Erasing data on your phone at the border could land you in jail

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents want to know what's in your phone—and they won't take no for an answer, reported Reason Magazine. Courts have long held that border cops don't have to respect the Fourth Amendment when searching for contraband, and the CBP claims that this power includes the data stored on travelers' phones. Now, the feds are trying to argue that erasing that data is a form of illegal obstruction.

Samuel Tunick, a participant in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement, was returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic in January 2025 when a CBP Tactical Terrorism Response Team pulled him into a windowless room and asked for his phone password. "Because you're refusing to talk, which is your right, we have the authority to go through your phone to see what we're looking for," an agent told him.

But instead of giving his real password, Tunick apparently gave the agents a code that would erase all the data on his phone, known as a "duress password." He was using a Google Pixel loaded with GrapheneOS, an operating system known for its nearly airtight security. The feds charged him 11 months later under a rarely used law against "destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure." 

After months of paperwork and delays, the case had its first hearing last week, with Tunick's lawyers arguing that the government obtained the duress password "in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights," and therefore everything that happened to the phone should be thrown out of court as "fruits of his unlawful interrogation." They also argued that the Fourth Amendment exemption for border searches shouldn't apply to the data on phones.

"Officers were not permitted to disregard all constitutional protections afforded to Mr. Tunick simply because he was at the border," the lawyers wrote in a filing before the hearing.

Several months before the Tunick case, several experts advised Reason that U.S. citizens can protect their data from border searches by wiping their devices before traveling. (It's not so simple for foreigners, since the CBP can turn them away for any reason, including having an empty phone.) An expert told The New York Times that the Tunick case would not necessarily criminalize that tactic, because travelers who erase before traveling would have "a strong argument that they did not act with the specific criminal intent to thwart an imminent search."

But the prosecution is unprecedented, and seems designed to scare people out of even trying to hide their electronic data from the CBP.

The case also highlights an important legal imbalance: The feds have the right to lie to you, but you don't have the right to lie to them. According to FBI emails obtained by Tunick's lawyers, the government was investigating Tunick for terrorism over his involvement in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. But at the airport, CBP agents told Tunick that they were searching his phone for "child porn."

The reference never came up again in the investigation or case, leading Tunick's lawyers to call it "a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr. Tunick's connections." It may also have been an attempt to bolster the case for searching his phone. In 2019, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers West Coast states) ruled that child sex abuse images are one of the few cases where digital data itself can count as "contraband" for the purposes of border searches.

Defend the Atlanta Forest, also known as Stop Cop City, aims to stop the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a planned campus for police and firefighters in Georgia, both on environmental grounds and because it encourages "police militarization," according to a movement website. Throughout 2022, some protesters physically attacked the construction site and other property with rocks and Molotov cocktails. In January 2023, police shot dead protester Manuel Esteban Paez Terán under murky circumstances, alleging that Terán shot at officers during a raid.

The state of Georgia has thrown the book at protesters, hitting them with domestic terrorism and racketeering influenced corrupt organization (RICO) charges. While some defendants were charged with specific violent acts, some of them were charged as co-conspirators for nothing more than "occupy[ing] a tree house" or buying camping equipment. Prosecutors even charged three people with money laundering for running a protester bail fund.

Prosecutors dropped the money laundering charges in September 2024, and a judge threw out all of the RICO charges a year later.

Last year, President Donald Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to prioritize left-wing domestic terrorism. One of their targets has been Defend the Atlanta Forest. Last month, the Department of Justice brought up two protesters who allegedly committed arson on federal charges, and cited Trump's memorandum in their announcement of the charges. The FBI even internationalized the investigation, leaning on Swiss police to help unmask the owner of the email account for Defend the Atlanta Forest.

"While the government depicts the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement as an 'Anti-Government, Anti-Authority Violent Extremist Group' ('AGAAVE'), it has not put forth evidence that Mr. Tunick was involved in criminal activity in connection with the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement," Tunick's lawyers wrote.

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Federal Judge John E. Jones: 'I don’t think in the annals of the Department of Justice, in the history of jurisprudence in the United States, we’ve ever seen anything close to this'

Across the country, federal judges are calling out Department of Justice lawyers, questioning in unprecedented ways whether they can be trusted to tell the truth or uphold centuries-old legal norms, reported ProPublica.

From Washington, D.C., to Rhode Island to Oregon, federal judges nominated by presidents from both parties, including Donald Trump, have zeroed in on what’s called “the presumption of regularity.” It essentially means that judges must presume that the government — whether it be federal prosecutors, an IRS auditor or an FBI agent — did their jobs according to the rules and in good faith.

