Video footage has just been released showing misconduct by a notorious former sheriff in Clayton County, Georgia. That footage resulted in his conviction for federal civil rights violations, for which he is about to face sentencing. In other words, here’s yet another rare, but great, example of law enforcement being held accountable for civil rights violations in the best possible way – criminal prosecution.
Victor Hill, the former sheriff of Clayton County, Georgia, was charged with seven counts of willfully depriving detainees at the Clayton County Jail of their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable force by law enforcement officers. Specifically, the grand jury who indicted him alleged that Hill caused the seven victims to be strapped into restraint chairs at the jail without any legitimate nonpunitive governmental purpose and for a period exceeding that justified by any legitimate nonpunitive governmental purpose. The grand jury further alleged that these offenses caused physical pain and resulted in bodily injury to the victims.
The trial is already over. On October 26, 2022, a jury convicted Hill on six of the seven counts. As to each of those six guilty counts, the jury further found that the offense caused physical pain and resulted in bodily injury to 6 different victims.
The reason you’re seeing this now is because some of that footage was just released. The released footage shows the restraint of Robert Arnold, who was booked into the jail on February 25, 2020. He was accused of assaulting two women inside a Forest Park grocery store earlier that month.
“What was you doing in Clayton County that day?” Sheriff Hill asked Arnold.
“It’s a democracy, sir. It’s the United States,” Arnold replied.
“No, it’s not. Not in my county,” responded Sheriff Hill.
When Arnold challenged Sheriff Hill on his right “to a fair and speedy trial,” Hill told sheriff’s office employees to bring him a restraint chair.
“Roll that chair ’round here,” ordered Sheriff Hill. “Roll that chair ’round here.”
According to a 2018 policy approved by Hill, restraint chairs “may be used by security staff to provide safe containment of an inmate exhibiting violent or uncontrollable behavior and to prevent self-injury, injury to others or property damage when other control techniques are not effective.”
Prosecutors also introduced surveillance videos from inside the jail that showed Sheriff Hill’s interactions with Glenn Howell on April 27, 2020. Howell, a landscaper, had a dispute with a Clayton County Sheriff’s Office deputy about payment for work that Howell did on the deputy’s property. Sheriff Hill called Howell to try to intervene and the conversation became heated. When Howell tried to contact Hill again, Hill obtained a warrant for Howell’s arrest on a charge of harassing communications. Howell turned himself in a few days later.
In the surveillance video, Howell is pictured sitting on a bench for several minutes. He appears to follow commands as an intake officer searches him and processes his belongings. At one point, prosecutors pointed out, jail staff left Howell alone in the intake area—something attorneys argued they would not have done if Howell was a threat. Footage shows Sheriff Hill arriving about an hour later and speaking to Howell in the hallway. Less than a minute into the conversation, Howell is placed into a waiting restraint chair.
The sheriff’s office restraint chair policy explains that officers should remove someone from the device “when they have determined that there is no longer a threat to self or others, or the inmate must be transported to another facility.” Multiple witnesses, however, testified that when Sheriff Hill ordered someone into a restraint chair, it was understood that person was not to be released for four hours, the maximum allowed under the policy.
On January 31, 2022, Brian Beckett was traveling home from work, driving Northbound on WV Route 19 in Mount Hope, West Virginia. It was around 5:45 p.m. He ended up getting pulled over for speeding by Mount Hope Police Department officer Aaron Shrewsbury. Instead of getting a speeding ticket, or even a warning, Mr. Beckett ended up being pulled out of his car and arrested for obstructing an officer, disorderly conduct, speeding, and reckless driving.
Mr. Beckett was driving home from an industrial work site in a nearby county. He’s not a criminal – not out selling drugs or committing crimes – just trying to drive down the road. He had a dash camera recording, which appears to show that he was driving safely. It doesn’t indicate his speed, but that’s not what this video is about. Officer Shrewsbury would subsequently swear under oath in his criminal complaint affidavit, seeking court authorization for Mr. Beckett’s arrest, that not only did he radar Mr. Beckett speeding, but that “as I was catching up to the vehicle, I noticed the vehicle weaving through traffic recklessly” but that “I was able to pull behind the vehicle and get it stopped….” Take a look at the dash cam footage from Mr. Beckett’s car just prior to the traffic stop, and see if that statement appears to you to be true.
