This story from the Chicago Sun-Times about a police officer being sued for handcuffing an ER nurse who refused to draw blood from a DWI suspect against hospital protocol and holding her in the back of his cruiser for 45 minutes is disturbing for a couple of reasons. Let’s run down the bullet points:

• Asking an emergency room nurse to violate hospital protocol in order to better ensure that the concentration of alcohol in the suspect’s blood will be higher disrupts the flow of events in a situation in which there are real, actual stakes. It’s essentially saying that the gathering of evidence is more important than treating people in an emergency situation.
• It’s the exact sort of “attitude adjustment” for daring to argue with a police officer that makes so many Americans distrustful of the police. It reaffirms something that a lot of us feel – that the police expect to be treated deferentially in all situations, which fuels a particular kind of resentment: What you want me to do isn’t always, in every situation, more important than what I’m already doing.
• It removes a friggin’ emergency room nurse from the emergency room for forty-five minutes for no good reason. The reason we respect the police is that they devote their lives to increasing safety and protecting us. When they instead decide to remove someone whose job is to provide medical care for people in an emergency situation from their role because they’re upset that they weren’t being treated like the boss of the room, they’re putting innocent people’s lives at risk. Not even the lives of people who are innocent because, like, they haven’t been convicted of anything yet, but they’re suspects so let’s give ‘em some leeway (As with, say, tasing people). No, yanking a nurse out of the emergency room – especially a head nurse who’s responsible for triage – means there’s one less qualified person available to stabilize grandma after the heart attack. So for those who would dismiss the suit because, boo-hoo, she had to sit in the back of a car for less than an hour with handcuffs on – you’re missing the point. The cop didn’t just violate the nurse’s rights, he threatened the health and safety of everyone in the emergency room. Because he was mad that she wouldn’t break the rules and do what he said.

Again, this sort of abuse of power is why it’s hard to justify the demonization of DWI suspects. Not because DWI isn’t incredibly dangerous and incredibly serious. But because when you insist that anyone accused of doing it is a terrible criminal, you justify things like putting an entire emergency room at risk just to teach a nurse who insists on following the rules (and on treating sick people as a more important part of her job than gathering evidence) a lesson for having the temerity to say no to a police officer who’s absolutely convinced of his own righteousness.

EDIT: More on this here and here and here and here.

(Linda Cardellini from ER image via NBC.com, because typing “nurse & police” into Flickr brings up a bunch of inappropriate Halloween costume pictures but not much else.)

Labels: abuse of power, blood draws, dwi, the attitude test

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments

The Dallas Morning News has Governor Perry’s response to Texas’ execution of an innocent man in Cameron Todd Willingham. It involves the use of the phrase “so-called” and air-quotes to deride the fact that the state executed a man based on evidence and testimony that’s provably false.

Y’all might have had your hearts warmed by the story of the Grapevine, TX high school football coach who asked half of his team’s fans and cheerleaders to support the Gainesville State School team, consisting of kids in corrections. ESPN covered it. So did This American Life, national news throughout the country, and there’s apparently a movie underway about the coach. Grits for Breakfast has the two TYC teams’ schedule online now, including a Thursday night game in Austin on October 15. If you were moved by the story – and what are you, made of stone, if you’re not – it might be worth showing up to let them know that being supported isn’t just a one-time thing.

Also on the subject of high school football, an Ohio judge sentenced a teenaged boy who pled to an assault charge to five years of probation and barred him from playing team sports for that period. The story comes from Popehat.com, who rightfully point out that the other terms of his probation – finding full-time work in a state with over 10% unemployment or enrolling as a full-time student – may be difficult without the ability to engage his natural talents. Before the conviction, the boy was being scouted by a number of universities.

