Kortlander has described his lawsuit as a test case of the government
“The fact is that I did nothing wrong, and was not charged with any Long Feather earrings crime,” he said. “This was about career law-enforcement bureaucrats out to make a name for themselves at my expense and the multi-million dollar expense to the public they incurred in the process.”
The lawsuit targeted individual agents – rather than the agencies involved in the raids – as part of what is called a Biven’s action. Much like a civil rights case in state court, the rarely used federal legal measure allows private citizens to sue for damages against federal officials for violating their rights.
Kortlander has described his lawsuit as a test case of the government’s handling of artifact crime investigations, including a high-profile 2009 raid on dealers in the Four Corners region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
He claimed his rights to free speech, bear arms, to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, and nearly feathered hair extensions a half-dozen other freedoms were violated in the raids.
Cebull said the vast majority of the claims by Kortlander over the 2005 raid had to be dismissed because the statute of limitations had passed. He added, however, that even if those claims had been made in a timely manner, Kortlander had failed to show his rights were violated.
The judge said the search warrant obtained in the 2008 raid had “a rock-solid foundation in probable cause” because of information that suggested Kortlander was illegally trading eagle feathers.
“Whether or not charges are ultimately brought has nothing to do with whether there is probable cause to issue a search warrant,” Cebull wrote.
One of the most controversial films of the ’70s, Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs,” is — sigh — the latest seminal classic to get a redo, this time with James Marsden and Kate Bosworth in lieu of Dustin Hoffman and Susan George.
Two of Pantagraphland’s finer burgs are throwing fall fetes this weekend — Dwight, via the Dwight Harvest Days, tonight through Sunday; and McLean, via the McLean Celebration, Friday through Sunday.
You can do it minus the fowl feathers, courtesy the Chicago rockers’ Saturday night show at the Castle Theatre, now in the thick of its first-anniversary celebration
The phenomenon of the polar Northern Lights is the subject of the new ISU Planetarium show, illuminating astronomy buffs
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