Court Upholds Conviction Of Cop Who Threatened, Beat, Tased, And Arrested A Man For Complaining About Being Beaten By Him Earlier

from the this-is-how-far-an-officer-has-to-go-to-lose-everything dept

It takes a lot for a law enforcement officer to lose the protective shield of qualified immunity. This protection originates from the courts, not from statute, so it tends to be interpreted pretty loosely by the judges applying it. It covers the most egregious abuses of civil rights and liberties, just so long as the officer being sued has performed these violations with sufficient creativity.

Every so often, though, a cop does something no court can forgive. The multitude of exceptions afforded to law enforcement officers occasionally cannot be stretched to cover their sins in a cloak of official forgiveness. The Sixth Circuit Appeals Court recently handled one of these rarities.

An opinion [PDF] whose opening paragraph contains this sentence is not going to end well for the appellant.

[T]he string of horrors Officer William Dukes Jr. paraded on Jeffrey Littlepage after a simple traffic stop has no place in our society.

And it is a string of horrors. It's an undeniable story of just how much havoc a man with a badge and bunch of power can wreak on a "civilian." When it comes to police/citizen relationships, only one side holds all the cards. And unless someone has the wherewithal to lawyer up -- and continue to litigate through multiple court levels for multiple years -- the badge and the abused power go unchecked.

Jeffrey Littlepage stuck it out. Good thing he did. Otherwise, Officer William Dukes might have skated on this string of horrors. Without Littlepage's tenacity, Dukes might be out of prison, free to roam around with a badge in hand and subject others to the same treatment he gave Littlepage.

Littlepage's story starts with a traffic stop. It doesn't end until Officer Dukes is behind bars. In between, there's a hell of a lot of abusive activity by a man who never should have been allowed to carry a badge.

Officer Dukes was presumably killing time waiting to fuck someone up when a call came in that someone had tried to run another driver off the road. For whatever reason, Dukes decided it was Littlepage. He didn't know who he was pulling over, so Littlepage won the SHIT COP lottery.

He approached Littlepage’s car and asked him to get out. When Littlepage did not respond quickly enough for Dukes, Dukes pulled him out. Unfortunately, the encounter did not end there. Dukes proceeded to frisk Littlepage, and it was not your ordinary frisk. Instead, Dukes “goosed” Littlepage (hit him in the genitals) and hit him in the back (after Littlepage had told him he had a bad back). R. 83, Pg. ID 1251. He then told Littlepage he was free to go, but not without giving him a warning. Dukes told him to stay off that road, and if he returned “down here, you’ll answer to me.” R. 82, Pg. ID 1008.

This was all terrifying enough for Littlepage, who had been minding his own business not running people off the road until he was pulled over by Officer Dukes and introduced to a brand new definition of "goosing."

The problem for Littlepage is he needed to drive down that road. He had a friend to pick up the next day and he wanted to know whether or not he could drive down that road without being pulled from his car and physically abused by Officer Dukes.

He called the police department to inquire about his options and to file a complaint against Officer Dukes. The Providence PD said to come in the next day to file a complaint. That posed a problem because Littlepage still needed to drive down that road the next morning. He explained this and the dispatcher patched him through to the officer on duty: Officer Dukes. Dukes told Littlepage to "come in next week" to file the complaint and hung up on him. Littlepage -- still with no answer -- called back.

This time, Dukes answered, and before Littlepage could even get his question out, Dukes threatened to arrest him for harassing communications if he ever called again.

Sensing a bit of an impasse, Littlepage escalated his complaint. He called the Webster County Sheriff's Office and then the Kentucky State Police, hoping to receive some sort of clearance to a) drive the road he needed to drive and b) get a complaint filed against Officer Dukes.

Law enforcement is an incestuous occupation. A literal game of "telephone" resulted in this:

Dukes soon got wind of Littlepage’s additional calls, and he hatched a plan to respond. He instructed the Providence dispatcher to call Littlepage and tell him that he could come down to the police station and complain to a supervisor, even though a supervisor was not on duty that night. Littlepage suspected this was “a trap” and instead asked if the supervisor could come to his house. Id. at 1024. The dispatcher said no but nevertheless asked Littlepage for his address. After confirming that no one would come and “harass” or “arrest” him, Littlepage complied. Id. at 1025. He then went to bed for the night.

Sleeping all night is fine for civilians, but if you're a pissed off cop with an axe to grind and all the taxpayer-funded time in the world to grind it with, you do this:

Littlepage’s sleep was cut short when Dukes showed up at his house, banged on his door until he answered, and said, “Get your clothes on. You’re under arrest.”

Littlepage refused to go with Dukes, arguing that he had committed no crime. Officer Dukes -- a firm believer in the sunk cost fallacy -- decided to amp things up to prove might makes right when it comes to people he had abused previously.

Dukes followed Littlepage into his house, and things quickly escalated. In the ensuing melee (captured on Dukes’s body camera), Dukes shot Littlepage twice with a taser, sprayed him in the face with pepper spray, punched him in the nose (thereby breaking it), and hit him with his baton multiple times. Next, Dukes handcuffed Littlepage. Once they were outside, Dukes told the responding EMT that “he hadn’t been in a good fight like this in a long while.” R. 83, Pg. ID 1152, 1156. Littlepage went to the hospital to recover, at which point Dukes issued him citations for (1) harassing communications, (2) resisting arrest, (3) assaulting a police officer, and (4) criminal mischief (for allowing his broken nose—courtesy of Dukes—to bleed on Dukes’s uniform)

This is why cops aren't fans of body cameras, despite the tech's utter failure to produce better police officers. Also: bleeding on an officer is a crime.

This situation was so fucked, a prosecutor stepped in to dismiss all charges against Littlepage and file charges against Officer Dukes. The case was referred to the feds: the US Attorney's Office.

