Person exercising his 2nd amendment right sues for false arrest

It may not be worth the money asked for but the second was being an ass. But if the situation was different and the guy was just some random felon people might think the cop was justified.

Not sure about ccw in his state but if he was ccw in Wisconsin he would need id but I believe open carry in this state doesn't require it.

The question is how do you make open carry look good and not alarm people who hate guns unless there is a badge in view.

Almost wonder if he would have gotten the same response if he was carrying a bluegun?
 
Garycw said:
I would willingly and quickly produce ID to show I had nothing to hide and they in turn had nothing to fear.
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Except, it doesn't work that way. Producing ID does nothing until they get on the radio/MDT and 'run' it. Which leaves a nice record of your interaction... forever. It only tells the nice officer if you already have a warrant for arrest. If not, then it doesn't prove in any way that your current actions are legal.

Answering the officer's questions about your legal conduct when he's looking for illegality just means that Officer Friendly is asking the wrong questions and he needs to look deeper to find the illegality that he's sure exists, otherwise he wouldn't be detaining you, would he?
 
So this guy is a D-bag simply because he didn't produce ID when he had the RIGHT not to, because he wasn't doing anything illegal?

There are legitimate reasons why you shouldn't or wouldn't want to give your information to LE. Yes, even if you did NOTHING wrong.

If that was me I wouldn't produce ID either. I'd give him my first name out of respect (I legally wouldn't have to, BTW), and that's it. OTOH, I wouldn't open carry, either.

You guys are just reinforcing the police's over aggressive tactics. There should be consequences for police abusing their power. But alas, there rarely are, which is why this stuff will continue to happen and possibly get worse and more extreme.

I thought this was America. But apparently some of you are OK with letting the Candy Coated Gestapolice violate our rights.
 
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I'd rather the cops detain one law-abiding smartass than miss the boat on another late night stop-and-rob violent thief.
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Sgt Pepper, I really don't think you believe that! That is akin to saying you would rather they hang an innocent cititzen than let a murderer escape punishment. I believe that our justice system has always been predicated on just the opposite of your quote.
 
Guilty until proven innocent...

SGT Pepper said:
Frankly, I'd rather the cops detain one law-abiding smartass than miss the boat on another late night stop-and-rob violent thief.
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I've never been a fan of the guilty until proven innocent position. And even if you ignore certain laws and rights, having the police waste time on a smartass could easily mean they let an actual bad guy get away.
 
If you are worried about bad guys getting away with bad stuff, then don't go toting a pistol open carry into a stop-and-rob at 4:30 a.m., and then when the nervous clerk calls the cops, don't refuse to tell the cops who you are and start playing the "I'm exercising my 2nd Amendment right" game. It's moronic. I do not want murderers escaping punishment because some "law-abiding" idiot decides to waste the time of police.

Note that I said "detain" as in what you saw in the edited video - not arrested, held, charged, convicted, and put to death. For example, the guy in the video was not exercising his 2nd Amendment Right - he was exercising the right to open carry granted by his state law. He clearly thought he was going to be "smarter" than the police and they, of couse, indulged him in his game of moronic one-upmanship. I'm not for proving innocence rather than proving guilt, however, I am for not being a dumbass given the realities of a situation.

You may have a right to not be identified, but in a context similar to this one, what is the point? Yeah, they can run your name for warrants, but so what, they can do that with a traffic stop (i.e. when the 2nd amendment is not even at issue). Are you saying that if the police pull you over in your motor vehicle, you will not provide them with your name or identification simply because you do not think you have done anything wrong? That's just nonsense. This is the exact kind of behavior that gives pro-gun supporters a bad name.

What I find completely ironic in all of this is that no one is giving praise to this idiot's lawyer for sticking it to these law enforcement stumblebums and protecting his right to be an idiot. The "lawyers" are always to blame except of course when it is convenient as in this case. Come on now, give a cheer for lawyers!!! Wow, is that just crickets I hear?
 
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I only watched snippets of the video. I haven't read the complaint. From what I have seen, though, this just isn't a $3.6M case.
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Is it an any money case?

What reading would you suggest? This made me think of US v Black where the police were wrong to seize Black for the mere fact that he had a firearm and no other knowledge. (At least that's part of what I got from Black, am I wrong?)

Of course Black is 4th Circuit, and Ohio appears to be sixth circuit so I'm never clear just how much influence those cases have being (a legal term of art I can't remember at this moment) and not precedential.
 
You may have a right to not be identified, but in a context similar to this one, what is the point?
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The point is "I have a right"! When I allow anyone to deny my right, I set a precedent that encourages others to infringe on any and all of my rights, based on their intepretation of the "context" of the circumstances wherein I am availing myself of that right.