Until Trump’s second term, which has seen an exodus of veteran DOJ lawyers and a transformative shift in priorities from issues like enforcing civil rights to instead defending a mass deportation agenda, this foundational tenet had rarely been discussed in federal courtrooms, former judges, lawyers and scholars say. But as Trump’s DOJ exhibits behavior that judges have called “unlawful,” “unethical,” “unseemly” or otherwise dishonest, adherence to that bedrock standard is now being questioned.

ProPublica reviewed hundreds of cases since Trump retook the White House in which judges criticized the actions of DOJ lawyers and found more than 40 in which they explicitly referenced the presumption of regularity. In many cases, judges have expressed frustration that they can no longer take the government at its word.

“Judges simply don’t believe the representations that are being made by United States attorneys, assistant United States attorneys and the like,” said John E. Jones, a former federal judge for the District of Pennsylvania, appointed by President George W. Bush.

“I don’t think in the annals of the Department of Justice, in the history of jurisprudence in the United States, we’ve ever seen anything close to this.”

In Rhode Island in May, Trump-appointed federal Judge Mary McElroy rebuked federal prosecutors’ conduct — saying they withheld information and misrepresented facts — as she quashed their requests for a subpoena in their investigation into a hospital’s care of transgender children. The judge alleged the DOJ had inappropriately claimed its investigation was operating out of Texas to secure subpoenas targeting sensitive medical records of patients in another state and that it falsely claimed the Rhode Island hospital hadn’t communicated with the department.

“The discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case is unsettling,” McElroy wrote. “The Court cannot help but share the sentiment that ‘[t]he presumption of regularity that has previously been extended to [DOJ] that it could be taken at its word — with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes — no longer holds.’”

Judges have emitted a chorus of condemnations against the legal basis for some of Trump’s political agenda, including the mass firings of federal workers, an immigration dragnet that has imprisoned hundreds of U.S. citizens and retribution campaigns against the president’s political enemies.

In doing so, federal judges are imbuing forceful language into their orders in a way that scholars say signals to the Trump administration that the third branch of government is losing trust in the Justice Department.

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Florida carries out two executions on the same day for the first time in 62 years

The 18th and 19th Executions of 2026

Florida has put to death two inmates in what's now the state's first double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis, reported the USA  Today.

James Duckett, a 68-year-old former police officer convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987, was executed by lethal injection at 1:19 p.m. ET on July 28.

About five hours later, Florida executed Dominick Occhicone at 6:13 p.m. ET for the murder of his ex-fiancée's parents in 1986. At 80 years old, Occhicone became the second-oldest inmate ever executed in the United States and the oldest inmate ever executed in Florida, which is putting more elderly prisoners to death than any other state in the nation.

Tuesday also marks the first time since 1964 that Florida has executed two inmates on the same day, according to an execution database by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. The last time any state executed two inmates in one day was in 2017 in Arkansas, according to the nonprofit.

Florida's rare double execution comes amid an aggressive push by DeSantis to put more inmates to death than the state ever has before. Of the 66 inmates executed in the United States since January 2025, Florida has carried out 31 of them – 47% – including Duckett's and Occhicone's, according to an analysis by USA TODAY. Since the start of this year, Florida has carried out 63% of the executions in the United States.

 

DeSantis has said he wants to give closure to families who have waited for justice sometimes longer than four decades.

But the Republican's actions are drawing increasing criticism from death penalty opponents and observers who say the governor is being motivated by political ambition ahead of the 2028 presidential election and is "increasingly treating executions as routine instruments of political power," according to a recent statement from Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The governor's office hasn't responded to a request for comment from USA TODAY about the allegations of political motives.

Here's what you need to know about Duckett's and Occhicone's crimes and more about what is going on in Florida.

On May 11, 1987, 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee walked to a local convenience store to buy a pencil at around 10 p.m. in Mascotte, Florida, a rural city just west of Orlando that had fewer than 2,000 residents at the time.

James "Jimmy" Duckett, a 29-year-old rookie cop, was on patrol for the Mascotte Police Department. The married father of two sons was making his regular rounds when he spotted Teresa talking with a 16-year-old boy outside the store, according to court records.

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Duckett has always maintained that he talked to Teresa and the teen, telling each to go home. But the boy and his uncle later said that Duckett put Teresa in his patrol car and drove off.

Teresa's mother arrived at the Circle K around 11 p.m., looking for her daughter. The store clerk told her that Teresa may have gone with Duckett, and the mother began searching the area. When she couldn't find Teresa, she contacted the police and later filed a missing persons report with the only officer on patrol at the time: Duckett.

Killer cop or the wrong man? How DNA halted James Duckett's execution in March

The next morning, less than a mile from the convenience store, a fisherman found Teresa's body in Knight Lake. A medical examiner later found that she had been raped and strangled, and was still alive when her attacker drowned her. Bodily fluid, presumably from the killer, was found on her underwear − DNA that was saved.