Officer Dukes -- convicted of rights violation charges -- appealed. He claimed he had probable cause to arrest Littlepage under the state's harassment laws. The appeals court said, "Oh my, no."

Dukes maintains that he could arrest Littlepage because his calls served no legitimate purpose.

Contrary to Dukes’s claim, the evidence overwhelmingly shows there was no probable cause since Littlepage’s calls had a legitimate purpose. In fact, even Dukes admits that Littlepage was trying to obtain information about filing a complaint and about where he could permissibly drive. Both are legitimate purposes for his calls. Dukes and the dispatcher provided Littlepage with inconsistent information, thus requiring multiple calls for clarification. The dispatcher told Littlepage he could talk to the police chief the next morning, but Dukes said Littlepage had to wait until the following week. Neither Dukes nor the dispatcher clarified whether Littlepage could drive on the road again. And after the second call, Littlepage still did not have answers to his questions, so he called two other law enforcement agencies to seek advice. The jury heard recordings of these phone calls, and two of the dispatchers testified that, in their opinions, Littlepage’s call to them had been made for a legitimate purpose. Though Dukes may view the evidence differently, a rational juror could conclude that Dukes lacked probable cause to arrest Littlepage.

No qualified immunity. No "Fine. Just this once." No more arguments about the sufficiency of evidence. Officer Dukes is going to jail to spend some quality time with people he and his blue brethren have locked up.

Whether the bootlickers want to admit it or not, cops wield an outsized amount of power. Officer Dukes was completely in the wrong but he still assaulted someone during a traffic stop, refused to assist him with his followup questions, and showed up at his house to assault him again for thinking about filing a complaint.

The problem isn't necessarily the power. Without it, cops would be more useless than they already are. No, the problem is how readily we hand out power to those who can't be trusted to use it responsibly… and how slowly we rescind it from people like Officer Dukes. This kind of thing doesn't happen because Dukes is the bad apple in this particular barrel. It happens because Officer Dukes was pretty sure he could get away with it. In this case, he was wrong. But even as case law continues to develop, Officer Dukes -- convicted and imprisoned for abusing the rights of a citizen -- is an outlier.

Filed Under: 6th circuit, jeffrey littlepage, police misconduct, qualified immunity, william dukes jr.

Appeals Court Reminds Deputies That Standing By While Rights Are Violated Is No Better Than Violating Them Yourself

from the i-guess-the-thug-life-chose-them dept

Sometimes it's the things you don't do that can hurt you. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed out a reminder to law enforcement officers that standing around while rights are violated can leave you just as liable as if you'd violated those rights yourself.

The allegations behind the lawsuit and this rare denial of qualified immunity are horrifying. Being jailed is never pleasant, but the deputies involved in this case went out of their way to ensure this booking was particularly degrading. Keep in mind this was nothing more than an arrest for drunk driving. From the decision [PDF]:

Fazica had been wearing the jumpsuit that she had been issued at the Bloomfield Township jail with the arms tied around her waist and no underpants. She also wore a bra and shirt. Id. at 43, 46 (Page ID #181, 184). Once the officers brought her into the room, they placed her face down on her stomach in a prone position on the floor, still wearing the spit hood. Id. at 47 (Page ID #185). She was “freaking out” and asking “what are you guys doing,” but she was not physically resisting. Id. at 45–46 (Page ID #183–84). One officer “pushed her face down” and an officer “said everyone gets stripped search [sic], just shut up.” Id. at 45 (Page ID #183). Fazica does not recall how the officers got her shirt off. An officer ripped her pants off from behind—literally tearing them apart. Id. at 46 (Page ID #184). One officer then “had [her] butt cheeks spread apart and there was [sic] hands like he was feeling for something.” Id. He placed his hands on her genitals. Id. at 71 (Page ID #209). Another officer put his hands up the front of Fazica’s bra and felt her nipples; Fazica felt his hands shaking as he did it. The officer who felt Fazica’s breasts “asked what the clips were, and the gentleman behind [her] said they were the clips to [her] bra, don’t worry about it.” Id. at 47 (Page ID #185). The same officer who had his hand on her breasts called her a bitch and one officer “kind of slap punched [her] when [she] was in the strip search room because he was mad because [she] was hysterical.” Id. at 48, 52 (Page ID #186, 190). The officers did not remove her bra. Id. at 47 (Page ID #185). She could not hear any female staff in the room and believes that no other females were present during the strip search. Id. Fazica knew that the officers who were strip searching her and who were present in the room were male because of their voices and their hands. Id. at 48 (Page ID #186).

After this sexual assault by jailers -- which is apparently part of the "normal" booking process (according to the deputies' testimony) -- officers took her to a cell. The plaintiff, Renee Fazica, was wearing nothing more than her bra and the spit hood the jailers has placed on her.

The booking report does not contain any of these details. As the court notes, the narrative in the booking report wasn't written until nearly a month after Fazica was jailed. The official version of the arrest cleans everything up for public consumption. The only benefit it provided was giving Fazica the names of the jailers she couldn't see.

Booking received a call that Bloomfield Township was bringing in a new arrest, Inmate Fazica . . . and that she is intoxicated, yelling and spitting. . . . Sgt. Nicotri was notified. Supervisor Jordan was lead taser, Dep. Tucker was lead, Dep. Cordova and [Rodriguez] were wings and Supervisor Fletcher was four man [sic]. . . . Inmate Fazica was yelling as the door to the patrol car was opened. Dep. Tucker gained control of Inmate Fazica and with the assistance of Dep. Cordova and myself she was removed from the car. Dep. Tucker gained control of her head, Dep. Cordova and [Rodriguez] took control of her arms. A spit hood was then placed over her head. A pat down was then conducted for the safety and security of the Main Jail. Inmate Fazica was then escorted to the Annex and taken into Cell 1E-4. Inmate was told to lay down on the floor and she complied. Inmate was then searched. The handcuffs were then removed. Inmate Fazica was ordered to stay on the floor until the cell door was closed. All team members then left the cell without further incident. Nurse Thorpe then medically cleared inmate Fazica of any injuries. Event entered into IMACS.