Slashdot.com, the somewhat over-reactive online community, is in a tizzy about APD. And, specifically, about Chief Acevedo’s talk about “taking on” people who criticize the department online. The summary of the story from the Statesman that got all the comments on Slashdot is pretty off, though – it misrepresents Acevedo’s position so that it looks like he’s saying, “we’re going to arrest people if they call us jerks”, when he’s really saying “pretending to be an APD official when you’re not and making statements that are untrue is a criminal act”, which is true. Grits for Breakfast pops up again to wonder if this means that, like, all other crime in Austin has been completely eradicated so this is a really good use of police time.

Ever get arrested in a casino? Apparently rather than just break people’s legs for cheating these days, the house will now hold them in custody and offer them the opportunity, sanctioned by a district court judge, to sign a confession, pay $500, and not be prosecuted. Which is a little bit creepy, since if you’re being detained against your will and accused of a crime by people with vast resources, you’re not really in a great position to make a great decision, hence the fact that the practice is now under investigation. Insert your own “whatever happens in Vegas” or “the house always wins” pun here – this practice is apparently good for almost $750,000 a year.

Also on Popehat, there’s a downright terrifying piece about an undercover investigative report from a Florida television station in which they went to various police stations asking for the form to file a complaint. A (very mild) sample:

tester: Do you have a complaint form that I can, like, fill out or something like that?
officer: Might not be a legitimate complaint.
tester: Who decides that?
officer: I’m trying to help you.
tester: Like, if there’s a form, why can’t I just take it and leave, right?
officer: No, you don’t leave with forms. You tell me what happened, and then I help you from there. Do you have I-D on?
tester: Why?
officer: You know what? You need to leave.

(It gets worse from there.)

But in more fun news, Austin solo practice attorney George Lobb crashed the groundbreaking ceremony for the new federal courthouse  in Austin. He brought his own shovel and hardhat, and a real big smile. Click the photo to enlarge. it’s a pretty great picture. he looks very happy to be there.

We’ve also got a bigger piece on this coming up, but in case you missed it last week, Charles Hood, a death row inmate here in Texas, had his motion for a new trial denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals even though his prosecutor and the judge were having an affair at the time of his trial and conviction. The argument, as best as I can understand it – and bear in mind that I’m not a lawyer, went something like this:

Appellate Attorney: My client needs a stay of execution, because the judge was sleeping with the prosecutor.

Court: Prove it!

Appellette Attorney proves it by deposing the participants, who admit the affair under oath.

Appellate Attorney: There, proof, now can my client be treated fairly?

Court: Oh, not at this point. You should have done this earlier.

(Cue the wah-wah-WAH sound.)

Labels: abuse of power, APD, art acevedo, football, governor perry, grits for breakfast, in the news, linkdump, money

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments

This post’s bound to be a little more personal than some on the blog, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about pretty much since I started working at Sumpter & Gonzalez.

I’m not a lawyer. As such, I haven’t got a background with thorny constitutional issues, and arguments that are at the core of the criminal defense practice – about everyone having a right to the best possible counsel, about process and procedure needing to be strictly followed – are things that I’ve never had to consider besides in very abstractly until I came onboard here about a year ago.

It seems like most private defense firms, S&G included, are heavy on DWI cases, since it’s certainly the most common arrest in Travis County. I’m guessing that extends to other places, as well. A big part of my job involves keeping up with the dialogue among defense attorneys on blogs, in the news, and elsewhere, and the reaction to DWI is something that I’ve thought a lot about since I started here.

=====

Two things come to mind, before I go into greater detail:

1. I’ve always been a little bit uncomfortable with the way that DWI attorneys can sometimes talk about the charge like it’s not a significant charge. You’ll see it even from really thoughtful people, like the California lawyer who maintains the DUI Blog, who spends a lot of time talking about the relative safety of driving after drinking compared to driving while texting – and not, presumably, because he wants to see an uptick in DWT arrests and legislation, but because it’s a strong rhetorical way to diminish the dangers of DWI.

