Cops Lose Qualified Immunity After Arresting Man For A Snarky Facebook Comment
from the no-time-for-facts!-move-move-move! dept
Three cops have just had their qualified immunity stripped by an appeals court for turning an innocuous, snarky Facebook comment into an arrest. It wasn't all the officers' fault. A "helpful" citizen playing internet telephone forwarded the comment to someone who happened to be married to a police officer and everything went from bad to worse to unconstitutional from there.
Here's how the whole thing started, as related by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision [PDF]:
On January 25, 2015, James Ross was a 20-year-old resident of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and an active user of the social media website, Facebook. Facebook allows users to connect with each other by establishing “friend” relationships and posting items to a personal feed that can be viewed by the user’s friends. That evening, one of Ross’s Facebook friends posted an image (or meme) that showed a number of different firearms below the title “Why I need a gun.” Above each type of gun was an explanation of what the gun could be used for—e.g., above a shotgun: “This one for burglars & home invasions”; above a rifle with a scope: “This one for putting food on the table”; and above an assault rifle: “This one for self-defense against enemies foreign & domestic, for preservation of freedom & liberty, and to prevent government atrocities.” Ross interpreted this post as advocating against gun control measures. Ross, an advocate in favor of gun control measures, commented on the post: “Which one do I need to shoot up a kindergarten?” Ross then logged off Facebook and went to bed.
This post -- along with Ross' response -- was deleted shortly thereafter by the original poster. But another user forwarded a screenshot of the post and comment to a cousin of the poster. The court notes "no annotation or additional commentary" accompanied the forwarded screenshot. The cousin receiving the screenshot was married to Officer Ryan Medlin of the Jackson Police Department.
Medlin then forwarded the screenshot to two other cops and they all decided to find Ross and arrest him when they started their next shift. This was handled as badly as possible by all three officers. Ross was approached at work by a plainclothes officer presenting himself as a customer. When he stepped out from behind the counter to speak to this person, he was arrested.
Ross attempted to explain himself but was instead read his Miranda rights and taken to the station. There, he wrote a statement explaining his snarky response to the Facebook post. This should have ended everything. Even the cops felt they had nothing to pin on Ross. Nevertheless…
According to Ross, several officers at the station told him they did not think the case was likely to go any further than the prosecuting attorney’s office. However, Ross was not allowed to leave. He was held at the Jackson Police Station until the next day, during which time he was served with a warrant for “Peace Disturbance.” The next day, he was transferred to the Cape Girardeau County Jail where he was held for another two to three days, until he bonded out by paying $1000 in cash. At some point during that period, Ross was formally charged with the class B misdemeanor of “Peace Disturbance” under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 574.010(1)(c) (2015).
This charge was dropped and Ross sued the officers. The district court granted the three officers qualified immunity, theorizing Ross' right not to be arrested on bullshit charges following zero investigative effort prompted by a Facebook screenshot was not "clearly established."
The Appeals Court disagrees
The officers were justified in their efforts to investigate Ross’s post. In current times and in light of current events, the statement demonstrated, at a minimum, questionable judgment. But the state statute at issue does not apply to any speech that is not a “true threat,” and—under Missouri precedent—a reasonable officer would have understood that.
[...]
[I]f any further investigation had led the officers to believe there was an immediate or imminent danger, they would have been justified in acting on that information. Here, however, no exigent circumstances prevented the officers from gathering additional information before making an arrest.
There was no reason to bypass this step just to effectuate an arrest of someone whose post didn't fit the state law definition of a "true threat." But that's how these three do-gooders chose to handle it. Apparently, investigative efforts just gum up the wheels of justice.
In this case, even a “minimal further investigation” would have revealed that Ross’s post was not a true threat. See Pulaski, 306 F.3d at 623. The officers conducted no investigation into the context of the statement, Ross’s history of violence, or Ross’s political beliefs about gun ownership or gun control measures.
[...]
In sum, it is beyond debate that—had the officers engaged in minimal further investigation—the only reasonable conclusion was that Ross had not violated § 574.115.1(3).