When sued for a variety of rights violations, all officers involved claimed to have no memory of the incident. No one remembered assaulting a female arrestee, much less participating in the extremely mild version of events recorded a month after Fazica was booked.

The lower court denied qualified immunity to four of the named officers because there was still an open question as to which officers were involved. Since Fazica's view was obstructed by the spit hood, she understandably was unable to specifically allege which officer performed which violation.

The officers appealed, arguing that because Fazica couldn't see who did what, all officers should be granted immunity. The court disagrees.

Defendants argue that because Fazica cannot clearly attribute particular uses of force to particular Defendants, she cannot prove that any particular Defendant’s conduct violated her constitutional rights. Def. Br. at 19–20. For example, they argue that she cannot prove whether it was Defendant Officer Fletcher, Cordova, Tucker, or Jordan who was the one to twist her arm behind her back, rip her pants off, touch her genitals, etc., and that therefore she must lose at summary judgment. We reject Defendants’ argument and conclude that a reasonable jury could find that each of the named Defendants violated Fazica’s clearly established constitutional rights either by directly using excessive force against her or by observing others doing so and failing to act.

That point is settled case law, as the court explains. Rights are not just violated by actions. They are also violated by inaction. Government employees who stand idly by as rights are violated can be held accountable for not intervening. Whether directly participating or not, all government employees are supposed to help safeguard Constitutional rights. That means stepping up when someone else crosses the line, not just hanging back and hoping the eventual plaintiff doesn't name you as a defendant.

In this case, the misapplication (whether deliberate or not) of the spit hood prevented Fazica from identifying the officers involved in the strip search/sexual assault. The defendants argued precedential cases involved intentional efforts made by officers to obscure their identities. Wrong again, says the court:

Defendants argue that the only reason that the court might deny qualified immunity in a case in which the plaintiff is not able conclusively to identify which officer committed which potentially unconstitutional act is “to avoid rewarding defendants who intentionally conceal their identities.” Def. Br. at 11. Certainly, disincentivizing officers from obscuring their identities so that they may use excessive force without consequences is a valid concern. See Burley I, 729 F.3d at 622. However, it is not the only concern. Plaintiffs who are unable to pinpoint precisely which named defendant did what, even where the defendants did not intentionally conceal their identities, still have an interest in the vindication of their constitutional rights. Section 1983 claims do not only incentivize officers’ good behavior; they also compensate and achieve justice for victims.

More explicitly:

[T]he obviousness of some of the acts Fazica recounts support the conclusion that the Defendants noticed the conduct and failed to intervene to stop it. Fazica stated that her pants were physically torn off her body before her genitals and breasts were groped, and the officers testified that strip searches do not usually involve physical contact with the inmate’s body. A jury could reasonably conclude that when an officer commits such acts, his colleagues are likely to notice.

This doesn't mean Fazica has won or is likely to when her case returns to the lower court. What it does mean is the accused officers won't be shielded from this lawsuit and will have to actually defend themselves against her allegations. Most importantly, it's reiterated and on the record that standing by while rights are violated is no better than violating rights yourself.

Filed Under: 6th circuit, bloomfield township, carlos cordova, josh tucker, mark fletcher, qualified immunity, renee fazica, zachary jordan

Appeals Court: Chalking Tires For Parking Enforcement Violates The Fourth Amendment

from the extra-4th-with-bonus-pun-topping dept

A rather surprising conclusion has been reached by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals: a common parking enforcement tool of the trade may be unconstitutional.

Not everyone who's been ticketed multiple times for parking violations has made a federal case of it. Alison Taylor did, though, arguing that Saginaw, Michigan's practice of "chalking" tires was a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. Taylor had been ticketed fifteen times when she decided to sue. The court sides with her, finding that marking tires to determine whether a vehicle has been parked too long constitutes not just a search, but an unreasonable one, under the Fourth Amendment.

The Appeals Court opinion [PDF] leads off with an almost unforgivable pun:

Parking enforcement officers return to the car after the posted time for parking has passed, and if the chalk marks are still there—a sign that the vehicle has not moved—the officer issues a citation. Alison Taylor, a frequent recipient of parking tickets, sued the City and its parking enforcement officer Tabitha Hoskins, alleging that chalking violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search. The City moved to dismiss the action. The district court granted the City’s motion, finding that, while chalking may have constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment, the search was reasonable. Because we chalk this practice up to a regulatory exercise, rather than a community-caretaking function, we REVERSE.

The route the court takes to reach this conclusion is circuitous and somewhat amusing, especially if one imagines Saginaw city reps watching with increasing dismay as their "easy win" assumptions are dismantled paragraph by paragraph.

The Appeals Court references the Supreme Court's Jones decision to arrive at its determination that chalking tires = search. In that decision, the Supreme Court punted on the issue of tracking devices as searches, opting instead to find the warrantless placement of the device on someone's car as an intrusion in and of itself, a "trespass" onto someone's private property -- in this case, a car.

In recent years, however, the Supreme Court revisited the seldom used “property-based” approach to the Fourth Amendment search inquiry in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012). Under Jones, when governmental invasions are accompanied by physical intrusions, a search occurs when the government: (1) trespasses upon a constitutionally protected area, (2) to obtain information. Id. at 404–405.

The car may be parked on a public street when chalking occurs, but the placement of chalk on the private property of a citizen is a "trespass" with the intent of gathering information (how long the car has been parked in a certain spot).

[O]nce we determine the government has trespassed upon a constitutionally protected area, we must then determine whether the trespass was “conjoined with . . . an attempt to find something or to obtain information.” Id. at 408 n.5. Here, it was. Neither party disputes that the City uses the chalk marks for the purpose of identifying vehicles that have been parked in the same location for a certain period of time. That information is then used by the City to issue citations. As the district court aptly noted, “[d]espite the low-tech nature of the investigative technique . . . , the chalk marks clearly provided information to Hoskins.” This practice amounts to an attempt to obtain information under Jones.

