It’s been a while since I last posted. There is a good reason for that. The reason is that unfortunately, my primary profession is the practice of law rather than writing. I have been busier than ever before in the last month or so. For one I had a healthy baby daughter two weeks ago, and she surprisingly loves to sleep through the night, so she is so far no trouble at all (I know, knock on wood). Additionally, I have been working on a number of high profile cases, some of which you may be reading about in the media in upcoming days.
One of my cases is already in the news, and unfortunately for my ego I suppose, the only way you would know that I was involved in it would be to read the Complaint, or to read this, since the media has thusfar deprived me of any credit whatsoever. Anyways, myself and attorney Michael Clifford of Charleston (see Leavitt case), filed a lawsuit against the Parkersburg Police Department, as well as the individual officers involved, last week in federal court. This is a 1983 action for wrongful arrest, excessive force, etc.
There will be a better and more detailed article coming out on this case, after which I will post a link to it here. The facts are egregious, and involve the new classification of homophobic crimes as hate crimes. For now, here is the original story from the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, which interestingly multiplied automatically when it was picked up by the AP.
If anyone else knows someone, or has themselves been arrested,harassed or discriminated against by the Parkersburg Police Department due to their sexual orientation, please let me know, preferably as soon as possible.
As I said, this is not the only high profile case I have been working on. There is going to be another police liability case filed here in the next week or so, this time in Southern West Virginia, and there is an additional case involving white collar fraud I have been spending most of my available time on which is extremely interesting and which I will detail when the time is right. So don’t hold it against me if I cannot find time to post as often as I used to.
– John H. Bryan, West Virginia Attorney.