2. My first few months here, my main job was to watch and take notes on DWI arrest videos, and I’ve seen a ton of tapes – both of people who I’m convinced are totally innocent and stone-cold sober being arrested, as well as of people I’ve been really grateful to know were scooped up and arrested that night so they didn’t hurt anyone.

=====

Driving while intoxicated is a very serious thing. It’s dangerous, and it turns people who are otherwise just like you and me into potential killers. It could have been you or me, maybe, on the wrong night. People respond very viscerally to it because a lot of them know someone, or know someone who knows someone, who was hurt by a drunk driver, or they’ve heard powerful stories from people who have been there.

All criminal charges are pretty unpopular, but DWI is especially so, probably because it’s something that many of us have kinda-sorta maybe committed once or twice at some point in our lives, possibly. You think you’re okay to drive, but it’s possible a cop might not agree. And so I think that we respond to crimes that we’re aware we might have once been guilty of in a more visceral way, because demonizing those who are accused of it gives us some distance from our own poor judgment. If we call it out as abhorrent, and are vocal in doing so, then it feels less like something that we’ve done.

=====

I used the word “we” up there, but I don’t drink. No reason for it, I just don’t. That doesn’t give me a special level of purity – I’ve driven a car under circumstances that were less than ideal, like bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, and I’ve been guilty of checking a text or two in the past while behind the wheel. But I’ve long been uncomfortable with DWI, and I really wondered when I started working at the firm if that would be something that would pose a problem down the line.

It hasn’t, and I’ve wondered what that means. Because I haven’t got the background in law, I haven’t spent a lot of time making or hearing the arguments about the constitutional right to an attorney. And I read the discussion online, or I listen to the attorneys here talk, and I’m on the side of the accused, almost every time. More to the point, I’m against the police, when it comes to forced blood draws, or sting operations, or sobriety checkpoints, or other dubious things that get announced to popular acclaim in relation to DWI.

And I’ve been trying to figure it out. What’s significant about DWI?

=====

I read a few articles recently that helped solidify what it is.

There was the forced catheterization of a DWI suspect (innocent, incidentally, not that it matters much) in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

There was the story of the man charged with DWI for sleeping outside of his car while drunk.

And there’s the “no refusal weekend” thing that happens in Travis County whenever there’s a holiday or an event in town.

And here’s what occurs to me is that DWI: Being that it’s something so many people speak so vehemently about as a great societal ill, and so many people are reluctant to encourage a calmer policy on it, lest they feel guilty for their own likely transgressions, it’s a scenario in which the police and the state are able to abuse their authority, not just with impunity, but while feeling righteous for it.

Add to that the fact that we don’t see people charged with DWI as victims the way that we might see others – they’re not abused or attacked or scapegoated, they made their own choices – and there’s no real impulse to defend them. There’s no outporing of compassion, and so things like the forced catheterization get done by someone who can make a compelling argument that few people will want to contest that they’re keeping us all safer.

DWI is unique in this, I think. We, as a society, disdain people accused of all sorts of crimes, but this one provides some of the easiest targets for casual scorn. It doesn’t take away anything from the seriousness of the charge to note that the response to it, where a scary number of our rights are coughed up, surrounds the political issue of drunk driving, not the actual one.

And the attorneys here and elsewhere, including on all of the blogs I read every day, probably already knew this. But if you’re a non-attorney and you’re wondering, like I’ve been, why there’s an urge to downplay the seriousness of DWI, it’s because the ramifications of the accusation continue to grow in ways that have nothing to do with the charge itself.

Labels: abuse of power, dwi, public perception

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments

Obviously sex and guns are things that tend to get a lot of attention in America, and when you combine the two in such a picture-perfect way – including, of course, the opportunity to run a gratuitous shot of a smiling blonde woman with an exposed midriff and tiny miniskirt and still calling it news – you’re likely to find a wire story with legs long enough that it’ll run in Kansas City. But this story of Midland County sheriff's deputies being fired and/or suspended without pay for handing a service weapon – an assault rifle, no less – to a waitress at a Round Rock restaurant and asking her to pose for a “Chicks Who Love Guns”-style photo was noteworthy to me for a reason that had less to do with the picture of the pretty lady in question, or even the potential public safety hazard that would be caused if it became standard operating procedure for sheriff’s deputies throughout the land to turn over their assault rifles to any woman unfortunate enough to find herself in an occupation that required her to flirt with them in order to make a living.

