Exclusionary Rule: Adam Liptak has a story in today's New York Times on the question of whether the recent Supreme Court decision in Herring v. United States signals a change in direction on the exclusionary rule and possibly even an overruling of Mapp v. Ohio. The story quotes Kent Scheidegger's January 14 post on the question.

Solicitor General:  Tony Mauro has this story in Legal Times on implications of the change in administration for the Solicitor General's office. He notes that in Arizona v. Johnson, discussed here, the SG took a bolder position on police officers' frisk authority than that office had previously taken. The new SG may be less assertive or may just stay out of state criminal cases.

"I think we might not see the new solicitor general asking for argument time in a case like Arizona's," says Lauren Altdoerffer, a lawyer with the law enforcement-oriented Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which filed a brief on Arizona's side.