That's not the end of the analysis. Warrantless searches are permitted if the search is reasonable. The city claimed the chalking/search was reasonable because of a reduced expectation of privacy when parked on a public street. Alternatively, it argued the search was reasonable under the community caretaking exception.

The reduced expectation of privacy exception argument fails because a car legally parked on a public street -- absent any other indicators of criminal activity -- cannot generate the probable cause needed to justify a warrantless chalking. At the point the tire is marked, no law has been broken, nor is there any justifiable suspicion the driver intends to violate the law by parking for longer than is allowed.

As for the community caretaking function, the Appeals Court finds this argument just as weak. The caretaking function is not supposed to be investigatory or carried out with the intent of collecting evidence. Marking a tire gives the government information it can use later to issue parking tickets. This does nothing to make the community safer.

The City fails to carry its burden of establishing that the community caretaker exception applies in this instance. First, on these facts, the City fails to demonstrate how this search bears a relation to public safety. The City does not show that the location or length of time that Taylor’s vehicle was parked created the type of “hazard” or traffic impediment amounting to a public safety concern. Nor does the City demonstrate that delaying a search would result in “injury or ongoing harm to the community.” Washington, 573 F.3d at 289. To the contrary, at the time of the search, Taylor’s vehicle was lawfully parked in a proper parking location, imposing no safety risk whatsoever. Because the purpose of chalking is to raise revenue, and not to mitigate public hazard, the City was not acting in its “role as [a] community caretaker[.]”

The finding is narrow, but it's enough to steer the city of Saginaw to other methods of parking enforcement -- which unfortunately could see an increase in the use of automated license plate readers or surveillance cameras to accomplish the same ends.

The City does not demonstrate, in law or logic, that the need to deter drivers from exceeding the time permitted for parking—before they have even done so—is sufficient to justify a warrantless search under the community caretaker rationale. This is not to say that this exception can never apply to the warrantless search of a lawfully parked vehicle. Nor does our holding suggest that no other exceptions to the warrant requirement might apply in this case. However, on these facts and on the arguments the City proffers, the City fails to meet its burden in establishing an exception to the warrant requirement.

This doesn't mean the government won't ultimately secure a win for tire chalking. What it does mean is the case heads back down a level for more exploration of the issue. This is a ruling on an appealed motion to dismiss by the city. All this means for Alison Taylor is her case isn't dead yet. But if this holds up, a lot of cities using similar enforcement methods are going to have to try a different approach. Unfortunately for those in the Sixth Circuit's jurisdiction, this may mean more reliance on ALPRs and other tech that has its own unanswered privacy-related questions.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 6th circuit, chalking tires, parking, parking enforcement

Sixth Circuit Court Dumps Lawsuit Seeking To Hold Twitter Responsible For The Pulse Nightclub Shooting

from the another-attack-victim-taken-for-a-ride dept

Another one of 1-800-LAW-FIRM's lawsuits has been tossed for a second time. After being shut down at the district level for attempting to hold social media companies responsible for the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the law firm asked the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at its dubious legal theories.

The Appeals Court has taken another look and it doesn't like what it sees any more than the district court did. The violent act committed inside the nightclub was horrible, but the court cannot provide a remedy for every wrong -- especially not in a case where the plaintiffs are trying to hold a third party responsible for violent acts they neither encouraged nor committed.

Social media platforms may make it easier for terrorists to spread their message, but that does not add up to material support for terrorism. That's the legal theory 1-800-LAW-FIRM and Excolo Law have been using to push these lawsuits in order to dodge the obvious Section 230 implications. It has yet to find support in any court. It doesn't find any here either. From the decision [PDF]:

We sympathize with Plaintiffs—they suffered through one of the worst terrorist attacks in American history. “But not everything is redressable in a court.” Kemper v. Deutsche Bank AG, 911 F.3d 383, 386 (7th Cir. 2018). And terrorist attacks present unique difficulties for those injured because the terrorists “directly responsible may be beyond the reach of the court.” Id. This is one such case. But the absence of Mateen and the inability to hold ISIS responsible cannot create liability elsewhere. Plaintiffs’ complaint includes no allegations that Twitter, Facebook, or Google had any direct connection to Mateen or his heinous act. And Plaintiffs do not suggest that Defendants provided “material support” to Mateen. Without these connections, Plaintiffs cannot state a viable claim under the ATA. As a result, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ claims.

The Appeals Court also agrees with the lower court's finding that the nightclub shooting had almost nothing to do with the international terrorism the plaintiffs claim Twitter and others are helping support. The shooter was "self-radicalized" and nothing in the plaintiffs' 51-page complaint is able to conclusively tie a domestic shooting by a US citizen to ISIS or its online recruitment efforts.

The plaintiffs want the court to apply a completely ridiculous "proximate cause" standard that has never been applied before and will never be applied in the future. There's no legal basis for it and it would pretty much allow almost anyone to sue almost anyone else for almost anything.

With the “highly interconnected” nature of social media, the internet, and “modern economic and social life”—we expect Defendants’ websites to cause some “ripples of harm” that would “flow far beyond the defendant’s misconduct.” Fields, 881 F.3d at 749. But without more, Defendants do not proximately cause all these potential ripples. The content did not compel Mateen’s actions.

Indeed, if we accepted Plaintiffs’ argument, Defendants would become liable for seemingly endless acts of modern violence simply because the individual viewed relevant social media content before deciding to commit the violence.

With nothing to hang on Twitter, there's nothing left of this lawsuit. The state law claims follow the federal claims into a dismissal with prejudice. 1-800-LAW-FIRM wants another chance to amend its lawsuit but the Appeals Court says it should have tried that earlier at the district level. This lawsuit is dead, just like so many others filed by this law firm.