This unconstitutional situation was further aggravated by the officers refusing to listen to anything Ross had to say until they had booked him and then deciding -- after coming to the conclusion charges likely wouldn't be pursued by the DA -- to charge him anyway and keep him locked up until he made bail.
No one's arguing law enforcement would have been wrong to engage in an investigation. What's being stated here is exactly the opposite: that it's wrong to arrest, book, and charge someone without engaging in any investigation at all in circumstances like these. And that was definitely clearly established long before these cops decided to get themselves sued.
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Filed Under: 8th circuit, arrests, jackson police department, james ross, qualified immunity, ryan medlin, snarky comments, social media
Companies: facebook
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Re:
It doesn't add anything to the discussion, and at *best* it's an attempt to wind him up - and not even a particularly effective one, as he rarely if ever even responds to it, as far as I've seen.
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HA HA! Even PIRATES are stepping up to defend me!
Dotcom, Voksi -- soon the police will be coming for YOU, Masnick. And I'll be laughing!
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How’s your John Steele defence fund going brah?
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Re: HA HA! Even PIRATES are stepping up to defend me!
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Re: Re: HA HA! Even PIRATES are stepping up to defend me!
And with the Illogical posts ONSITE, he has lots of other proof.
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Re: Re: Re: HA HA! Even PIRATES are stepping up to defend me!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: HA HA! Even PIRATES are stepping up to defend me!
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I was hoping no one would respond to him (feeding the trolls never helps), and that if anyone did, they would at least have the courtesy to delete or replace the Subject line...
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I don't think I've noticed that, but I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for it now. I think I rather like that idea.
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Just following government rationale...
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Sometimes I wonder, why there is a "stupid American" stereotype
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Re: Sometimes I wonder, why there is a "stupid American" stereotype
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"We in the police don't make mistakes. EVER."
This unconstitutional situation was further aggravated by the officers refusing to listen to anything Ross had to say until they had booked him and then deciding -- after coming to the conclusion charges likely wouldn't be pursued by the DA -- to charge him anyway and keep him locked up until he made bail.
So in short they jumped at the chance to make an arrest and look like Big Damn Heroes, and then after realizing that they had nothing rather than back down and admit to having screwed up they doubled-down and decided to punish him for their screw-up by charging him and keeping him in jail.
Medlin then forwarded the screenshot to two other cops and they all decided to find Ross and arrest him when they started their next shift.
I feel it's also worth pointing out their timing, and what they did and more importantly didn't do. They thought he was enough of a threat to arrest him, but not enough of a threat to get someone else to do it as soon as they were 'alerted'. Oh no, clearly nothing else would do but to get together and do it themselves.
With their qualified immunity striped hopefully the victim can go after their personal bank-accounts. It won't undo the damage that's been done to him, but it would give them a reason to think about what they do before they do it in the future.
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Re: "We in the police don't make mistakes. EVER."
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Re: "We in the police don't make mistakes. EVER."
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Re: "We in the police don't make mistakes. EVER."
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Did you miss the part where the “investigation” started because of a Facebook post?
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It's literally in the headline of the article that you're whining about. I mean, you can always tell when you guys can't defend authoritarian tactics because you start complaining that articles don't fit a version of the site that only exists in your head. But, even so, you usually make it past the headlines.
"being Techdirs ie bad teck things"
Maybe you're just illiterate and that's why you're unable to read correctly.
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Just as with any profession, there is a bell shaped curve, the very good, the large portion of average, then the bad. Unfortunately this profession has very well armed individuals that have the power to ruin lives & take lives. The "bad cops" have been around for as long as there's been law enforcement.
If anything, in my own opinion, the police are currently on a improvement swing rather than "falling". They have to be. We are all watching. Maybe the cult of protection of their fellow officers will crack & they will start to police themselves.
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Re: Re: Re: Police Improving?? Maybe....
Some datapoints "in the news":
Minneapolis Chief of Police says he heard stuff he shouldn't in the report on the ketamine to prisoners scandal.
Chicago PD signs another consent decree. (of course FOP thinks its a waste)
Miami PD arrests rookie deputy after she kicks pregnant woman in the stomach.
And in texas, two off-duty officers jump a guy leaving a bar. They are at least charged.
