Give Me Back the Doritos!

The Oregonian features the writing of Aimee Green who does an outstanding job of covering her beat and providing in-depth analysis of legal matters.  I read a lot of crap around the web, but Ms. Green's work is outstanding in terms of comprehensiveness, for example at the Oregonian today, Green writes a great piece about a complicated car accident resulting in a civil jury trial.  No one at the local websites I troll does anything near the quality job Green does in explaining the world of "small law." 

But it is Aimee Green's report on the award given to the Dollar Tree customer falsely arrested for allegedly stealing a bag of Doritos that caught my eye.  This is the story:

"A Multnomah County jury has decided that Dollar Tree Stores Inc. must pay a teen $51,000 after one of its Lloyd Center store managers reportedly grabbed her purse and looked inside it for stolen merchandise.  The store's assistant manager mistakenly thought he saw a bag of unpaid Doritos tucked into the purse of Alicia Tillery, then a 13-year-old eighth grader. Tillery was at the store with her sister and two cousins to buy baking supplies for Father's Day in June 2008. She testified that she was walking out of the store when a man yanked on her purse. He looked inside her purse before walking back into the store without explaining who he was or apologizing, she said. The encounter left her with a hurt arm.

Tillery called her father. Russell Tillery testified that he arrived at the store and was surprised when the unapologetic assistant manager, Eric Wayne Smith, gave him a fake name and said he could stop whomever he wanted to.  Russell Tillery filed suit in his daughter's name, saying he was disturbed by the way his daughter was treated and hoped to send a message to the 3,800-store, Fortune 500 company that would result in changes.  'I don't want to see any human being have to suffer that humiliation,' he said.

During a two-day trial this week, attorney Greg Kafoury criticized the company for not having a written policy about stopping or grabbing people suspected of shoplifting. Kafoury also criticized the company for promoting Smith to manager and Smith, whom he accused of racially profiling Tillery and her three companions. The girls are black. Smith is white.  But Carol Bernick, an attorney for Dollar Tree, said the case had nothing to do with race. She said 30 to 40 percent of the customers at the Lloyd Center location are African American.  'This case as we have seen involves a 10-second interaction,' Bernick told jurors. "...Mr. Smith made a mistake when he thought he saw Dollar Tree merchandise in her bag."

Contradicting the girls' version of events, Smith had said that the girls were loud and swearing. Store surveillance video didn't include sound, but Tillery's attorneys pointed to it to show the girls didn't appear animated.  Smith said he tapped Alicia Tillery's shoulder. When he peered into her purse and saw he made a mistake, he apologized, Bernick said.

Bernick said the company's unwritten practice is not to stop shoplifters because the risk of something going wrong is high.  Smith did not testify because he voluntarily quit and couldn't be located for trial. In an incident report he wrote after Alicia Tillery's attorneys contacted the company, Smith said he was suspicious of the group of girls because he saw one of them try to put a soft drink in her backpack. Tillery's attorneys pointed to store video that shows none of the girls had a backpack.

The lawsuit sought $207,000. Jurors declined to award money for racial discrimination, but awarded Tillery $50,000 for false imprisonment and $1,000 for her hurt arm."
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Years ago my former partner, Nancy, and I represented a woman who shop stolen a "double-deuce" of malt liquor and a carton of cigarettes.  The armed store security guard hauled this pathetic young woman into a security room and raped her.  The risk manager for that international supermarket chain approached me on the street outside our office building and characterized the events as "the shop lifter who gave our security guy the blow job."  Real nice, huh?  Imagine that this is your daughter or son making a stupid mistake.  Chills.

Video Link to Ray Towler's Release from Prison

At this link the Cleveland Plain Dealer has the extraordinary video of  Ray Towler's release from custody ny Judge Eileen Gallagher. 

Wrongful Imprsionment, On False Allegations, Lawyer with Bad Hat

Remember the case of the construction worker who  was falsely accused of gang rape and then exonerated when the accuser came forward to recant?  You can read the original account at the link, The woman, Bunny Pequero (pic with her lawyer who's weearing a stupid hat) was sentenced Tuesday to up to three years behind bars, herself, saying she was "riven with remorse for sending an innocent man to prison."

According to the Associated Press report, "Biurny Peguero, 27, pleaded guilty in December to perjury, admitting she made up the September 2005 incident that unjustly put construction worker William McCaffrey in jail and prison for nearly four years. A judge overturned his rape conviction in December, with new DNA evidence also playing a role.  'I question myself every day as to how I could have done this,' Peguero told a Manhattan state court judge.

Peguero originally said McCaffrey was the ringleader among three men who raped her at knifepoint after luring her into their car. She met them after a night out at a Manhattan nightclub with female friends."

This was a particularly strange case because there was no reason for the accusation, and the consequence to Mr. McCaffery was awful.

Falsely Accused of Rape

A former St. Paul, Minnesota resident, Justin Sallis, has filed a federal lawsuit allegeing violations of his civil rights, false arrest and imprisonment.

He was accused of raping a woman he in fact dated and with whom he had consensual sex.  He did not rape her, and she did not accuse him of raping her.  According to the story at the Minnesota Star Tribune, on March 15 (of last year), the day after her date with Sallis; the woman called 911 and reported that she had been raped by someone she described as looking nothing like Mr. Sallis.  In fact the age cohort she gave the police for her violent assailant was 20 years older than Mr. Sallis.  Already weird?  It gets weirder, on March 16, she and Sallis have consensual sex again;  okay, got that?  Justin Sallisa and his friend have sex on the March 14, his friend is allegedly raped on the 15th, and finally she and Sallis have sex on the 16th. 

So the rape kit comes back in June with with Mr. Sallis' DNA, he's arrested and he spends 39 days in jail. 

This story goes to prove the point that weird shit happens.  Not that any reader of Bad Lawyer had doubts.  Let me add that Justin Sallis is lucky this didn't go down in Texas, Georgia, Tennesses and a few other venues we look at, eh?