Filed Under: 6th circuit, cda 230, intermediary liability, liability, pulse nightclub shooting, section 230, social media
Companies: 1-800-law-firm, excolo law, twitter

Sixth Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Say It's Cool If The FBI Broke The Law During Its Playpen Investigation

from the deterrents-never-used-will-rarely-exhibit-a-deterrent-effect dept

The seventh Appeals Court to weigh in [PDF] on the FBI's Network Investigative Technique deployed in the Playpen child porn investigation has weighed in. Unfortunately, it makes the Sixth Circuit the seventh appeals court to find the FBI's warrant problematic, but willing to apply the "good faith" band-aid.

The problem with the application of the "good faith exception" is it assumes good faith on behalf of the FBI. There's no reason to believe the FBI acted in good faith, though. While it was in the process of obtaining a single warrant allowing it to search computers all over the world, it was well aware Rule 41 limited searches to the jurisdiction where the warrant was obtained. It knew this because the DOJ was in the process of asking the Supreme Court and Congress to change Rule 41 to remove the jurisdiction limits while it was pursuing this investigation.

The Appeals Court grants good faith anyway, despite this background. It does do us (and the appellant) the favor of discussing good faith in light of the DOJ's simultaneous attempt to codify searches it was already performing, but just because the discussion is expanded a bit doesn't mean it makes much sense. Here's the opening of the Sixth Circuit's federal forgiveness pitch:

The good-faith exception is not concerned with whether a valid warrant exists, but instead asks whether a reasonably well-trained officer would have known that a search was illegal.

A "well-trained officer" should never have sought the search warrant in the first place, because a "well-trained officer" would have known search warrants were limited to the jurisdiction they were issued in. But the agent sought the warrant anyway and a magistrate judge actually approved it. The judge's approval means more to the Sixth Circuit than the FBI's bad faith proposition.

For the same reasons articulated in Master, we conclude that the good-faith exception is not categorically inapplicable to warrants found to be void ab initio. The difference between a state court judge acting without authority and a federal magistrate judge acting without authority is of little significance—in both instances, the individual who signed the warrant (arguably) had no power to do so. Master’s holding that the good-faith exception applies to one applies with equal force to the other. Accordingly, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule is not categorically inapplicable to warrants that are void ab initio because of a magistrate judge’s jurisdictional error.

But the case cited (Master) isn't applicable to this situation. In that case, an officer presented a warrant request to the wrong county judge, accidentally obtaining permission to search outside of the judge's jurisdiction. A similar mistake could not have possibly been made with this warrant request. A federal magistrate -- whose jurisdiction covers an entire state -- could not have been mistakenly approached to grant permission to search an entire nation. The FBI's warrant affidavit clearly states it sought to search computers without knowing where any of the targets were located. The judge saw this and signed it anyway. Even if the judge blew the call, there's no way anyone can argue with a straight face the FBI did not know the warrant request violated the law as it stood when it requested permission to deploy its NIT.

It may have been "reasonable" for the FBI agent to rely on the issued warrant, but only if you ignore what was happening at the DOJ during the time this investigation was occurring. In fact, it can be argued this investigation and a similar one in 2014 expedited the DOJ's efforts on this front as it surely recognized some judges were going to find its NIT warrant invalid.

This explanation by the Sixth Circuit of its decision to extend good faith to the FBI agent doesn't help. In fact, it doesn't make sense.

But reasonable jurists have come to different conclusions about whether the NIT Warrant was valid. Compare United States v. Austin, 230 F. Supp. 3d 828, 833 (M.D. Tenn. 2017) (finding the NIT Warrant does not violate Rule 41(b) because it is the equivalent of a “tracking device” and therefore falls under the ambit of Rule 41(b)(4)), with United States v. Croghan, 209 F. Supp. 3d 1080, 1089 (S.D. Iowa 2016) (concluding that the magistrate judge lacked authority to issue the NIT Warrant), overruled on other grounds by Horton, 863 F.3d at 1052. We cannot, therefore, expect officers to have known that this type of warrant was invalid at the time it was sought. See Workman, 863 F.3d at 1321 (“[I]f a violation took place, it has escaped the notice of eight federal judges who have held that the same warrant complied with federal law and the federal rules even though data was being extracted from computers outside the Eastern District of Virginia. . . . [E]xecuting agents could reasonably have made the same mistake and reasonably relied on the magistrate judge’s decision to issue the warrant.”).

The court is saying an FBI agent -- requesting a warrant in 2015 -- can be excused for his Rule 41 ignorance because court decisions made 1-2 years after the warrant was sought suggest the NIT warrant area might have been a bit more gray than previously imagined. Furthering the retroactive forgiveness, the court goes on to point out -- as others have -- that Rule 41 changes, which went into effect more than two years after the warrant was obtained, now makes this sort of search legal. Since suppressing evidence is supposed to deter bad behavior by law enforcement, a past abuse that has been codified into law does not present further opportunities for exactly this same abuse of authority.

Certainly it would be impossible to violate rights in the same exact way again, what with the rules having been changed following the abuses contained in this investigation. But the deterrent effect of suppression would discourage law enforcement from seeking permission to perform illegal searches, even if there's a chance those searches may become Constitutional in the future due to changes in the law. This is the court telling law enforcement to roll the dice in edge cases because you just never know what the future might bring. This encourages misconduct because it demonstrates the extent of the federal courts' capacity to forgive.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 6th circuit, doj, fbi, good faith, jurisdiction, playpen

Cop: Screwdrivers And Wrenches Are Drug Dealer Things; Appeals Court: WTF

from the you-can't-fix-stupid-but-you-can-at-least-deny-it-immunity dept

Some things most of us keep in our vehicles is considered by at least one police officer to be tools of the drug trade. Literal tools. Of the literal drug trade. I guess. The bad news is even more of us keep these items at home. We're drowning in contraband, it appears. Those of us with attached garages should just brace ourselves for early morning no-knock raids.