No, what I found noteworthy about this is that it’s pretty much the only time I can remember the police actually arresting each other.

I’ve been reading lately about cases like Daniel Lozano, who was exonerated of attempted murder charges thanks to the work of a private investigator who proved that the officer who arrested him lied about whether Lozano fired first. Or Dewey Pressley, the Florida officer who was caught lying on camera about the cause of an accident, and whose punishment, after weeks of public outcry that followed the video becoming a YouTube sensation and national news, was a brief paid suspension. Or the case in Philadelphia, where a police officer assaulted a woman in a convenience store – again on camera – and who then sent three fellow officers in to the store in an attempt to convince the store’s proprietor to hand the tape over to them. None of the officers who tried to retrieve the tape were found to have committed any wrongdoing, and punishment for the assaulting officer was left undetermined.

And then there’s this case in Round Rock.

Williamson County gets a tough rap for being particularly unyielding when it comes to crime, and that’s rarely something that we celebrate. From my observations and experience, that too often translates into kids who’re busted with a joint having the book thrown at ‘em, as they used to say.

But it is kind of refreshing to hear that these deputies, after requesting “some form of professional courtesy”, were instead told that it didn’t work that way, and arrested.

No charges were filed, but that’s reasonable – they didn’t actually commit a crime, just a major professional and ethical (not to mention public safety) violation. The punishments ranged from a letter of reprimand for the deputy who was part of the party, but who opted to stay inside rather than go out for the pictures, to short suspensions without pay for the ones who watched as it happened, to firing for the one who gave the assault rifle over to the waitress.

That seems more or less fair to me. The thing that seems to get lost in all of the thin blue line, “professional courtesy” concepts is that the people who are being policed need to trust the people charged with policing them. If we’re to accept that the police can shoot at us and fabricate a police report, or rear-end our cars and claim in a sworn affidavit that we hit them, and then face no punishment more severe than a brief paid vacation, respect for their authority diminishes. Witness this comment from the Statesman article about the PI in the Lozano case:

Last time I was called for jury duty I stated clearly and unequivocally that everything cops say, whether under oath or not, are very likely to be lies. Most of the other prospective jury members nodded in agreement when I said it. It’s clearly a majority opinion among the populace now. The police have totally lost credibility in this state. It’s going to take a very long time before the police regain any sort of credibility in Texas.

Now, I’ll admit that this case in particular is more or less a circus. Like I said – I don’t really care about the picture (though I do feel kinda icky about the inherent power imbalance of a group of police all joining in to convince a young woman to take a sexy photo for them) and I suspect that the woman, despite being handed an assault rifle as thou gh it were a toy, did not really represent much of a threat to public safety. (The presence of the three other deputies, who presumably had kept their weapons, probably negated any threat she may have posed if it had all been a clever ploy on her part to wreak havoc throughout the streets of Round Rock with a machine gun.) But it does help a bit to know that there are consequences – at least some of the time – for police who break the rules. If we can trust that the police are being held to a standard, it serves to restore some of the credibility they’re lacking. Circus or not, that’s a good thing.

Labels: abuse of power, cameras, police violence, recording, williamson county

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments

It’s a busy week over here, so blogging has been light. Here are some things we’d probably have written about if we’d had more time:

Lester Johnson, the private investigator whose work helped clear David Lozano of attempted capitol murder charges after a shootout with APD, was honored at the Texas Association of Licensed Investigators convention this week. Interestingly, in the Statesman article’s comments section, Johnson continues to call out APD and the officer who filed an – ahem – unreliable report.

