Although Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agents are civilians, they work for the military and further military goals.  Thus, they are prohibited from enforcing purely civilian laws under the Posse Comitatus Act, according to an en banc panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and should not have investigated a civilian for downloading child pornography. 

A “cadre of armed state and federal agents” and a helicopter “orbiting above” was insufficient to establish involuntary coercion of a defendant’s consent to his home, according to the Fifth Circuit. 

Mr. Amir Meshal a United States citizen and resident of New Jersey, traveled to Mogadishu, Somalia in 2006 to further his study of Islam.  In early 2007, Somalia experienced an outbreak of violence causing many civilians to flee the country for neighboring Kenya.

Suppression of evidence in a state court does not, by itself, raise a factual issue about whether law enforcement officers violated the defendant’s clearly established rights, the Fifth Circuit recently held.