Mr. Beckett used his personal cell phone to record his interaction with Officer Shrewsbury. Despite the officer stopping the video and attempting to delete the recording from Mr. Beckett’s phone, the officer couldn’t access it. During arrest processing, the officer was placing the phone in front of Mr. Beckett’s face in order to attempt to unlock the phone using facial recognition, to no avail. So he was unable to delete this footage, which shows the encounter, what led to Mr. Beckett’s arrest, and the fact that Officer Shrewsbury stopped the recording.
So Officer Shrewsbury immediately arrested Mr. Beckett for obstruction for not rolling his window down all the way. He never bothered to ask Mr. Beckett for his license, registration, proof of insurance, or even his name. He just demanded that the window be rolled down all the way, not providing a reason – just because he demanded it. Then immediately removed him from the car and arrested him. The officer never even identified himself, the reason he pulled him over, or explained any legitimate reason he required the window rolled down.
In the subsequent criminal complaint, no allegation was made or charged that it is illegal in West Virginia to not roll one’s window down completely during a traffic stop. He was merely charged with obstruction. Under West Virginia’s obstruction statute, the plain language of the statute establishes that a person is guilty of obstruction when he, “by threats, menaces, acts or otherwise forcibly or illegally hinders or obstructs or attempts to hinder or obstruct a law-enforcement officer, probation officer or parole officer acting in his or her official capacity.” The Fourth Circuit recently examined the statute:
As West Virginia’s high court has “succinct[ly]” explained, to secure a conviction under section 61-5-17(a), the State must show “forcible or illegal conduct that interferes with a police officer’s discharge of official duties.” State v. Davis, 229 W.Va. 695, 735 S.E.2d 570, 573 (2012) (quoting State v. Carney, 222 W.Va. 152, 663 S.E.2d 606, 611 (2008) ). Because conduct can obstruct an officer if it is either forcible or illegal, a person may be guilty of obstruction “whether or not force be actually present.” Johnson , 59 S.E.2d at 487. However, where “force is not involved to effect an obstruction,” the resulting obstruction itself is insufficient to establish the illegality required by section 61-5-17. Carney , 663 S.E.2d at 611. That is, when force is not used, obstruction lies only where an illegal act is performed. This is because “lawful conduct is not sufficient to establish the statutory offense.” Id.
Of particular relevance to our inquiry here, West Virginia courts have held that “when done in an orderly manner, merely questioning or remonstrating with an officer while he or she is performing his or her duty, does not ordinarily constitute the offense of obstructing an officer.” State v. Srnsky, 213 W.Va. 412, 582 S.E.2d 859, 867 (2003) (quoting State ex rel. Wilmoth v. Gustke, 179 W.Va. 771, 373 S.E.2d 484, 486 (W. Va. 1988)).
Hupp v. State Trooper Seth Cook, 931 F.3d 307 (4th Cir. 2019).
At no point did Mr. Beckett refuse to participate in the traffic stop being conducted by Officer Shrewsbury. He rolled the window down partially. He was clearly visible through the non-tinted glass, his hands were visible and non-threatening; he hadn’t refused to provide his license, registration and proof of insurance. He hadn’t refused to identify himself, or to do any act he was required by law to perform. Moreover, I’m aware of no State law, nor did Officer Shrewsbury identify one in the charging documents, requiring motorists who are subjected to traffic stops in West Virginia to roll their windows completely down as a matter of routine.
It appears that this arrest occurred in the absence of probable cause, and therefore in violation of the Fourth Amendment. But it didn’t stop there.
Officer Shrewsbury also alleged that, after pulling Mr. Beckett from the vehicle and placing him in handcuffs, while walking Mr. Beckett to the police cruiser, that Mr. Beckett remarked that “this was bullshit.” Officer Shrewsbury wrote in his criminal complaint affidavit that, “I then informed Mr. Beckett to stop cussing and placed him inside my vehicle.”
Under West Virginia’s disorderly conduct statute, no probable cause could exist for a warrantless arrest for disorderly conduct by virtue of saying, “this was bullshit.” First of all, if that were possible, such would be a First Amendment violation, as the West Virginia Supreme Court warned law enforcement back ini 1988:
“The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”
State ex rel. Wilmoth v. Gustke, 179 W.Va. 771, 773-74 373 S.E.2d 484, 486-87 (1988).