This decision [PDF] by the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court starts as so many qualified immunity cases do: with a pretextual stop.

On May 22, 2014, Harris, along with her mother, father and older sister, went out for dinner at TGI Friday’s. On the way home, their minivan was stopped by City of Erlanger police officers because of an obstructed license plate. The officers then conducted an investigation of Harris’s mother, who was the driver. Her mother was arrested for obstructing a license plate, driving with no registration plates, driving with a suspended license, and possession of a forged instrument.

The footnote attached to "forged instrument" notes there's nothing on the record showing Brittany Harris' mother was ever actually charged by prosecutors with these alleged crimes. All that's on record is the booking. Brittany, who was seventeen at the time, is the one bringing the suit. That's because as things developed during this stop, she was subjected to an invasive search.

Brittany asked to go to the restroom after she and her family had spent more than an hour being detained by six squad cars full of officers. She was accompanied by Officer Kimberly Klare, who did this before allowing Brittany to enter the restroom.

The parties agree that at this point, Klare secured Harris’s hands behind her back. What happened next is disputed, but, as noted, for purposes of this summary judgment appeal, we must accept Harris’s version of events. She claims that, as part of a pat down, Klare placed her hands under Harris’s brassiere and pinched the girl’s breasts, causing bruising. According to Harris, Klare told her that she searched her the way she did because a previous suspect at that location had “stuffed needles in her bra” and because “[y]ou have that look,” “[y]ou have the look of a junkie whore.” But Klare found no drugs, drug paraphernalia, weapon, or other contraband on Harris.

That's some fine community policing by Klare, who called someone a "junkie whore" but found nothing to corroborate her expert assessment of Harris' character. Now, you may be asking, why was a drug dog brought onto the scene when the only charges had to do with license plates and driver's licenses? Well, that's where it gets absolutely insane.

During the investigation, officers also noticed that Harris’s father had “equipment for his work” in the vehicle, including “tools, like screwdrivers and wrenches,” some of which were “sitting out” and some of which were “in containers.” Based on the presence of these tools in conjunction with the violations listed above, the officers began to suspect that Harris’s mother was engaged in drug activity.

No treats for the dog, though.

They sent for a drug dog, but it found no drugs.

I'm sorry. That's only the mostly-completely insane part of this. Here's the batshit insanity: the lower court granted Officer Klare qualified immunity.

The district court agreed with Klare. It held that the officers had probable cause to stop the minivan because of the obscured license plate and that the presence of Harris’s father’s tools and equipment in the car, in conjunction with her mother’s alleged misfeasance, created a reasonable suspicion of drug activity…

The appeals court says the lower court is oh so very wrong on both counts. It also has zero respect for any officer making these claims. As for the driving offenses "supporting" the drug dealer theory, the appeals court has this to say:

We have serious doubts as to whether the officers reasonably suspected the Harris family of manufacturing or transporting contraband. Klare provides no reason to suppose that Harris’s mother’s alleged traffic violations made it more likely that drug activity was afoot—if anything, one would expect a drug-trafficking family to avoid fastidiously such violations for fear of discovery.

If you don't want extra police attention, you keep your driving stuff in order. That's why police so often claim clean vehicles and drivers with no records are also tools of the drug trade -- because drug dealers don't want to give officers any reason to perform a pretextual stop. This claim goes the other direction, ensuring drivers are damned either way, and turning a nation of non-criminal drivers into erstwhile drug dealers.

As to the presence of tools everyone owns somehow being indicative of drug dealing, the appeals court finds this argument equally ridiculous.

Nor does Klare explain how the possession of worker’s tools, which is not itself “inherently illegal or even suspicious,” could have provided the officers with a reason to suspect drug activity. See United States v. Warfield, 727 F. App’x 182, 188–89 (6th Cir. 2018) (holding that the possession of eight cartons of cigarettes was not suggestive of the possession of untaxed cigarettes). The record contains no reason to believe that screwdrivers and wrenches—or any of the other tools in the vehicle—are particularly indicative of drug manufacture or transportation.

The rest of the opinion deals with the nature of the search performed on Harris. The court finds there's a factual dispute over the timing of the search, which Harris argues came after the drug dog arrived and found no drugs. If Officer Klare was aware of this, she no longer had probable cause to perform a search of Harris before she entered the restroom.

There was also no consent given for the search, further distancing it from Constitutionality. The appeals court notes a number of coercive elements that might have pressured Harris into subjecting herself to a search. The record shows nothing indicating she ever consented, but the presence of six police officers and a drug dog -- along with a need to use the restroom as the traffic stop extended into its second hour -- were coercive enough to eliminate the officer's claim about Harris' supposed consent. (All Harris did -- after being cuffed -- was come towards Officer Klare when she was asked to, at which point the search occurred.)

Officer Klare's qualified immunity -- handed to her by an amazingly helpful lower court -- is stripped. This doesn't mean she'll end up losing the lawsuit, but it does mean she'll have to face a jury trial over her alleged Constitutional violations.

The case in its entirety is a brutal reminder that officers -- if so inclined -- can declare anything kept in a vehicle to be indicative of criminal activity. This just adds tools to a long list that already includes air fresheners, trash, a lack of trash, cigarettes in the ashtray, too much luggage, too little luggage, a departure point or destination where people could conceivably be purchasing/selling drugs, etc. If a cop wants to search a vehicle, they'll find a reason to. And that leaves citizens with the option of living life with violated rights or hiring a lawyer to spend the next several years seeking redress.

Filed Under: 6th circuit, drugs, police, probable cause, searches

Court Tells Government It Can't Search A House Just Because A Suspected Drug Dealer Once Parked In Its Driveway

from the an-affidavit-needs-to-be-more-than-a-sketchy-conspiracy-theory dept

The "good faith" exception can be difficult to overcome. Courts seem willing to grant the government this Fourth Amendment workaround even when it seems apparent the government operated in bad faith.

