Unpublished Decisions

U.S. v. Washington, 2013 WL 4828139 (9/11/13) (N.M.) (unpub'd) - The district court did not clearly err in finding the defendant had abandoned his cell phone where after check-out time the police found the phone with its screen smashed under the bathroom sink of a motel room in a crevice near the wall. A good argument could be made that the defendant just wanted to hide the phone from police inspection and would have taken it with him if he had been allowed to check out rather than being arrested. But the district court was not "pellucidly" wrong when it decided the defendant treated the phone as trash and expected it to be removed by motel staff.

Shue v. Custis, 2013 WL 4779640 (9/9/13) (Wyo.) (unpub'd) - The plaintiff cannot get § 1983 relief where he alleges his state public defender bribed the victim's mother in the hope of winning her support for a lighter sentence, but the tactic backfired [It seemed like a foolproof plan at the time]. "While the lawyer's actions don't qualify as good lawyering," they were done to further the plaintiff's defense and so not under color of state law.

Flores v. U. S. Attorney General, 2013 WL 4779638 (9/9/13) (Okl.) (unpub'd) - The 10th rejects as unlikely a plaintiff's claim that the government has used advanced satellite technology capable of targeting specific genetic material to torture him and his family, causing severe and long-lasting pain, while agents of the Attorney General have manipulated the court's docketing system by filing false documents purporting to be from the court, inhibiting an investigation into the killing of his immediate relatives.