First Amendment issues aside, merely using bad language in the presence of a supposedly-sensitive police officer, cannot violate West Virginia’s disorderly conduct statute. Not that I expect law enforcement to actually learn the law, but there is a 2015 West Virginia Supreme Court case directly on point. In Maston v. Wagner, 781 S.E.2d 936 (W. Va. 2015), the West Virginia Supreme Court held specifically that the WV disorderly conduct statute, while potentially criminalizing profane language under some circumstances, in public and in front of other people who complain, does not criminalize profane language used by a citizen during their interaction with law enforcement.
If that’s not enough, the U.S. Supreme Court has sent a clear message through its rulings, such as in Cohen v. California (1971) and Lewis v. City of New Orleans (1974) that free speech, however offensive or controversial to sensitive virgin-eared police officers, is afforded a high level of protection.
Officer Shrewsbury didn’t even allege in his criminal complaint affidavit that a third party had overheard Mr. Beckett’s alleged use of the word bullshit, or complained about it. Nevertheless, the local magistrate signed off on it, approving it as probable cause under West Virginia law. Which is a disgrace, given the fact that the State Supreme Court clearly warned otherwise about seven years earlier.
Also a disgrace to our Constitution, is the fact that these charges are still pending against Mr. Beckett. The individual police officers like this you see in these videos never do it alone. Behind the scenes are politicians and prosecutors.
In fact, the politicians and prosecutors behind the scenes of this Officer Aaron Shrewsbury should explain why this police officer is allowed to victimize citizens in the first place, given the fact that he had previously lost his certification to be a police officer in West Virginia while working at the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office for “Dishonesty – willful falsification of information.” No, unfortunately I’m not making that up. That’s right – the same police officer who filed false and incorrect charges against Mr. Beckett, has somehow in the past managed to screw up his job so badly that he lost his certification to be a police officer, for lying as a police officer. Truly unbelievable. But also not unbelievable.
Also not surprisingly, other complaints have surfaced about Officer Shrewbury. This one may sound familiar. August 15, 2021, a few months before Mr. Beckett’s incident, a 20 year old kid from Ohio was driving through this same area, and ends up getting arrested by Officer Shrewsbury for misdemeanor possession of marijuana. And listen to this, the kid says, according to Shrewsbury’s report, “this is fucking bullshit.” That incident ended in Officer Shrewsbury punching that kid in the face, and then placing him handcuffed, in the back of a police cruiser, with a blood covered face and broken jaw, which required surgery to fix.
The kid was finally able to get help from another police officer at the scene. He said hey, I need help. When asked why he needed help, the kid said, “my tooth is in my lap.” The officer then looked at him and saw a large amount of blood coming from his face and on his shirt. That officer then promptly took the kid to the hospital, which began a long period of medical treatment to fix the damage caused by Officer Shrewsbury.
More about this incident shortly, but the question begs, why do the politicians and prosecutors turn this man loose on the public. You can see from this video the way in which he appears to hold regular citizens in contempt, treating them like garbage to be discarded.
If you have any information about Officer Shrewsbury, who as far as I know is still out there interacting with the public, please reach out.
In my last video I featured the case of a Michigan man currently rotting in a West Virginia jail for the high crime of traveling through West Virginia with a few hemp plants, possibly marijuana, I don’t know. A video of him refusing to consent to police entering his RV was shown in a Youtube video by the Real News Network, highlighting the actions of the Milton Police Department (which is in Cabell County, WV), including the fact that they take in a huge amount of fines as a result of their policing, despite having only around 2,500 residents. This begs the question, first of all, in general, do police need a warrant to enter, search, seize, etc., an RV or motorhome? Or is it just like regular automobiles, where only probable cause is required, rather than a warrant? Here’s the video, and below I’ll post an explanation of the applicable law:
Do police need a warrant to search an RV?
The Fourth Amendment generally requires the police to obtain a warrant before conducting a search. There is a well-established exception to this requirement, however, for automobile searches. See, e.g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). Under this exception, “[i]f a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment thus permits police to search the vehicle without more.” Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 940, 116 S.Ct. 2485, 135 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1996). Thus, once police have probable cause, they may search “every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search.” Id.
In California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 390, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985), the Supreme Court held that a mobile home, on the facts presented, was more characteristic of an automobile than a fixed residence.