Take, for instance, the FBI's Playpen investigation. On the strength of a single warrant issued in Virginia, the FBI, in essence, searched computers all over the nation (and all over the world) to extract identifying info about the devices' users. Even when courts found the warrant to be invalid because of its blatant disregard for jurisdictional limitations (warrants can only be executed in the district they're issued), they still granted the government "good faith" because the FBI agent had relied on the judge's approval of the warrant to execute the search.

But this was happening while the FBI was petitioning the rest of the government to remove jurisdictional limitations with amendments to Rule 41. So, this warrant was obtained while limits the FBI wanted lifted were in place, but its execution took place before the limits were lifted. Somehow, this was still considered "good faith," even if those overseeing the warrant and investigation knew the FBI planned to violate jurisdictional limitations with the deployment of its PII-scraping malware.

This is only a small part of the federal court system's deference to law enforcement. "Good faith" is supposed to be the exception, not the rule, but hundreds of court rulings on evidence suppression bend over backwards to view law enforcement actions in the best possible light, even as evidence mounts outside the court system American policing is frequently unconstitutional, if not outright corrupt.

When you see a court actually reject the government's "good faith" advances, you can be certain law enforcement has screwed up severely. This case, brought to our attention by the Sixth Circuit Blog, is one of those exceptional strippings of a Fourth Amendment exception.

In this decision [PDF], the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court upholds the lower court's suppression of evidence. The Akron PD engaged in a lengthy drug investigation, but decided to take a few shortcuts to search a residence it vaguely speculated might be related to the drug dealer they were pursuing. The connective tissue of the warrant tore immediately upon judicial inspection. The supposed probable cause for an extensive, broad search of a residence? One time the guy they were surveilling parked his car in the driveway.

The target of the investigation was Camiolo Rocha-Ayon Jr. The rest of this is related to Carl Tucker -- the person challenging the evidence's legal origins -- in ways only clear to the officer requesting the warrant.

Akron Police Department Detective M.V. Gilbride sought a records-and-documents search warrant for the Saxon Avenue house. Citing his training and experience, as well as his observations on February 17, 2017 at 791 Saxon Avenue, Gilbride hypothesized that Rocha-Ayon had traveled to the residence “to collect drug proceeds from TUCKER to pay for [an] upcoming delivery of cocaine.” He further speculated that “a portion of the cocaine seized” from Rocha-Ayon was intended for Tucker, that “at least a portion of the currency recovered” from Rocha-Ayon was obtained from Tucker on February 17, and that Rocha-Ayon had purchased the vacuum sealer and bags on February 17 to conceal the odor of the currency that he was obtaining from Tucker, in the event that he was stopped by a K-9 unit during his return trip to Canal Winchester. Detective Gilbride attempted to bolster his conclusions by noting that the Summit County, Ohio Auditor’s Office listed Tucker as the owner of 791 Saxon Avenue; that Tucker was the account holder for the residence’s electric utilities; that the Akron Police Department had received a service call in October 2016, which suggested that drug dealing was occurring at the house; that, inter alia, Tucker had been convicted in 2000 for possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine ; and that the affidavit had been presented to and approved by “the Akron Police Legal Advisor.”

Having perused Detective Gilbride's speculative affidavit, a local judge granted the Akron PD the permission to seize:

[b]ooks, records, receipts, notes, ledgers[,] and other papers and electronic equipment to store information relating to the possession, transportation, ordering, purchase and distribution of controlled substances, . . . bank statements and records and other items evidencing the obtaining, secreting, transfer and/or concealment and/or expenditure of money; financial proceeds, namely[,] U.S. [c]urrency, photographs, indicia of occupancy; and other fruits, instrumentalities and evidence related to drug trafficking.

So, based on the observation a drug suspect once parked in the driveway of a house owned by someone else, the PD was given free rein to seize everything in the house (if not the house itself, because, you know, "transfer/concealment/expenditure of money").

Then the government obtained a second warrant after finding a utility bill with Tucker's name on it listing an address on Penguin Ave. [Keep in mind, the supposed target of this investigation is still Rocha-Ayon, who once parked in the driveway of the Saxon Ave. residence.] This affidavit copy-pasted the Saxon Ave. speculation and dragged in a completely unrelated service call from the Akron PD to this Penguin Ave. for a domestic dispute involving Tucker. This warrant was approved as well.

The lower court said the Saxon Ave. warrant (the first one obtained) was so bare bones it could not possibly justify a search. And if that warrant was bad, it invalidated the second warrant because that one was largely based on evidence recovered during the first invalid search.

The appeals court agrees. And in doing so, it provides a crystal clear description of a "bare bones" warrant -- the kind that can't be salvaged by "good faith" pleas from the government. It also points out officers utilizing warrants like these terrible ones cannot expect a judge's signature to save them from their own better judgment.

Broadly speaking, an officer’s reliance on a search warrant is not objectively reasonable where “a reasonably well[-]trained officer would have known that the search was illegal despite the magistrate’s authorization.” One such situation is where the affidavit is “bare bones,” i.e., is “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.”

Everything about the Saxon Ave. warrant was garbage. And everything arising from that one -- the Penguin Ave. warrant -- is just more garbage. Here's the PD's bare bones warrant, stripped of its boilerplate and CopSpeak, bleeding to death in the harsh light of judicial examination.

The Saxon Avenue affidavit is a prototypical example of a bare-bones affidavit. Stripped down to its basics, the affidavit asserts that evidence of drug trafficking would be found at the Saxon Avenue residence because (1) a suspected drug dealer once parked in the driveway for a brief period of time, (2) the house’s owner had a 17-year-old conviction for possession with intent to distribute, and (3) a four-month-old, seemingly unverified, apparently anonymous tip suggested that drug dealing may have occurred there.