Philadelphia mayor terminates data sharing with ICE, which has been abusing it to terrorize immigrants.
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Re: Re: Re:
'How low the public perception has fallen' work better?
Before it was 'the word of a cop' vs 'the word of an accused criminal' and people would always trust the former and see them as sterling examples of all that is good, with anyone who said different dismissed as clearly having nefarious/criminal motivations, vs now when it's 'the word of a cop' vs 'one or more videos showing a different thing altogether' and everyone gets to see who's telling the truth.
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"word of an accused criminal"
It's distressing how our language belies the assumption of guilt.
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Re: "word of an accused criminal"
Innocent until proven guilty, and all that...
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Innocent until proven guilty...
our 100% indictment rate (excepting law enforcement) and 90% conviction rate suggests that we use a very loose version of proven.
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The cops, what elese
It's a 6 figure out of court settlement with the land shark Attorney.
No. things have not improve in a any real sense.The Bell Curve not withstanding, the Institutional AND SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION is still alive and well in Law Enforcement.
The Qualified Immunity thing is a Legal fiction with no real basis in Law. It is a creature created out of Mission Creep of The Supreme Court. It has it's historical beginnings in the 17 and 1800's Sovereign Immunity concept brought over from England'
The 5 or MAYBE 10% wins in Court against Cops is false bravado, the other 90% that never even get a chance to make it to trial pay the price. Not much as changed...
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Same for the taxi drivers who used to laugh at their passengers who complained about the internet harming their livelihood but now protest uber and lyft.
Next up: the NFL, and the tv stations and newspapers who cov er them, wonders how its league went bankrupt when all the revenue they generated for Big Internet was used to start a new league (the IFL), revenue helpe dby all the free advertising given to them, in a classic case of feeding the beast.
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Lyft*
wonder*
it’s*
cover*
helped by*
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The morons who post the kind of inane gun-lust crap that got this ball rolling will also continue failing to see the irony of their support for jackbooted law enforcement officers unconstitutionally terrorizing this victim at gunpoint over a Facebook post.
Meanwhile, if the victim stays around that area, he has to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life, because he can't count on police protection from any other gun-lusting morons who decide to give him a hard time. I hope he uses the settlement money to move somewhere truly safe.
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Which morons do you mean? The original poster of the base meme posted nothing legally actionable or even in particularly poor taste. Moreover, that person deleted the entire thread when Ross made his post, presumably because of the poor taste evidenced by Ross's post. Nothing in the story indicates that the original poster has any particular love of the police, particularly the elaborate caption about "self-defense against enemies foreign & domestic, for preservation of freedom & liberty, and to prevent government atrocities." That reads to me more like an individualist, not a hard-liner who believes the government and the police can do no wrong.
The person who forwarded the screenshot is barely described at all, so it's not fair to assume that person is pro-firearm. It might be fair to call that person a moron, though.
Do you think these things through before posting them?
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You
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And to top it all off...
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Sheesh, once we had the "Red Book Squad" of deputized citizens fighting communism in colleges, now we have the "Facebook Squad".
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All this for??
Who do you sue? Its a fun question.
Police,
Individual?
City?
county?
State?
All the above?
Who gets Hurt because the TRAINING OF OFFICERS, is not Though..or even 1/2 what it should be..
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There are 2.3 million people incarcerated in the USA. Were "prison" a state, it would be just above New Mexico in population (more than Wyoming + Vermont + DC). There are 14 states with fewer people.
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Re:
There are laws where the interpretation could conceivably be debated, in those cases a police officer should not be held personally responsible for making a reasonable interpretation of the law (that does not mean his employer should not be responsible!).
However courts should always assume that (save in dire emergency split-second cases) that police officers know the laws they are applying. If they don't know the law what the fried-cucumber-sausages are they doing pretending to be officers of the law?
These people are PAID TO KNOW THE LAW! It should be assumed they do under almost all circumstances and if they know the law and break it that should not entitle them to nice treatment as police officers it should be a reason to treat them more harshly than a non-police officer would be treated in the same circumstances!
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Police officers are paid to enforce the law, not to know it.