Duckett became a suspect when a sheriff's investigator, Sgt. Chuck Johnson, thought the officer was acting nervous at the scene of the body recovery, "was not curious about the death," and told a "rehearsed-sounding story" about his interaction with Teresa and the events of the night before.

Duckett was charged with murder five months later. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

Duckett was supposed to be executed in March but won a rare temporary reprieve from the Florida Supreme Court pending new DNA testing. The tests were inconclusive, Duckett's reprieve expired July 11 and DeSantis rescheduled his execution in a death warrant signed July 14.

It was the last of many decades of delays for Teresa's family.

 

After witnessing Duckett's execution on July 28, Teresa’s mother was able to get out one sentence before she began uncontrollably sobbing.

“I’ve been waiting 40 years to have him dead,” Dorothy Tula said in a quavering voice.

Her sister, Shirly Lancaster, rubbed Tula’s shoulders and continued to speak on behalf of her family, saying that “the state let him live too damn long.”

“She was only 11,” Lancaster said. “We’ve lived all this time without that baby. ... Maybe she’d have been the next doctor. Maybe she’d have been the next president, you never know. But we never got the chance to find that out because this bastard took her away from us.”

What was Dominick Anthony Occhicone Jr. convicted of?

In the early morning hours of June 10, 1986, an angry Dominick Anthony Occhicone Jr. went to the home of his ex-fiancée, Anita Gerrity, in the coastal community of Holiday, Florida, about 30 miles northwest of Tampa, according to court records.

As Occhicone knocked on windows and doors, he was confronted by Gerrity's 66-year-old father, Raymon Artzner. According to court records, Occhicone smiled at Artzner as he shot him dead, then ran into the house and fatally shot Gerrity's 62-year-old mother, Martha Artzner. Gerrity and her 10-year-old daughter were able to escape.

At trial, Occhicone's attorneys argued that he was so drunk and filled with jealousy and rage that night that he was temporarily insane. Later, after Occhicone was found guilty of both murders, his attorneys argued that a life sentence was more appropriate, telling jurors that "prison life is so hard on people, that they don't live until they're 92," according to an archived news report in the Tampa Tribune.

The jury voted 7-5 to sentence him to death and a judge agreed.

In 1997, 11 years after the murders, the son of the victims told the Tribune that he was frustrated with the delays in the execution.

"It's frustrating," Jim Artzner told the paper. "Justice has not been completed. ... It has gone on for so long. When is it going to end?"

That was 31 years ago.

On July 28 after witnessing Occhicone's execution, the Artzners' loved ones told reporters that it was "the end of a long and painful journey."

"The years since June 10, 1986, have been filed with sleepless nights, empty chairs at family gatherings, and those one-on-one conversations that were lost," they said in a statement. "We have missed birthdays, milestones, and simple everyday joys that were stolen from us. The pain and grief is always there, it never goes away."

They went on to say that Occhicone's execution doesn't erase their pain, "but it does close a door and end a chapter in our lives that has just lingered for far too long."

What is happening in Florida?

Since January 2025, Florida has become the busiest state in the nation for executions. So far this year, the Sunshine State has executed more inmates than all other states combined. Florida has put 12 inmates to death, including Duckett. Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona have executed seven inmates combined.

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Kohberger pleaded guilty now claims 'absolute claim of innocence'

The criminology student convicted last year of murdering four University of Idaho students in their home is seeking to abandon his guilty plea and obtain a trial, claiming he is innocent and was misled into confessing to the high-profile killings, reported The New York Times.

In an interview with The New York Times, Bryan Kohberger, who is currently serving four life sentences, said he had filed a petition challenging his conviction, citing concerns about how the plea deal came together.

“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” Mr. Kohberger said in a statement provided to The Times on Sunday night. He reiterated in a phone call from prison in Idaho that he had an “absolute claim of innocence.”

Mr. Kohberger had not granted an interview or made public comments before speaking with The Times. He declined to discuss any evidence or other specific details related to his innocence claim, as well as the specific concerns he had about the plea process. It is rare for defendants to win post-conviction challenges.

The family of Kaylee Goncalves, one of the victims, said in a statement that Mr. Kohberger was like a “mosquito you just can’t seem to swat.”

“The real tragedy is this: If even a fraction of the energy spent trying to free a guilty man were directed toward honoring the victims, there would be statues of them on every corner, parks bearing their names, and days set aside to remember the lives they lost at the hands of a narcissist,” the statement read.

The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office did not return a call seeking comment. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador released a statement saying his heart went out to the victims’ families, noting they had “already endured unimaginable loss and now must face today’s deeply painful news.”

“My office stands ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out,” he said.

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DOJ drops subpoenas for NYT reporters after challenge by judge

The Justice Department is dropping the subpoenas it filed demanding grand jury testimony and phone records from New York Times journalists after sharp questioning Thursday from a federal judge who challenged almost every facet of the government's approach, reported NPR.