The Court did look to the nature of the location where the vehicle was discovered, but only to ascertain whether the vehicle itself was, in an ontological sense, in use as a “movable vessel” or as a fixed residence. Hence, the Court’s reference to a “place not regularly used for residential purposes,” Carney, 471 U.S. at 392, 105 S.Ct. 2066 — from which the police would be less likely to infer that the object was residential in nature — served as a guidepost to determine, whether the object encountered was a vehicle or a residence.
Summed up: was the RV on a public road, or situated such that it is reasonable to conclude that the RV was not being used as a residence?
1. Is the vehicle readily mobile? Absent an immediate search and seizure, could it have quickly been moved beyond reach of the police? Was the vehicle licensed “to operate on public streets” and subject to inspection as a motor vehicle?
2. Was the vehicle so situated that an objective observer would conclude that it was eing used not as a residence, but as a vehicle?
3. The search still must be reasonable under the circumstances. Was the search that occurred otherwise reasonable as would have been approved by a neutral judge had the officer applied for a search warrant?
If the vehicle can be categorized somewhere within the realm of a residence, rather than an automobile, then a warrant may be required. As with many search and seizure issues, the result will turn on the particular facts of each case. Or they should anyways…..
Today we filed suit in the case of the “Outlaw Barber,” Winerd “Les” Jenkins, a 73 year old combat veteran and former 27-year Deputy U.S. Marshall, who was arrested for refusing to close his barbershop during the Governor’s lockdown in April of 2020. We filed a Section 1983 civil rights lawsuit in federal court, in the Northern District of West Virginia.
When Winerd “Les” Jenkins first became a barber, Neil Armstrong hadn’t yet set foot on the moon. For over five decades, Jenkins has made a living with his scissors and razor. For the past decade, he’s worked his craft from a storefront in Inwood, West Virginia. At Les’ Place Traditional Barber Shop, you can get a regular men’s haircut for $16 and a shave for $14—but come prepared to pay the old-fashioned way: in cash.
His insistence on “cash only” isn’t the only thing that’s old-school about Jenkins. He lives with his wife of 52 years on a small farm, where the couple raises rescued animals. He believes in paying his bills on time. He doesn’t use the internet, email, or text messaging. And he’s skeptical that his profession can become illegal overnight merely on the governor’s say-so.
He was ultimately arrested by two deputies from the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office, who transported Mr. Jenkins for incarceration and charged him with “obstructing” an officer. The prosecuting attorney’s office of that county then aggressively prosecuted Mr. Jenkins for the better part of a year, until the judge finally dismissed the charge in January of 2021, finding that it would be a violation of Mr. Jenkins’s constitutional rights to prosecute him for violating the governor’s executive order.
We asserted two separate violations of Mr. Jenkins’ Fourth Amendment rights (unreasonable search and seizure and false arrest), as well as a violation of Mr. Jenkins’ First Amendment rights. It’s already been assigned a case number. Read it for yourself:
This is a video about an encounter at the home of my client, Matt, in March of 2019, which occurred in Charmco, West Virginia, which is in Greenbrier County. It shows police arriving at his home to arrest a friend who was visiting him, who happened to have an outstanding warrant.
Matt didn’t want to be involved one way or the other. He was afraid, so he turned on his phone and began recording and he laid down. He didn’t want to get shot. But they forced him to crawl to the door on his hands and knees. When he got there, he got head-stomped by the first officer.
They didn’t know he was recording. The second officer, a West Virginia State Police trooper, noticed the phone filming, and he covered it with his hands, and turned the phone off. The officers then deleted the video footage. But it was recovered.
Kamala Harris is now the VP candidate. You may have heard her bring up the topic of systematic inequality, or injustice. Look no further than her achievements as a career prosecutor, and many others like her across the nation, to find evidence that those things indeed exist. They really do.
Harris was a district attorney in San Fransisco from 2004 to 2011. She stood out there by being tough on crime in the form of prosecuting truant school children, sending letters to San Fransisco parents each year, threatening them with citations. She sponsored a 2010 law making it a misdemeanor crime for parents whose children miss 10 percent of a school year without an excuse the State deemed acceptable. She opposed efforts to reduce mandatory minimum prison sentences. She opposed the effort to legalize marijuana in California.
