I am Tom Freeland, a lawyer in Oxford, Mississippi. The picture in the header is my law office. I'm on Twitter as NMissC
I started (co)blogging as NMC in early 2008 on the Folo blog, (with coblogger Lotus); that blog went on hiatus in March, 2009. In 2005, I covered Fifth Circuit cases for the (now defunct) Appellate Law and Practice blog.

Blogroll

Print This Post

Motorhome Diaries Folks File Motion to Suppress, tort claim letter

The Motorhome Diaries folks have fired their next barrage against Jones County.  First, from an article in the Laurel, Mississippi Leader-Call that sums up the situation:
Pete Eyre, Adam Mueller and Jason Talley were traveling through Jones County on I-59 North on May 14 when they were stopped by Jones County deputies.
In Laurel Justice [...]

Print This Post

Motorhome Diaries Jones County update: motions to dismiss filed

Since last May, I’ve been writing about arrests in Jones County, Mississippi of several travelers who write on the site MotorHomeDiaries.Com.  They were stopped while passing through.  They were arrested under a typically wrongheaded and vague use of the disorderly conduct statute, charged with failure to follow the lawful order of a law enforcement officer.  [...]

Print This Post

Tuesday Morning Various

The New York Times had a sort-of-an-update on West Memphis community attitudes slowly beginning to shift on the “West Memphis Three” case, the one where three boys were found murdered and a trio of teenagers were prosecuted on the thinest of evidence (a totally contradictory confession by one of them, later retracted, along with some [...]

Print This Post

One of the MotorhomeDiaries.com lawyers describes Jones County Justice Court

A regular commenter on this site, Habeas, described his experience representing the MotorHomeDiaries folk in Jones County Justice Court.  I’m elevating his comment to a post and reminding him to check out the Steve Forbert lyric in my earlier post:
I was in the Jones County Justice Court for the trial — in fact I was [...]

Print This Post

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, [...]

Print This Post

Jones County Sheriff reenacts civil rights era law enforcement behavior. Will someone sue these guys please?

I noted earlier the stop-and-harrassment of a group of libertarians passing through Jones County, Mississippi. The Jones County sheriff has dug himself in a bit deeper with his explanation of the arrest. Among the highlights of Sheriff Hodge’s explanation:
Uncertain of who or what they were dealing with, Hodge said deputies arrested the suspects [...]

Print This Post

Account of an outrageous and illegal traffic stop in Jones County, Mississippi

From this account of a traffic stop in Jones County, Mississippi, it appears that some of the outlaws down there work for the sheriff’s department.  H/t to Habeas, who noted it on Radley Balko’s site.
I am very, very bothered by the police view that they can give someone an order they have no right to [...]