If you’re not totally clear on the backstory on Sharon Keller and her trial, there’s a good primer on it at the StandDown Texas Project. The veeeeery brief version is that Keller, the chief justice of Texas’ highest criminal court, is on trial for judicial misconduct after responding to an attorney whose computer problems were causing him to run a few minutes late while filing an appeal to stay an execution with the words, “We close at five.” He arrived at 5:20, the court refused to accept is filing, and his mentally-handicapped client was executed at 8:23 that evening.

Grits For Breakfast has another good post up – it’s like this is a trend or something – this time on the subject of DWI prevention via public transit and zoning for neighborhood bars. Expect some expanded commentary on this topic in this space coming soon.

The Statesman has an article about thousands of parolees who’ve been classified as sex offenders despite having never been convicted of a sex crime.

Gamso: For The Defense, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite legal blogs, has a smart primer on exactly what different types of pleas mean. It’s a really useful post for non-attorneys like myself, especially, who couldn’t understand that someone who pleads “not guilty” even though they know they did it wasn’t lying.

Houston defense attorney Paul Kennedy has better news for people who were outraged reading about Sharon Keller (which maybe should be everybody) – the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to allow an appeal that was filed a day late. The attorney in question blamed the problem on the county’s broken fax machine. Curiously, it appears their fax machine is usually broken when this court-appointed attorney – who takes on 355 felony appointments a year – tries to file appeals, and it usually fixes itself the next day.

Labels: abuse of power, APD, crime prevention, dwi, grits for breakfast, pleas, sex offender registration

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments

Every few days I make it a point to compile the news and commentary surrounding criminal defense issues, especially as they relate to Austin, and send it along to all of the attorneys in the firm as potential blog topics. Starting today, those links and discussions are also going to be posted here, as well.

Kristi Couvillon wrote recently on APD’s dash cam policy, which got me thinking about this story: Florida cops stop a young woman for DUI, and then proceed to rear-end her car. After she's arrested, with the dash cam still recording, they cook up a story that they all agree to in which they decide that it's her fault, and then charge her with DUI/property damage. "I don't make things up or lie ever, because it's wrong," says the cop on the tape, "but if I have to bend it a little to protect a cop, I'm gonna."

Austin defense attorney Jamie Spencer has a couple good posts up right now. On the APD prostitution stings, he asks how much money was spent dressing a whole bunch of female police officers like prostitutes and running a sting that netted 23 arrests. And he gets to one of the hearts of the taser issue (which I’ve written about briefly here) when he asks how potentially unconstitutional acts can be declared acceptable just by claiming that they’re not outside of department policy.

In case you haven’t heard yet about The Superglue Incident:  Four women superglued a guy's penis to his stomach after tricking him into a bondage scenario because he was screwing (and scamming) all of them. If only we were still running the “We Could Defend That” campaign. 

US Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at the ABA convention where he says most of the same things that regarding reform and non-violent drug offenders, etc, that I’ve been learning since I started working with this firm.

In Kaufman County, the chief public defender/founder of the public defender's office is planning to run for DA. The link from Robert Guest, a Dallas-area defense attorney, talks about the difference between the roles, and what good can come from a PD becoming a prosecutor.

We have a bunch of old ads in a binder that equate DWI arrests with prohibition. I never really got those, but this bit from Politico, where MADD criticizes Obama for having Gates and Crowley over to the White House for beer, rather than milk and cookies, helps me understand it a little.

Also, California dropped charges against a guy who'd been arrested for DUI while riding a horse.

Finally, not to be all ACLU here, but this is video of a cop assaulting a woman from behind at a convenience store in Philadelphia because, half an hour earlier, his son had rear-ended her car.

Labels: abuse of power, APD, cameras, dwi, in the news, linkdump

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments

It is my opinion that the crime he actually committed was one not found in any Penal Code. A crime committed by individuals that, although usually done unknowingly, can result in their immediate arrest. That crime is “Failing the Attitude Test.”