She served California Attorney General from 2011 to 2017, where at least 1,560 people were incarcerated for marijuana related offenses in those years. She fought against new DNA testing in order to determine whether death row inmate, Kevin Cooper, who many believed had been wrongfully convicted. If there’s any chance at all that he is actually innocent, what is the harm in checking the DNA? According to the New York Times, over 600 criminal cases had to be dismissed over a corrupt laboratory technician who had been accused of “intentionally sabotaging” results in criminal prosecutions. Harris and her prosecutors tried to withhold this evidence from defense lawyers – and got caught.
In 2014, she declined to take a position on a ballot initiative to reduce certain low-level felonies to misdemeanors and laughed at a reporter who asked if she would support the legalization of marijuana.
That case is not an outlier. Ms. Harris also fought to keep Daniel Larsen in prison on a 28-year-to-life sentence for possession of a concealed weapon even though his trial lawyer was incompetent and there was compelling evidence of his innocence. Relying on a technicality again, Ms. Harris argued that Mr. Larsen failed to raise his legal arguments in a timely fashion. (This time, she lost.)
She also defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial. She relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office. And then there’s Kevin Cooper, the death row inmate whose trial was infected by racism and corruption. He sought advanced DNA testing to prove his innocence, but Ms. Harris opposed it. (After The New York Times’s exposé of the case went viral, she reversed her position.)
In “The Truths We Hold,” Ms. Harris’srecently published memoir, she writes: “America has a deep and dark history of people using the power of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice.” She ironically claims in the book, “I know this history well — of innocent men framed, of charges brought against people without sufficient evidence, of prosecutors hiding information that would exonerate defendants, of the disproportionate application of the law.”
Indeed, I have also seen it first hand. The fact is that we have over-criminalized everything in this country. And who has it harmed the most? As I wrote about back in January, it didn’t start out this way. The Constitution was initially ratified in 1788. By 1790, we had only 30 federal crimes in existence, which consisted of the basics: treason, piracy, counterfeiting, murder, and so on. At that time, there was no concept in our law of the possession of an object being illegal in and of itself. That was imported from Sharia Law and Far-East authoritarian regimes, such as you see in the laws of Singapore.
The first modern drug law in the western world was in England in 1868. The first law against drug possession in the U.S. wasn’t until 1875, from San Francisco, where it was attempted to stop the Chinese immigrants from enjoying their “opium dens.” Politicians will be politicians, and now as of 2015, we now have over 5,000 federal crimes on the books – up quite a ways from the original 30 in the America as created by our founding fathers. In total, that’s 27,000 pages of descriptions of federal crimes in the U.S. code books. Although the U.S. consists of only about 5% of the world population, we incarcerate around 25% of the world’s prisoners. 40% of those are Black Americans. See The Overcriminalization of America, Charles G. Koch and Mark V. Holden, January 7, 2015.
Our laws in America derived from English common law. Courts today still turn to the old English common law to resolve some questions of law. It might surprise you to learn that the prosecution of crimes in our mother country was originally a private matter, rather than public. There was no real police force anywhere. Nor an army of prosecutors. The first real police force was created in 1829, and then that was only in London. The criminal justice system itself, was mostly privately operated and funded. So there was no such thing as a police force. And there was no such thing as career prosecutors, such as Kamala Harris.
Under English law, any Englishman could prosecute any crime. In practice, the prosecutor was usually the victim. It was up to him to file charges with the local magistrate, present evidence to the grand jury, and, if the grand jury found a true bill, provide evidence for the trial.
In some ways, their system for criminal prosecution was similar to our system of civil prosecution. Under both, it is the victim who ordinarily initiates and controls the process by which the offender is brought to justice. There is, however, at least one major difference between the two systems. If the victim of a tort succeeds in winning his case, the tortfeasor is required to pay him damages. If the victim of a crime won his case, the criminal was hanged, transported, or possibly pardoned. The damage payment in civil law provides the victim with an incentive to sue. There seems to be no corresponding incentive under the 18th century system of private criminal prosecution.
Possession crimes were used against Black Americans, throughout the Jim Crow era, by depriving them of the right to possess firearms.
The anxiety about gun control, i.e., the regulation of gun possession, arises from this tension, this uncertainty amongthose who once clearly identified themselves with the policers in their effort to control undesirables.
