Court Allows Evidence from Unlawful Traffic Stop: The California Supreme Court has unanimously reinstated the drug conviction of a man found guilty based upon evidence uncovered after the car he was riding in was illegally stopped. The Court's decision in People v. Brendlin held that while the initial stop - based on suspicion of a faulty registration - was unlawful, the search was proper because there was an outstanding arrest warrant for the passenger. A story by AP writer Sudhin Thanawala cites Associate Justice Marvin Baxter's opinion which held that while the police would not have learned of the warrant if it hadn't been for the illegal stop, the officer has acted "in the absence of purposeful or flagrant police misconduct" in pulling the car over. People v. Brendlin involves the same Bruce Brendlin who appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2007. In its June 2007 decision, the Supreme Court held that passengers, like drivers, are seized for Fourth Amendment purposes and may challenge the stop.

Daughters Safely Recovered After Mother Found Slain: Tim Martin, of the Associated Press, reported yesterday that the three daughters of Erica Olguin, 32, were recovered after their mother was found slain in her Saginaw, Michigan home. Daughters Victoria, 3; Lilliana, 5; and Elena, 9, were found about 25 miles from Saginaw after a motorist alerted police to a car where the girls were found with their father. Their father, Jose Olguin, is in custody, but has not yet been charged with any crime.

'Natural Born' Baloney: James Taranto's daily WSJ newsletter for today takes on, among other things, the nonsense that Barack Obama is not a "natural born Citizen" (see US Const., art. II § 1, 5th para.) and the heckling incident at the US AG's Federalist Society speech.