Outrageous! 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Loses All Reason

Malaika Brooks (pic) a pregnant African-American woman got a ticket form the Seattle police sometime in 2004 for going 32 mph in a school zone.  Like many of us, she was angry feeling the citation was unjust. She refused to sign the ticket, so the cops tasered her, twice!

Mrs. Brooks sued.  The U.S. District Court trial judge permitted her case to proceed over motions to dismiss filed by the cops.  Seattle appealed.  Get this the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has held (link is to the opinion) that tasering a pregnant woman over a traffic citation was not a denial of her constitutional rights, ARE YOU F%&%(&$g KIDDING ME!!!!!

Seriously, I expect to see outrageous stuff at local news websites, this story is one of those where you have to ask yourself if you are living in 2010.  Here's Gene Johnson's report from the Seattle Post Intelligencer website:

"Malaika Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy in 2004 when she was stopped for doing 32 mph in a school zone. She insisted it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt. Rather than give her the ticket and let her go on her way, the officers decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped the keys on the floor. Brooks stiffened her arms against the steering wheel and told the officers she was pregnant, but refused to get out, even after they threatened to stun her.

The officers - Sgt. Steven Daman, Officer Juan Ornelas and Officer Donald Jones - then stunned her three times, in the thigh, shoulder and neck, and hauled her out of the car, laying her face-down in the street. Brooks gave birth to a healthy baby two months later, but has permanent scars from the Taser. She sued the officers for violating her constitutional rights, and U.S. District Judge Richard Jones allowed the case to continue. He declined to grant the officers immunity for performing their official duties and said Brooks' rights were clearly violated.

But in a 2-1 ruling Friday, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Judges Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain held that the officers were justified in making an arrest because Brooks was obstructing them and resisting arrest. The use of force was also justified because of the threat Brooks posed, Hall wrote: 'It seems clear that Brooks was not going to be able to harm anyone with her car at a moment's notice. Nonetheless, some threat she might retrieve the keys and drive off erratically remained, particularly given her refusal to leave the car and her state of agitation.' They also noted that the force used wasn't that serious because the Taser was in 'touch' mode rather than 'dart' mode, which hurts more. They reversed the lower court's opinion and held that the officers were entitled to immunity from the lawsuit.

The officers' lawyers, Ted Buck and Karen Cobb, said the officers made the right decision under the circumstances they faced.  'Police officers have to have the ability to compel people to obey their lawful orders,'  Buck said. 'That's all the court recognized today. The 9th Circuit just applied the law instead of getting caught up in the otherwise unfortunate factual circumstances.'

The majority's opinion outraged Judge Marsha Berzon, who called it 'off the wall.'

'I fail utterly to comprehend how my colleagues are able to conclude that it was objectively reasonable to use any force against Brooks, let alone three activations of a Taser, in response to such a trivial offense,' she wrote.  She argued that under Washington law, the officers had no authority to take Brooks into custody: Failure to sign a traffic infraction is not an arrestable offense, and it's not illegal to resist an unlawful arrest. Berzon said the majority's notion that Brooks obstructed officers was so far-fetched that even the officers themselves didn't make that legal argument. To obstruct an officer, one must obstruct the officer's official duties, and the officers' only duties in this case were to detain Brooks long enough to identify her, check for warrants, write up the citation and give it to her. Brooks' failure to sign did not interfere with those duties, she said. Furthermore, Brooks posed no apparent threat, and the officers could not have known how stunning her would affect the fetus, or whether it might prompt premature labor - another reason their actions were inexcusable, Berzon said.

Brooks' lawyer, Eric Zubel, said he would ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case.'This is outrageous - that something like this could happen to a pregnant woman, in front of an elementary school, at 8:30 in the morning, to someone who posed no threat whatsoever,' he said."
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I believed that the federal courts were defenders of liberty and civil rights, but that was just one more delusion.

NJ Strip Club Busted for Prostitution

The Doctors Obvious, er Police of Manville, New Jersey have concluded a MONTH-LONG investigation into Delilah's Den of Manville, NJ, with the arrest of 27 year old Radka Trotta.  Apparently these detective-genuises at the Manville police were able to obtain an offer of sex in exchange for money (gasp!) NJ.com is reporting that Miss Trotta a dancet at Delilah's Den was arested Tuesday and released on her own recognizance.

Running a Homeless Shelter, that'll a Get You Jail!

San Obispo Rancher, Dan de Vaul is going to jail because he runs a homeless shelter for 60;  that just irritates the shit out of the local authorities.  After being convicted of the code violations, De Vaul was offered probation, but he knew that he would  and could not comply with the conditions of probation that included orders to correct numerous building and housing code violations.  De Vaul knew that if he took the probation option he'd be back in court, in no time, on probation violations so he decided to skip that step and go straight to jail.  Superior Court Judge John Trice said deVaul's an arrogant SOB.  No doubt.  No word on what the California Judge Trice thinks of Ghandi, Jesus, or Mandela.  For more:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/san-luis-obispo-rancher-sentenced-to-jail-for-housing-the-homeless.html  and a link to Sunny Acres, de Vaul's ranch:  http://www.sunnyacresca.com/index.htm

Personal Liberty, Part deux

I was reading in our Hometown newspaper, the other day, that Our State has been quietly repealing school safety inspection rules. These rules were well-intentioned and related to important things like the depth of the spill basin on the water fountains. Apparently, enforcement of these regulations was cumbersome and the learned farmers downstate, er, legislators have been canceling the rules.