Privileged members of thepolitical community are appalled to find themselves treated bythe law, if not necessarily by its enforcers, as presumptively dangerous, and therefore as vagrants, felons, aliens, and “negroes.” Pointing to the Second Amendment, they challenge the state’s claim to original ownership of guns as dangerous instruments,with possession to be delegated to those deemed worthy. Men of “good moral character” balk at the requirement that they demonstrate their moral fitness to a state official.
They are, in short, experiencing the very sense of powerlessness so familiar to the traditional objects of police control. Now, they too are the outsiders who find themselves confronted with the arbitrary discretion of a superior power, the state. And this sense of alienation only grows when these state-defined sources of danger realize that state officials are exempt from the general prohibition of possession.
And again, if you want to look at systematic injustice and inequality, look no further than those individuals who have signed their names to the documents charging the people imprisoned across the county, as well as the arguments made in the courtroom to put them there. Somewhere along the way, we decided to over-criminalize America, to the point at which the Government tells us what plants, or even ideas, we can, or cannot possess. Regarding Harris’ statement in her book about the danger of prosecutors, the lady doth protest too much, methinks….
Check out this new case. Police officer impersonation incident by a WV Division of Corrections CO / Parole officer. We met with investigators already, who were extremely concerned about what they saw here….
This is the current state of open-carry law in West Virginia (in my opinion), and it’s tricky relationship with a police officer’s right to do a “Terry” frisk under certain instances, as of February of 2019. Note: government lawyers do, and will, disagree with my analysis. But mine’s supported by the law. However, proceed at your own risk, and the law may change after I write this, especially since litigation is ongoing….
1. If you’re in a vehicle, and an officer has a suspicion you may be armed, or sees that you’re open-carrying, you may be frisked and temporarily disarmed;
2. If you’re not in a vehicle subject to a traffic stop, a police officer must have some reasonable articulable suspicion that you are engaged in criminal activity in order to seize and disarm you. Open-carrying a firearm alone is not justifiable suspicion to perform an investigative detention, unless the officer has information that you are a prohibited person unable to possess a firearm.
Many of you have probably seen the recent lawsuit I’ve been involved with in the Michael Walker v. Putnam County case where we sued over the violation of Mr. Walker’s right to open carry a firearm in West Virginia.
The defense from the government so far is that they are allowed to perform what’s called a “Terry” stop and frisk when they see someone with a gun. Just to clarify the law, since they obviously misunderstood then, and continue to misunderstand.
A person’s Fourth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution to be free from unreasonable search and seizure are triggered whenever a “seizure” occurs.
When does a seizure occur?
A person is “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment if, “ ‘in view of all [of] the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” United States v. Gray, 883 F.2d 320, 322 (4th Cir.1989) (quotingUnited States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980)). Specific factors to consider in determining whether a reasonable person would feel free to leave include: (i) the number of police officers present at the scene; (ii) whether the police officers were in uniform; (iii) whether the police officers displayed their weapons; (iv) whether they “touched the defendant or made any attempt to physically block his departure or restrain his movement”; (v) “the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer’s request might be compelled”; (vi) whether the officers informed the defendant that they suspected him of “illegal activity rather than treating the encounter as ‘routine’ in nature”; and (vii) “whether, if the officer requested from the defendant … some form of official identification, the officer promptly returned it.” Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870; Gray, 883 F.2d at 322–23.
The Fourth Circuit has noted that though not dispositive, “the retention of a citizen’s identification or other personal property or effects is highly material under the totality of the circumstances analysis.” United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531, 538 (2013) (citing Weaver, 282 F.3d at 310 (emphasis added)). In Black, the Court found that, “[i]t is clear that when Officer Zastrow expressly told Black he could not leave, Black was already seized for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.” Black at 538 (emphasis original).
When can a “seizure” be legal as a justified “Terry” Stop and Frisk under Terry v. Ohio?
Federal case law has long been clear that the police officers cannot perform a “Terry stop” of a person lawfully open-carrying a firearm for the purposes of checking his ID and running a background check to determine whether the person is a prohibited person, or to otherwise disarm him, without more.Although brief encounters between police and citizens require no objective justification, United States v. Weaver, 282 F.3d 302, 309 (4th Cir. 2002), it is clearly established that an investigatory detention of a citizen by an officer must be supported by reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual is engaged in criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (1968).