The court then drags the government's arguments on behalf of its terrible warrant into the same light and lets them soak in their own shame.

The government attempts to resist this conclusion by pointing to additional, allegedly “critical” facts contained in the Saxon Avenue affidavit. Specifically, the government notes that when Rocha-Ayon visited the residence, he was driving a car that he sometimes—but not always— used in connection with drug trafficking; that prior to his arrival on February 17, Rocha-Ayon stopped to purchase household items that are sometimes—but not always—used by drug traffickers; and that two days later, Rocha-Ayon was arrested 135 miles away while transporting cocaine. Based on these additional facts, the government claims that a reasonable law enforcement officer could “easily infer” that “ROCHA-AYON JR. [had] traveled to 791 Saxon Avenue on February 17, 2017 to collect drug proceeds from TUCKER to pay for the upcoming delivery of cocaine…"

If that's the argument the government wants to make, the court will let it. But all it does is show the officer involved in obtaining this warrant is either incredibly poorly trained or an idiot.

Contrary to the government’s assertion, no reasonably well-trained officer could draw such conclusions based upon the particularized facts in the affidavit…

Building another warrant on the skeletal framing of the first bad warrant can't save the second warrant. The court discusses the issue, but points out it doesn't even need to reach a "good faith" decision on the second warrant. It clearly sprung from the first invalid warrant/search and is similarly nothing but unconstitutional garbage. Evidence obtained from both searches is suppressed, leaving the government with its original investigation target -- the one they arrested 135 miles away from the residences searched and in which the suspect parked his car once at only one of the residences.

It's an exception to the rule that's actually supposed to be an exception. Only the worst law enforcement actions are refused the GFE pass for the halls of justice. This isn't a win for the Fourth Amendment. It just one of the few times the government's disregard for civil liberties actually results in suppressed evidence.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 6th circuit, akron, akron police, camiolo rocha-ayon, carl tucker, doj, drug dealer, fbi, mv gilbride, search, warrant

Appeals Court Blocks DEA's Attempt To Bury Lawsuit Settlement Terms

from the you-serve-the-public,-remember? dept

The government wants secrecy just because and the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court isn't having it. The government entity requesting extra secrecy with zero justification is the DEA. And it's likely requesting it so other doctors it's abused won't come asking for similar settlements.

The specifics of the case trace back almost two decades. Two doctors -- both working for the Henderson County Community Hospital in Tennessee -- surrendered their prescription licenses to the DEA while working through their own chemical addictions. One doctor, Tom McDonald, surrendered his all the way back in 1999. The other doctor suing the DEA, John Woods, surrendered his to the DEA in 2012. Both were reinstated a few years later -- McDonald's in 2002 and Woods in 2014. Since that point, they've worked without incident at HCCH. (And prior to that, as well.)

Things changed in 2016 when the DEA showed up and ordered them to stop working until they'd obtained a waiver from the agency. This sudden enforcement effort was prompted by the addition of this clause to US code in 2014. In McDonald's case, there was 12 years of uninterrupted good behavior before the rule changed. It was Woods' more recent reinstatement that may have triggered this burst of regulatory activity. Whatever the case, it meant the two doctors were out of work until the DEA decided their years of service without abusing prescription pads meant something.

The doctors sued and, eventually, a settlement was agreed to. This is what the Sixth Circuit's short, pointed order [PDF] discusses. The DEA wanted the settlement sealed. In support of this argument, it offered non sequiturs. The judges don't like the DEA's quasi-arguments and say as much:

McDonald and Woods attached a copy of this agreement to their motion to dismiss the petition for review. The government in turn moved to keep the agreement under seal. We apply “a strong presumption in favor of openness as to court records.” Shane Grp., Inc. v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mich., 825 F.3d 299, 305 (6th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). The party seeking to seal a record document therefore must “analyze in detail” why the information in that document should stay secret.

The government does not even attempt to do that here. Rather than identify information too sensitive to remain public, the government argues that the agreement does not need to remain so—specifically because it binds only the parties and no rule required the parties to file it. That argument gets exactly backwards our operative presumption, which is that “[t]he public has a strong interest in obtaining the information contained in the court record.”

A case like this -- involving a settlement reached with the government after the DEA was hit with a restraining order against further enforcement -- is definitely in the public interest. The medical field requires a lot of education and ongoing training. Wiping out someone's livelihood because rules were changed years after the fact (at least in McDonald's case) to require DEA paperwork never needed prior to 2014 is the wrong way to handle regulatory matters.

The DEA had years of work history and two voluntary relinquishments as evidence these doctors could be trusted to mete out medical care and prescriptions. But it ignored all of that to do some "letter of the law" busywork. As the court points out, the public interest for those in the medical field is immense. Burying the settlement is burying information crucial to working doctors in similar situations.

That interest is particularly strong where the information pertains to an agency’s interpretation of a regulation. Other doctors would no doubt be interested to know that the DEA does not plan to treat them like it treated McDonald and Woods.

So, some desk jockey at the agency cross-ref'd a couple of databases post-rule change and agents headed out to make medical care worse by depriving hospitals and clinics of medical staff with clean track records (minus some missteps where the medical professionals were responsible enough to take themselves out of the prescription loop until their own addictions were under control). That's the Drug War being compounded by random enforcement, something that springs from a desire to look like you're making a difference but without having to make any real effort. Of course other doctors want to know how the DEA is going to handle stuff that wasn't a problem for decades, especially when they've made every effort to comply with massive amounts of regulation.

The DEA doesn't want people to know how to fight back against bureaucratic busybodying. That's the only reason it wanted the settlement buried. The problem was it couldn't come up with a plausible reason to do so when forced to argue it in court.

Filed Under: 6th circuit, dea, john woods, prescriptions, settlement, tennessee, tom mcdonald