The government had insisted that it was acting solely in the interest of national security. It filed subpoenas on July 10, just two days after the Times published the first of two stories about concerns that led to the U.S. Secret Service interceding to prevent President Trump from flying home from Turkey on the new Air Force One jet.

But at the hearing, the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian, made clear he believed the Trump administration had violated protections given to journalists in black and white to uphold First Amendment principles. He also pointed to several instances of what he considered slipshod legal work and threatened to levy sanctions against federal attorneys for failing to follow the law and misleading the court in signed filings.

The case highlighted the Trump administration's ongoing assault on press rights and the free flow of information to the public. It also provided another glimpse of the White House's eagerness to assert an expansive definition of executive authority, as prosecutors argued the U.S. attorney general has the power to set aside legal protections for journalists when he deems necessary.

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Cut pretextual stops, reduce racial bias by police

A markedly different approach to preventing racial bias and use of force in policing is being implemented to great effect in jurisdictions across the country, reported Inquest. Rather than trying to “fix” policing, this approach demonstrates that the surest way to prevent police violence is to eliminate the occasions to inflict it. Pretext stop policies move beyond failed reforms and take a new approach: Instead of trying to change the way individual officers think, why don’t we restrict their ability to act on their biases?

Pretext traffic stops are one of the most common and consequential ways police officers exercise discretion and act on racial bias. These stops—in which officers pull drivers over for low-level traffic violations, such as expired registration tags, often as an excuse to fish for evidence of unrelated crimes—overwhelmingly target people of color and are regularly escalated by police. According to the New York Times, from 2017 to 2021, police killed more than 400 unarmed civilians in these types of stops—a rate of more than a death a week.

According to findings by Pamambir Dhillon in the Berkeley Public Policy Journal pretext stop restrictions in San Francisco immediately led to large, statistically significant reductions in stops and searches for Black and Latino drivers in the city—all without generating changes in drug, gun, or contraband discoveries. Latino drivers saw a 68 percent reduction in weekly pretext stops immediately after policy implementation, while Black drivers saw a nearly 50 percent decrease. These large reductions reversed the previous trend, which was steady increases in pretext stops across all racial groups and held constant even after accounting for changes in crime rates, police staffing levels, and driving activity in the city.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice, at least sixteen cities across the country, including Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Seattle, have implemented comprehensive policies limiting a wide range of non‑safety‑related traffic stops, and Virginia was the first state to do so in 2021. As research continues to emerge, we see that targeting officer discretion can achieve what hundreds of millions of dollars spent on implicit bias training and body-worn cameras have been unable to. Moreover, empirical evidence demonstrates that you cannot meaningfully reform the scale of discriminatory policing—you can only reduce the scale of policing itself. Pretext stop policies are a key component to achieving this reduction, but not the only one: alternative response programs and civilian traffic enforcement are part of the same project, which seeks to replace police encounters rather than refine them.

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America is on track for the lowest annual homicide rate in over a century

The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) released a midyear crime trends report which illustrated that homicides in large American cities fell by 18 percent in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year, effectively putting the country on track for its lowest annual homicide rate in over a century, reported JURISTnews.

The CCJ analyzed 13 crime categories across 336 cities that have consistently reported monthly crime data for the past nine years. Nine of these offenses declined in the first half of 2026, with carjackings showing the largest decrease at 47 percent. Homicides have dropped 51 percent since their peak in early 2022, and carjackings have decreased 73 percent since their 2023 peak. The report also noted a 13 percent year-over-year reduction in residential burglaries and a 56 percent decline compared to their 2018 peak.

However, not all categories improved. Drug offenses increased by 12 percent compared to the first half of 2025, and domestic violence incidents rose by 8 percent. Shoplifting remains the only offense still elevated above pre-pandemic 2019 levels, up by 5 percent.

Roughly a third of the 36 sample cities recorded an increase in homicides compared to the first half of 2025, including Norfolk, Virginia, which saw a 64 percent rise, and San Francisco, which saw a 55 percent increase.

The CCJ said that there was no single explanation for the broadly declining trends, pointing to a range of possible influences including changes in criminal justice operations, technological advances, alongside broader shifts in society and culture. Commentators have pointed out that this decline could also be attributed to shifts in how people go about their daily lives, with many favouring digital transactions over cash payments, making it less likely for opportunistic thefts and street robberies to occur.

With the end of the pandemic, where millions of people had lost their livelihood, economic security has since stabilized and this inevitably reduced the financial desperation that often motivates survival-driven violence. Additionally, an influx of funding, with hundreds of billions of dollars in federal pandemic recovery funds being channeled into stabilizing local city budgets have allowed for more targeted efforts in identifying youth populations facing the highest risk of violence.

The organization has tracked crime trends since the emergence of the pandemic, which brought a historic surge in homicides before the subsequent decline began in the second half of 2022.

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