To be lawful, a Terry stop “must be supported at least by a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person seized is engaged in criminal activity.” Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 440, 100 S. Ct. 2752 (1980).The level of suspicion must be a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.” United States v. Griffin, 589 F.3d 148, 152 (4th Cir. 2009).As such, “the officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868. Moreover, the Fourth Circuit has already made it very clear that in states where open carry is legal, such as West Virginia, if officers have no individualized information that a particular individual who is lawfully open-carrying is a prohibited person, the mere exercise of their rights by open-carrying “cannot justify an investigatory detention.”Indeed, the Court held that “Permitting such a justification would eviscerate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed individuals in those states.” United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531, 540 (2013) (quotingUnited States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1559 (10th Cir. 1993)).
Occupants of a vehicle subject to a lawful traffic stop are a different analysis altogether, and are more likely to be subject to a Terry seizure. An officer who makes a lawful traffic stop and who has a reasonable suspicion that one of the automobile’s occupants is armed may frisk that individual for the officer’s protection and the safety of everyone on the scene. Robinson at 696 (2017 case) (citingPennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 112, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977).
The importance of the Black case to open-carry rights in our circuit:
In 2013, Judge Gregory of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, whom I have had the honor of appearing in front of, issued an opinion in the case of United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531, 540 (2013), which is central to the rights of West Virginians to open carry firearms. Although that case was from North Carolina, it applies equally here. In his opinion, he admonished law enforcement for regularly abusing the Terry Stop procedure to violate the rights of lawful gun owners:
At least four times in 2011, we admonished against the Government’s misuse of innocent facts as indicia of suspicious activity. See United States v. Powell, 666 F.3d 180 (4th Cir.2011); Massenburg, 654 F.3d 480;United States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d 498 (4th Cir.2011); and United States v. Foster, 634 F.3d 243 (4th Cir.2011). Although factors “susceptible of innocent explanation,” when taken together, may “form a particularized and objective basis” for reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop, United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 277–78, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002), this is not such a case. Instead, we encounter yet another situation where the Government attempts to meet its Terry burden by patching together a set of innocent, suspicion-free facts, which cannot rationally be relied on to establish reasonable suspicion.
…
Second, Gates’ prior arrest history cannot be a logical basis for a reasonable, particularized suspicion as to Black. Without more, Gates’ prior arrest history in itself is insufficient to support reasonable suspicion as to Gates, much less Black. See Powell, 666 F.3d at 188 (“[A] prior criminal record is not, standing alone, sufficient to create reasonable suspicion.” (citation omitted)). Moreover, we “ha[ve] repeatedly emphasized that to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, a search ordinarily must be based on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.” DesRoches v. Caprio, 156 F.3d 571, 574 (4th Cir.1998) (quotation marks and alterations omitted) (emphasis added). In other words, the suspicious facts must be specific and particular to the individual seized. Exceptions to the individualized suspicion requirement “have been upheld only in ‘certain limited circumstances,’ where the search is justified by ‘special needs’ ”—that is, concerns other than crime detection—and must be justified by balancing the individual’s privacy expectations against the government interests. Id. (quoting Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 308, 313, 117 S.Ct. 1295, 137 L.Ed.2d 513 (1997)); see Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 665–66, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989). Here, the Government has not identified any substantial interests that override Black’s interest in privacy or that suppress the normal requirement of individualized suspicion.
Third, it is undisputed that under the laws of North Carolina, which permit its residents to openly carry firearms, see generally N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 14–415.10 to 14– 415.23, Troupe’s gun was legally possessed and displayed. The Government contends that because other laws prevent convicted felons from possessing guns, the officers could not know whether Troupe was lawfully in possession of the gun until they performed a records check. Additionally, the Government avers it would be “foolhardy” for the officers to “go about their business while allowing a stranger in their midst to possess a firearm.” We are not persuaded.