In the realm of safety, I don't believe that one can make absolute rules--if anyone reads this blog and disagrees, feel free to say so--but, the other day the geezer geniuses and moi--were debating just this idea in the context of the ban on public smoking. Apparently, even the home of Big Tobacco, Virginia has enacted a public smoking ban. I became a Bad Lawyer in the era when there were still ashtrays on elevators and the righteously offended person was the smoker who got the evil eye from some Old Broad on oxygen. We smoked on public transit, and not just cigarettes, if you know what I mean. So the world has changed and as an ex-smoker, I'm glad. I don't miss public smoking one little bit--and, yesterday morning I vigorously defended the smoking ban; let's face it, you really can't separate smokers from non-smokers in a public place. And really, smoke is carcinogenic--can we justify asbestos ceilings in designated areas of a public places?

If I haven't talked about it here, and I'm pretty sure I have--I'm an amateur road cyclist. It's something I've done on and off for many years. I wear a helmet largely because personal experience--entanglements with enraged drivers tells me that wearing a helmet might keep me off life support. A particularly bad fall in the Spring, sent me sideways into a chain linked fence head first, so I choose to wear one. Likewise, I rode a Vespa for a couple of years without a helmet--go figure? I can't defend the choice, but it is the one that I made. Even today when I ride my more urban, hybrid bicycle around Our Town I wear a baseball cap, not a helmet.

The Aussie videos made me think about the logic and rationale of helmet laws. I'm still pro-helmet--but, I hadn't really thought very deeply about the issue. Mike Rubbo, the Aussie filmmaker makes the point far more magically than I can--at the end of the second video--if you didn't watch it, please do.

Here in Your Hometown I live at a residence located midway between two flashing school zone signs that face away from my house. Directly across the street from my residence is a large parochial school on a wooded campus. The school building is set back at some distance from the curb. Generally, unless my schedule has me in court--I leave the residence at 6:45 am to drink coffee and solve the problems of the world with my Geezer pals. The traffic signals that operate at each intersection framing the city block are "flashing" instead of being fully operational. One morning recently I left later than I usually do. As I pulled on to the apron of the driveway, I looked to my left and saw the rush hour traffic lined up two abreast at the light which was fully operational. Having lived here for twenty-one years I knew I had to "insert" myself into the traffic flow or be an obstacle to this crowd of cars that uses my east-west avenue on its way into the downtown. There were no kids in the neighborhood, yet--no crossing guard at the corner, yet, no parents dropping off children, yet; and, no school buses present, yet. I accelerated out of my drive to the speed limit of 35 mph, and a police cruiser did a gnarly u-turn in front of the oncoming traffic to give me a ticket for violating school zone speed limit. The surly cop assured me as he strutted away from my car that he was "just keeping the kids safe."

One of the most aggravating things in the world for a lawyer is a traffic ticket, either one you receive or a ticket a friend or family member receives. You see, you can be Perry Mason and lose even a properly defended ticket. I have represented--for free (because how can a lawyer justify charging to defend an ordinary traffic ticket?), hundreds of family, friends, and other lawyers over the years. Generally, the local municipal courts will cut some sort of break, reduce the fine, dismiss "points" against your license, reduce charged violations, something to assuage the ticket-ee's outrage. But if you get into a dispute about the actual merits of whether the ticket should have been issued--forget it!

I fought the ticket. The ordinance provides that a person violates the school zone speed limit when driving faster than 20 mph during the time when the school zone lights are flashing and when children are present entering and exiting the building (check your local ordinance, they all say that--most traffic laws are patterned on a uniform laws enacted throughout the United States). At my "trial" which was delayed until a judge could be appointed who was not a personal friend of mine--the police officer testified to the facts, e.g. that I drove faster than 20 mph. I conceded this fact and moved for judgment on the ticket since there was no evidence or testimony that children were present.

After paying the $50 fine and court costs, I'm still pissed.

The court issued a ruling that at the hour I exceeded the 20 mph restriction I should have known that it was a school zone, because I have lived here for twenty-one years, and kids "could have been coming and going" since at the time I left my driveway it was "during the hours when kids come and go." Again, the court expressly noted the need to guarantee the paramount safety of children.

Actually, the only way my driving at 35 mph endangered children was if the police car that did a u-turn in front of the two lanes of oncoming traffic hit one a car full of them, --in the officer's zeal to ticket me.

Are children safer because I was brought to justice? Doubt it. Did my respect and appreciation for the authorities in Our Hometown decrease a little bit? Yes. Have I shared my opinion? Now, I have and I feel a little better--not so pissed.

We tolerate a lot of silliness in the name of safety. Our laws, ordinances and regulations are rife with examples of safety measures that are well-motivated, but ill-conceived, and ill-applied. Too often real solutions to real problems are dealt with on the cheap by enacting and enshrining a rule--as in the example of Sue and the bicycle helmet. We don't see the unintended consequences, we don't quantify the cost or appreciate the negative impact upon the quality of our life or liberty.

Liberty and other worthy ideals

and, Sue goes to Court:

Pardon my dust, I'm not very expert at this--but, I intend to "embed" two videos and I don't quite know if I've been successful.

These charming videos produced by Mike Rubbo an Australian video-maker were posted at the far better blog: BikeSnobNYC yesterday. I was struck by the loveliness of these short films which deal with the larger ideal of personal liberty and the practice of governments to legislate "safety." These videos beautifully illustrate complex ideals and impulses, watch them and we will discuss.