MotorhomeDiaries.Com back in Jones County for a trial on May charges
Folks may recall the MotorhomeDiaries.com folks who were illegally arrested down in Jones County while committing the crime of passing through town without an adequate explanation. I posted about one of my hot buttons– the notion that police could arrest folks on a disorderly conduct charge consisting of saying “the cop gave an illegal order, the civilian didn’t follow it, so the civilian got arrested.” My posts about them were here and here. In any event, my daughter called from New Orleans to say that something called MotorhomeDiaries.Com was parked in front of her apartment in the Garden District in New Orleans (taking up her usual space. She wondered if they were hanging out at the Columns) and I checked out their site and learned that they’d been to court in Jones County on those charges from back in May.
If I had to be in Jones County, I’d probably hot-foot down to New Orleans ASAP as soon as court was done. Particularly if, in my last (and probably only) visit down there, I got to visit their jail.
In case they don’t know, I’ll point out to the MotoromeDiaries.Com folks what Steve Forbert (a hometown boy) had to say about Laurel.
In any event, the accounts of their return to Jones County for the Justice Court trial begin here (I would love more detail about the trial itself). They were offered a deal pretrial: We’ll drop the charges if you end it here and now. The MotorhomeDiaries.com folks answered: No, that wouldn’t bring you to account for your illegal behavior. And so they went to trial. The trial occurred, and the judge took it under advisement.
I’m going to add here: Has anyone reading this blog ever heard of a criminal case being taken under advisement?
The MotorhomeDiaries.com accounts of the proceedings in Jones County are not particularly enlightening. I’m going to write one of the folks involved and see if we can learn a little something more about what went on.
“Justice Court.” Is there a greater oxymoron in the legal lexicon?
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Mississippi.”
Is it the same judge who presided over the case in ‘My Cousin Vinny?’
Could be a reasonable explanation.
Not.
The Motorhomediaries crew was on the Paul Gallo show on September 4th. Quite an internal conflict for Gallo between his “law and order” module and his “keep government out of our lives” module. Appears that between the first time he had one of the crew on right after the incident and September 4, he swung a bit from one to the other (from the right to the left, or from one right-wing precipice to another is still unclear to me) due, according to one of the crew to “Part of this was due to us communicating the names of a couple of our lawyers whom were known by Gallo and also the fact that Forest Thigpen, the president of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, stopped by the studio (where he also has a show) and told Gallo “These guys are good guys.” Thigpen also was kind enough to buy us breakfast after the interview, bring us by his office to meet the rest of his team and sit down with me for an interview,” so presumably if these were three guys who knew nobody in Mississippi and were represented by the ACLU, there would still be no question that the police behavior was beyond reproach.
In any case, it was interesting to hear this story directly from the motorhomediaries people.
While I’m sympathetic to these young men, I did notice from their prior description of the incident something which strikes me as a logical fallacy. I’m paraphrasing, but they refuted a statement by police that one of them was acting aggressively by describing the person allegedly acting aggressively as non-violent.
After having read that this morning, I was reminded of it while reading an account of Serena Williams’s meltdown at the U.S. Open. This was Serena Williams’s response to an accusation from a line judge that Williams had threatened her: “Well, I’ve never been in a fight in my whole life, so I don’t know why she would have felt threatened.”
At worst, it is a non sequitur; at best, it is asking someone to make a subjective judgment of one’s intent based on facts that person cannot have.
Acting aggressively, in the absence of an express threat such as words or pointing a weapon, seems to me to be something extremely subjective and vague. I’m not saying that anyone acted aggressively, and I’m certainly not trying to compare this guy to Serena Williams. I think Serena Williams was acting aggressively enough to allow a point deduction, and this guy probably was not acting aggressively enough to warrant arrest. I just find a reference to one’s generally non-violent nature as unpersuasive.
I was in the Jones County Justice Court for the trial — in fact I was admitted pro hac vice as one of the defense attorneys. Dale Danks and Michael Cory, Jr. of Jackson appeared as well. We were all volunteer counsel.
One of the reasons the judge took the matter under advisement is that we raised and argued a motion to suppress evidence on the theory that the stop was illegal and the subsequent arrests were the product of that 4th Amemdment violation. [I can hear the incredulous lawyers out there already: "A motion to suppress in Justice Court???" -- echoing Harvey in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: "Rules"? Rules in a knife fight?"] We were also challenging the application of the disorderly conduct/resisting arrest statute as well as the law proscribing the possession of beer in a dry county.