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Never mind the fact that one rather necessitates the other, as without knowledge of the law a cop is left in the position of basing their actions on what they think the law is, with things like 'qualified immunity' and 'good faith exceptions' giving them both incredible wiggle room and a very real incentive to know as little about the law as possible.
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You wait to be TOLD what and who to arrest..Even if THEY ARE WRONG??
Funny..
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Low hanging fruit
I'd like to think this is a symptom that this indicates there's too little crime for our precincts to justify their current size.
More likely, though, they're terrified of real criminals doing real crimes that might be really armed, and are instead going for people who aren't committing crimes but one can argue it looks criminal enough from a Jedi point of view. People who think they're law-abiding aren't armed to resist law enforcement.
It's much the way the FBI doesn't go after real terrorists with real bombs and real guns, but people they can trick in to behaving kinda-terroristy enough to entrap them and secure a conviction.
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Meet the replacement for "Good Faith" exceptions.
Because the arrestee was sodomized with a cattle prod, we keep the qualified immunity in place b/c there has been no case to clearly establish that sodomizing with a cattle prod is a violation of his rights.
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Splitting hairs on the atomic level
Because the arrestee was sodomized with a cattle prod, we keep the qualified immunity in place b/c there has been no case to clearly establish that sodomizing with a cattle prod of this particular brand and model is a violation of his rights.
Given how generous some courts have been when it comes to qualified immunity and what police should and should not know I get the feeling that they'd absolutely split hairs fine enough that just because a ruling had been handed out before it still didn't count because the details weren't exactly the same(and besides, it's completely unreasonable for police to keep on top of the various cases that might impact what they're allowed to do).
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Re: Splitting hairs on the atomic level
I'd laugh but we've seen this actually happening.
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Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates
No discussion about the harms of guns can go on very long without somebody trying to conflate guns with cars.
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Random Quote
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Arrest, charge and jail first, investigate... eh, later... maybe
If that's a quote by one of the police trying to defend what they did it's extra funny considering what the court called them out on not doing.
In this case, even a “minimal further investigation” would have revealed that Ross’s post was not a true threat. See Pulaski, 306 F.3d at 623. The officers conducted no investigation into the context of the statement, Ross’s history of violence, or Ross’s political beliefs about gun ownership or gun control measures.
[...]
In sum, it is beyond debate that—had the officers engaged in minimal further investigation—the only reasonable conclusion was that Ross had not violated § 574.115.1(3).
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Seems like we need some sort of pre-crime department..
Seems like win-win-win-win-win-win.....(600+ Million-wins-later)-win-win! Whoa, that took the wind out of me.
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No sympathy
This is the same type of thing as telling people in an airport you have a bomb.It may be obvious it is only a bad joke but TSA will take the matter very seriously.
Again here is Ross in front of concerned parents asking what gun is best to use on young kids. In light of all the school shootings people would be concerned.
The Police have a duty to investigate where detaining Ross for questioning was correct. TD saying no investigation was done is rubbish when Ross being charged with Disturbing the Public Peace was both the correct solution and shows they did not believe Ross was a serious threat to little kiddies.
Now I don't know why they later dropped their charge but Ross is still the social moron.
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The crime of being a social moron.
Even if being a social moron justified laws against it (which it doesn't) there's the matter of proportional response, something the Department of Justice gives zero fucks about.
As a reminder, the US is way over-concerned about rampage killings, and unconcerned about suicides, especially since rampage killings are essentially suicides with rage.
Ours is a society that gives zero fucks also about health and welfare of the marginalized. As such rampage killings are a mere hazard of the Randian Utopia we live in.
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Re: No sympathy
The Police have a duty to investigate where detaining Ross for questioning was correct.
See my comment just a little bit above, in particular the excerpt from the court. The court pointed out that they didn't perform any investigation, they merely arrested, charged him, and jailed him, almost certainly for CYOA reasons as they tried to find anything they could hit him with to avoid looking like chumps(at which they failed spectacularly).
If you want the police jumping on anything and everything, arresting people at the drop of a hat before doing any investigation prior to that step have fun watching those arrest numbers skyrocket and the police being too busy chasing hay to notice any needles in time.
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