Being a felon in possession of a firearm is not the default status. More importantly, where a state permits individuals to openly carry firearms, the exercise of this right, without more, cannot justify an investigatory detention. Permitting such a justification would eviscerate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed individuals in those states. United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1559 (10th Cir.1993) (emphasis added). Here, Troupe’s lawful display of his lawfully possessed firearm cannot be the justification for Troupe’s detention. See St. John v. McColley, 653 F.Supp.2d 1155, 1161 (D.N.M.2009) (finding no reasonable suspicion where the plaintiff arrived at a movie theater openly carrying a holstered handgun, an act which is legal in the State of New Mexico.) That the officer had never seen anyone in this particular division openly carry a weapon also fails to justify reasonable suspicion. From our understanding of the laws of North Carolina, its laws apply uniformly and without exception in every single division, and every part of the state. Thus, the officer’s observation is irrational and fails to give rise to reasonable suspicion. To hold otherwise would be to give the judicial imprimatur to the dichotomy in the intrusion of constitutional protections.
The Rosa O’Neal Fourth Amendment case against Braxton County, and Deputy Bryce Scarbro. This is an interesting case because it brings up what is commonly referred to as a “Franks Claim.”
In West Virginia, unless a warrantless arrest is made, that means that a police officer usually wrote out a “Criminal Complaint,” and submitted it to a magistrate for their approval. This is basically an affidavit for an arrest warrant. If the arrest was “wrongful,” you can’t sue the magistrate because they have absolute immunity. You can only sue the police officer who submitted the document to the magistrate.
If the magistrate approved it, then there is basically a presumption that there was probable cause, and therefore not a wrongful arrest. That leaves you in the position of proving that the officer who wrote the arrest warrant application included false statements, or material omissions, and that they did so with a certain degree of incompetency, or intentionally.
So generally, to sue for Wrongful Arrest in West Virginia:
If there was no arrest warrant, you can just prove there was no probable cause;
If there was an arrest warrant (Criminal Complaint signed by a magistrate), then you are required to show false or misleading information was included in the affidavit to the magistrate which, had it been known to the magistrate, probably would not have been signed because there would have been no probable cause.
We are dealing with option No. 2, which isn’t easy. So, did the police officer mislead the magistrate, and was it just a stupid or reasonable mistake, or was it really incompetent and/or done maliciously or purposefully?
Rosa O’Neal was a 66 year old lady who had never been in trouble in her life, who was physically arrested for allegedly lying to a deputy about two fairly innocuous facts. She spent 15 hours in jail, and then was released onto the side of the road to hitchhike home.
I took the deputy’s deposition, and he claimed that it is always illegal to lie to a deputy in West Virginia, and because he’s Mr. Truth and Justice, and had her arrested. That’s just not true. It’s only illegal to lie to a deputy if it pertains to a material topic for an official felony investigation. It’s not illegal to lie about a misdemeanor investigation, per se. And it’s not illegal to lie about something irrelevant; or about something that’s not part of an investigation….
Lies to a police officer in West Virginia? Depends on what the officer is investigating:
Felony Investigation: A person who, with intent to impede or obstruct a law-enforcement officer in the conduct of an investigation of a felony offense, knowingly and willfully makes a materially false statement is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than $25 nor more than $200, or confined in jail for five days, or both fined and confined. The provisions of this section do not apply to statements made by a spouse, parent, stepparent, grandparent, sibling, half sibling, child, stepchild or grandchild, whether related by blood or marriage, of the person under investigation. Statements made by the person under investigation may not be used as the basis for prosecution under this subsection. For purposes of this subsection, “law-enforcement officer“ does not include a watchman, a member of the West Virginia State Police or college security personnel who is not a certified law-enforcement officer.
Misdemeanor Investigation: A person who by threats, menaces, acts or otherwise forcibly or illegally hinders or obstructs or attempts to hinder or obstruct a law-enforcement officer, probation officer or parole officer acting in his or her official capacity is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than $50 nor more than $500 or confined in jail not more than one year, or both fined and confined.
So option 2 is your basic obstruction. It actually doesn’t say anything about lying.
Anyways, discovery was completed in the O’Neal case. Depositions were taken, and everything has been submitted to the federal judge, who will decide whether the evidence is sufficient to present to a jury…..
Here is a copy of the petition recently filed with the South Carolina Supreme Court, in an attempt by the South Carolina Actual Innocence Project to reverse the murder conviction of James McClurkin. This will actually be the FIRST TIME an appellate court has ever examined the facts, or even been presented with the facts, surrounding James’ conviction.
If the petition is granted, and James’ conviction is reversed, it will re-set the statute of limitations on many of his civil claims. If not, the civil claims will face substantial hurdles. Let’s hope that for once, the criminal justice system in South Carolina does right by Mr. McClurkin.
