an awareness that modern tech has changed reasonable privacy."

The number of Americans in state prison or on parole or probation has fallen to the lowest level in a decade, while the number of people in federal prison has fallen for the first time in more than 30 years, the Washington Post's Reid Wilson reports. "The total incarceration rate has fallen ... from about one in every 100 adults to one in every 110 adults," Wilson further reports. However, the number of people incarcerated in the United States remains close to historic levels: "more than 1.5 million inmates are housed in state or federal prisons, and another 731,000 reside in local jails."

A conservative group called Florida Family Action is asking a judge to prevent Orlando's mayor, a county clerk of courts and other officials from officiating over same-sex nuptials or issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples when Florida's ban on same-sex marriage is set to expire next week, the Associated Press reports. Those officials are the only ones who have publicly said they plan to issue same-sex marriage licenses or preside over same-sex weddings.

FFA argues that the ban has only lifted in Washington County in Florida's Panhandle, where the lawsuit challenging the state's ban on same-sex marriage found success. Lawyers for the attorney general's office argued that U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle's decision only applies to the couple seeking a marriage license in Washington County and that instructions were never issued to all 67 court clerks, who are "independent constitutional" officers, across Florida, Christian Science Monitor reported.

The judge is expected to issue a clarifying order before the ban expires next week.

Charles Koch, one of the wealthiest Americans and a prodigious supporter of conservative causes, told his hometown newspaper, the Wichita Eagle, that he thinks the American justice system has "been over-criminalized with too many laws and too many prosecutions of nonviolent offenders, not only for him but for everybody." Koch said his family and he are going to expand on the money they give to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to work on other efforts to reverse the trends in criminal justice that have led to 2.2 million people being incarcerated in the United States. Koch also has concerns that "the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney has been impaired by allowing public defender offices to be underfunded and overwhelmed, including by government prosecutors with more far more resources at their disposal," the Wichita Eagle's Roy Wenzl reports.
 

When Richard Bernstein joins the Michigan Supreme Court in a few days, he will make history as the first blind justice in that state and one of the few judges with visual impairments in the country, Associated Press reports. Bernstein is having briefs for mid-January arguments read to him by an aide and memorizing the key points. He told the AP he internalizes "'the cases word for word, pretty much commit them primarily by memory. I'm asking the reader to pinpoint certain things, read footnotes, look at the legislative record."'

Bernstein, whose family has a personal-injury firm, spent $1.8 million of his own money to campaign for the Supreme Court on the slogan "Blind Justice."

Finally, the Federal Aviation Administration is close to releasing rules to integrate drones into the American airspace by early 2015, the Associated Press' Joan Lowy reports. But Congress will likely make key decisions. One of the priorities of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee "is writing legislation to reauthorize FAA programs and overhaul aviation policy. The bill is expected to include directions from lawmakers on how to integrate drones into the nation's aviation system. The last reauthorization bill, passed in 2012, directed the agency to integrate drones by Sept. 30, 2015, but it's clear the FAA will miss that deadline," Lowy further reports.

The FAA's rules, which will take another couples of years to finalize, will likely include restrictions on drones flying at night, being kept within the sight of operators and being flown below 400 feet. The FAA may also may more controversially require drone operators to have pilot's licenses.