SGT Pepper, I feel the same frustration, at certain situations, that you feel on this particular one. There are rights granted by the legal system of our great country that I personally believe to be overboard. However, until the law is changed to my way of thinking, I have to just suffer the frustration.

The rights of the individual, weighed against the common good of all, is a complex area that led to the rise of our great country. The balance between the two will never be an easy task.
 
That is akin to saying you would rather they hang an innocent cititzen than let a murderer escape punishment. I believe that our justice system has always been predicated on just the opposite of your quote.
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Our system is predicated on many things, but hasn't always operated on them, overall.

Look back to the 19th century, or earlier, and you will see the common acceptance of the occasional imprisoning or even hanging of innocent men, it was considered the cost of doing business.

The attitude was, that while a tragedy, it was going to happen, and it was the necessary cost of punishing the real bad guys.

The whole "better 10 guilty go free than one innocent go to jail" thing didn't come along until later, and took most of the 20th century to become established public opinion, and the practical manner in which the justice system operates today.

personally, I don't think we are better off, overall. Certainly we are, if you are the innocent falsely accused, but overall, I think we have gone too far in the wrong direction.
 
The whole "better 10 guilty go free than one innocent go to jail" thing didn't come along until later,
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What you're paraphrasing is called Blackstone's Ratio which was published in the 1760's and generally credited with a strong influence on our Constitution and the protections enshrined in it. As the Wiki link shows this wasn't even the first iteration of such a principle, just the most famous.
 
Suits like this around here normally end up being for 10's of thousands of dollars, but lose two or three of those and the local officer training changes. The article appeared to be from when the suit was filed, and as others have said you can ask for whatever you want, does not mean you will get it. Has he actually won the case and we are waiting for the damage award or is it still pending a decision?
 
Has he actually won the case and we are waiting for the damage award or is it still pending a decision?
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The OP mentioned we were just waiting for the award. The story doesn't say either way. (snipped extra sentence as I mixed speakers, and it wasn't the Chief admitting anything)
 
JimDandy said:
Spats McGee said:
I only watched snippets of the video. I haven't read the complaint. From what I have seen, though, this just isn't a $3.6M case.
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Is it an any money case?
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I wish that were a yes or no question. In truth, it's a short answer question. The easy, and lawyerly, answer is, "it depends."

Were I representing the city, the question of whether it's worth anything to settle depends:
  • On what information the officer had at the time of contact;
  • On what the raw video shows (the only one I've seen is the one that the Plaintiff has fiddled with and possibly edited);
  • On what the dispatch logs and tapes show me;
  • On what information I get from the Plaintiff in discovery;
  • On what the officer's history looks like;
  • On what other cases I have going (looking forward to potential "policy, practice and custom" (Monell) cases);
  • On what I think it will cost me to litigate.
IOW, it's a very big, complicated risk/reward analysis.

I certainly would not settle it before discovery, depositions and a motion for summary judgment, not even for nuisance money. Naturally, once summary judgment is decided, the calculus changes a little. If the Plaintiff started at X for an "opening bid" in the settlement negotiations:
  • If I win summary judgment, my counter goes down to $0, unless my reading of the opinion leaves thinking that it might get overturned on appeal.
  • If I lose on summary judgment, then the price goes up from X. After that, of course, the Plaintiff won't settle for X.

JimDandy said:
What reading would you suggest? This made me think of US v Black where the police were wrong to seize Black for the mere fact that he had a firearm and no other knowledge. (At least that's part of what I got from Black, am I wrong?)
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I'm not sure what reading to suggest, except for maybe researching appellate court law on civil rights cases in which the defendants appealed, arguing that the judgments were excessive.

JimDandy said:
Of course Black is 4th Circuit, and Ohio appears to be sixth circuit so I'm never clear just how much influence those cases have being (a legal term of art I can't remember at this moment) and not precedential.
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"Persuasive" is the term you want.
 
"Persuasive" is the term you want.
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And how much influence does persuasive have? Is it worth more than a judge's already held bias and beliefs? (assuming it doesn't reinforce them) Less?
 
A "binding" precedent is one that a court must follow: SCOTUS, the Court of Appeal in the Circuit in which a trial court sits, state appellate courts on matters of state law, etc.

A "persuasive" document is one that is not binding, but the court may use it to inform its decision: Courts of Appeal from other circuits, other states' appellate decisions (for example, where the "resident" state doesn't have a case on point), scholarly articles, etc.

How persuasive? That's a really "squishy" kind of thing. You can't really pin down "how persuasive."
 
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