The deputy who initiated the stop said he could not read a temporary out of state license tag from his position athwart I-59 in an emergency turn area. He followed but did not chose to run the plate via his dispatcher because he could not read it clearly. After he stopped the MH he was able to read the handwritten New Hampshire tag and nothing on the face of it seemed to be amiss. He ordered the driver out of the car before checking the validity of the tag via radio or computer — and from the safety of his patrol SUV. At this point the investigation “diverged” with questions about drugs, etc. [These of course being a prelude to a request for a consensual search. But no consent was forthcoming] The driver told the deputy that he had two handguns inside, but both were disassembled and in locked containers with ammunition stored in a separate locked container. In MS it is not against the law to carry such weapons in a motor vehicle. The deputy said he noticed movement inside the MH and asked the driver about other occupants. He said there were two and the deputy ordered them out and directed them to stand in designated areas separated from one another. One of the guys was recording the incident with a digital video camera and the first deputy did not tell him to stop but said he warned him not to move closer than the rear end of the patrol SUV. He also said with a straight face that he was aware of guns being disguised as video cameras and that made him uneasy — but not enough to demand that the guy show him the camera or hand it over for inspection or to turn away while he continued to question the driver. When a second deputy arrived the camera guy was arrested for [they say] refusing to obey the police order to stay in one place. By this time a third deputy had arrived and after the camera guy was cuffed and put in a police car, the first deputy (about 6 ft. 230 lbs) and the second deputy (over six feet and weighing in at about 260 lbs)both fully armed approached the second passenger and asked for his ID. It was claimed that as he was being approached by these two intimidating figures he took an “aggressive stance” (hands at side with clenched firsts and one foot behind the other; another way to look at this would be a “defensive” position) He declined to produce his ID because he could not see how he had done anything wrong. {And according to the U.S. Supreme Court a person cannot be made to produce ID without reasonable grounds to suspect he is or was engaged in criminal activity.) When he also refused to turn and put his hands on the MH (as in “assuming the position” for a frisk) he was pepper sprayed, put in a choke hold (by the 260 pounder) and thrown to the ground and handcuffed. He too was charged with DOC.
Sometime later a state police K-9 officer just happened to be driving by and stopped at the scene. He was asked by the deputies (and by this time a supervising Captain had arrived) to lead his drug sniffing dog around the exterior of the MH. He claimed the dog “alerted” near the rear of the MH and this led to the search of the interior of the MH. Absolutely no trace of any kind of illegal drug was found, but there was that other dangerous substance A SINGLE BOTTLE OF [ALLEGED] BEER in the fridge. The driver was then arrested and charged with possession of beer in a dry county. The deputy did not “tag and bag” the beer, could not remember the brand, or whether it was even alcoholic or non-alcohol beer. [By the way, we had subpoenaed any video tape made by the police from their cars, any recordings of radio traffic concerning the incident, and photos, etc. Also made a motion to preserve this stuff. It was not produced and that led to a question whether the police tape contained exculpatory material. The prosecutor said it didn’t but of course he hadn’t looked at it or even known there were such items at the time of the trial. This was another reason the judge took the matter under advisement. He said he would look at the police video to see if it had relevant information.
The guys were taken to jail and the MH towed to another location where (with no warrant or regard for inventory procedures) it was totally ransacked and damaged in another fruitless search for drugs. It was later taken to a non-secure impound lot and the video camera and the guns were left in plain view on a seat in the MH. Oh, and incidentally, the video footage taken by the passenger had been deleted — but of course the deputy had no knowledge of that even though he was the person in charge of the evidence.
Our purpose was to get the police committed to their stories and we fully expect to proceed to a trial de novo preceded by evidentiary hearings on motions to suppress, spoliation of evidence, possible Brady issues (I’m guessing that the video taken from the police car may come up missing or erased or accidentally destroyed. In any event, I am not even sure whether it would show much of the action based on where the patrol SUV was positioned at the back of the MH.
All in all, it was a very interesting day in Jones County.
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Just for the record, my daughter wants it to be made clear that she lives in Touro, not the Garden District. She’s unsure whether Touro crosses St. Charles. When I cross examined her, it was clear that she only misses the Garden District by a few blocks.
[...] crime of passing through town without an adequate explanation” [Freeland, Mississippi, on MotorhomeDiaries.com [...]
Acquittal is not nearly enough. I would be pursuing federal charges, both civil and criminal, against the arresting officers for violating the civil rights of the people they stop. In fact, if the town is regularly doing this sort of thing to visitors, I see a nice 9- or 10-figure class action lawsuit in their immediate future.
@john david galt
here’s one.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-mssdce/case_no-2:2009cv00103/case_id-68833/