As a criminal defense attorney, I see it often. The most common scenario is someone gets into an argument with a police officer and is charged with public intoxication. For example, a recent client, a young woman, called police to report her concern over threats made by an ex-boyfriend. The ex had threatened her and her new boyfriend that evening, and she was afraid he might come to her home. When police showed up to investigate, sure enough, the ex-boyfriend drove by. Police stopped and questioned him. When the decision was made to not pursue the matter any further my client became angry and walked out to the street to let the officers know how displeased she was. Moments later she was charged with public intoxication and arrested.

I believe what happened with Professor Gates was a similar situation. He was angry and responded in a not-so-pleasant manner. This upset the police and they arrested him. Everyone is focusing on the fact that he is black and calling it a race issue, and to some degree it is. It is not hard to imagine how things could get ugly when someone like Gates, a black Harvard professor, acutely aware of how race can come into play when dealing with authority, finds himself being interrogated in his own home. Black authority figure confronts white authority figure and the person with the power to arrest wins. So race added fuel to the fire, but race isn’t a mandatory ingredient for a situation like this to occur. Just ask former candidate for Travis County District Attorney, Mindy Montford. After the car she was riding in was stopped by police, she got out to advise the driver of his rights. When told by police to get back into the car she complied, but the damage was done. She was charged and arrested for public intoxication. It seems the only mandatory ingredient for a public intoxication arrest is an attitude perceived as confrontational by the police.

In all of these incidents charges were later dismissed, but of course by then, the punishment had already been exacted. And it’s not right. Police officers are professionals when it comes to confrontational situations and as such, should remain above the fray. Their duty is to de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation, not add to it. Citizens can get nervous, say distasteful things, and over-react. Police officers must stay calm, not over-react, and never take a situation personally. It’s the professional thing to do. It’s the safe thing to do. It’s the right thing to do.

So what I hope we learn from the "teaching moment" at the “beer summit” between President Obama, Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley together is how to prevent some of these confrontations in the future. But you know, we can always find something to fight about. Already breweries are arguing over which beer should be served. As Gilda Radner from Saturday Night Live episodes of long ago would say…“it’s always something.”

Labels: abuse of power, beer, president obama, professor henry louis gates, public intoxication, rights, the attitude test

posted by Dal   permalink   0 Comments

Just as I had predicted, the public intoxication charges against Mindy Montford were dismissed this week.

"It started last June when police pulled over her friend for allegedly driving drunk and the exchange was caught on an officer's dash cam.“My friend is an attorney," the driver said. Then the officer says "Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am -- I’m advising you to go back to the car.”

After seeing this type of abuse of power on many occasions, it is not surprising to see an officer make a wrongful arrest simply because his authority is being questioned, or because someone flunks the "attitude test". However, as I previously mentioned, what makes Mindy's arrest especially offensive and egregious to me is that it was done in retaliation after she was asked by her friend to provide legal advice.

I don't mean to over-dramatize this unfortunate incident, but as I watched the video of the officer trying to silence Mindy, I couldn't help but think of the universal struggle between rule of law and a police state. The hallmark of totalitarian regimes is absolute control and an immediate silencing of anyone who dares to question authority. Criminal defense lawyers, who act as one of the only checks on police power, are society's best defense against a police state. As Justice Stevens once eloquently stated "the function of the independent lawyer . . . is a guardian of our freedom."

But this is not the end of the story for Mindy Montford. She’s filing a complaint with the city's Office of Police Monitor. Montford says it’s her duty to make sure no citizen goes through what she calls a “wrongful arrest”.

Good, I'm glad that Mindy has the courage to take this one step further and pursue what is clearly an abuse of power. Because just like any other public servant, police officers must be held accountable. Plus, if someone like Mindy doesn't do this then who will? We all know that this kind of thing happens routinely to the powerless who never will make it on the news and who never will complain.

As criminal defense lawyers, we all have a duty to stand up for people and call out abuses of power when we see them.

Labels: abuse of power, APD, mindy montford, the role of defense attorneys

posted by Kristin Etter   permalink   0 Comments

I read last week in the Statesman that APD officials are reviewing their patrol car camera policies in regards to when officers must turn on their devices. The paper claimed that the new policies will likely require officers to film any incident in which they detain or try to stop a suspect, and will also likely require backup officers to also record incidents.

Police officials are also reviewing whether an officer's failure to follow the policy should fall under disciplinary guidelines. (As an aside, I have never handled a DWI case on either side of the bench where an officer forgot to turn on his or her camera to record a person walking the imaginary line.)

This policy review comes after the fatal shooting of Nathaniel Sanders II by Senior Police Officer Leonardo Quintana, whose camera was not recording when he fired at Sanders. If I were an officer who found myself in a deadly situation and believed my actions were justified, I would definitely want that recorded as the video would serve to protect and exonerate me. And, if the shooting was not justified, Mr. Sanders' family and the rest of our community deserves to be told the truth.

I commend the APD top brass for reviewing these policies and hope that they do implement policy that requires all potential stops and detentions to be recorded.

Even better, I would like to see the cameras automatically activated as soon as their overhead lights or sirens are turned on or as soon as they respond to a dispatch. Or a type of rotating digital loop like security cameras use in which the camera is constantly recording. Surely we're technologically capable of that.

Labels: abuse of power, APD, cameras, leonardo quintana, nathaniel sanders II, police violence, policy, recording

posted by Kristi Couvillon   permalink   0 Comments

By Kristin Etter
To say I was shocked when I saw the headline that local attorney Mindy Montford was arrested for public intoxication last Saturday is an understatement. Mindy is highly respected and admired in our community and I consider her to be of impeccable character -- she is held in the highest regard by all who know her. I became only more shocked and outraged as I read the story:

Attorney Pat McNelis, who is law partners with Montford, ... and is representing her, said Montford had been with friends from high school to hear a band at a downtown club. As they were leaving, McNelis said, the driver of a car
in which Montford was a passenger struck a pipe in an alley and was pulled over
moments later.

McNelis said Montford got out of the car at that time to “advise her friend of his rights.” He said an officer ordered Montford back into the car, where she sat for about 20 minutes. He said the officer then came back to the car and arrested her, as well as another passenger, on public intoxication charges. He said no further investigation was done before the arrests.

“Mindy complied with the officers when they instructed her back to the car,” McNelis said. He said his client “absolutely denies” the charge. McNelis said the driver of the car also was arrested on a drunken driving charge, but that a judge refused to sign a warrant arresting him because of lack of probable cause.

Clearly, this seems to be a retaliatory action by the officer in the worst sense. All too often, we see officers making arrests for public intoxication because the person flunked the "attitude test." Mindy's case seems even more egregious because it appears she was arrested only after advising her friend of his rights. To arrest someone for public intoxication, the officer has to have probable cause that the person was intoxicated in a public place to the degree that the person may endanger herself or another.

I have no doubt that as the case progresses, we will see that not only was Mindy not publicly intoxicated (she was sitting in the back of the car!!!), but that this was done to punish her for doing something the officer did not like -- advising someone of their rights. The outrageous treatment of Mindy only epitomizes how law enforcement reacts when people choose to exercise their Constitutional rights. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. As we have seen all too often, innocent people are arrested for invoking their rights or simply flunking the "attitude test" (thankfully, the criminal justice system usually works as it is supposed to and we are ultimately able to get these kinds of cases dismissed in most instances). This incident only underscores how important it is for us all to know what are rights are in a situation before something like this occurs. If it can happen to Mindy Montford, it can happen to any of us.

Labels: abuse of power, APD, dwi, public intoxication, rights

posted by Kristin Etter   permalink   0 Comments