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posted by janrinok on Saturday November 19 2016, @04:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the at-last! dept.

Something is wrong when asking for help leads to the police ransacking your home. Found on techdirt is this story for our times: Appeals Court To Cops: If You 'Don't Have Time' For 'Constitutional Bullshit,' You Don't Get Immunity:

A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line. Within hours, he was dealing with DC Metro's finest, dispatched to handle an attempted suicide. This brief quote from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals opinion [PDF] -- part of veteran Matthew Corrigan's first conversation with responding officers -- sets the tone for the next several hours of Constitutional violations.

The officer who had asked for his key told him: "I don't have time to play this constitutional bullshit. We're going to break down your door. You're going to have to pay for a new door." Corrigan Dep. 94:15–18. Corrigan responded, "It looks like I'm paying for a new door, then. I'm not giving you consent to go into my place." Id. 94:19–21.

This is as much respect as the responding officers had for Corrigan's Constitutional rights. The rest of the opinion shows how they handled the supposed suicide case with the same level of care.

From there it gets worse, much worse.

[Continues...]

The opening of the opinion recounts just how dangerous it is to talk to nearly anyone linked to the government about your personal problems.

Matthew Corrigan is an Army Reservist and an Iraq war veteran who, in February 2010, was also an employee of the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the night of February 2, 2010, suffering from sleep deprivation, he inadvertently phoned the National Suicide Hotline when dialing a number he thought to be a Veterans Crisis Line. When he told the Hotline volunteer that he was a veteran diagnosed with PTSD, she asked whether he had been drinking or using drugs and whether he owned guns. Corrigan assured her that he was only using his prescribed medication and was not under the influence of any illicit drugs or alcohol; he admitted that he owned guns. The volunteer told him to "put [the guns] down," and Corrigan responded, "That's crazy, I don't have them out." Corrigan Dep. 56:2–5.

Despite Corrigan's assurances that his guns were safely stored, the volunteer repeatedly asked him to tell her "the guns are down." Id. 56:2–14. When asked if he intended to hurt himself or if he intended to "harm others," he responded "no" to both questions. Id. 69:6–18. Frustrated, Corrigan eventually hung up and turned off his phone, took his prescribed medication, and went to sleep. Id. 56:10–14; 70:6–7. The Hotline volunteer proceeded to notify the MPD.

The whole story is well-worth reading, but in a nutshell: The vet finally comes out of his home, locks the door, does not resist, is handcuffed, does not give permission for a search, and the police then proceed to knock down his door, perform a search without a warrant, and then come back five hours later to perform another search, still without a warrant, and thoroughly ransacks his home. The techdirt story concludes:

Better yet, the "screw your Constitution" officers have had their immunity stripped.

Because it was (and is) clearly established that law enforcement officers must have an objectively reasonable basis for believing an exigency justifies a warrantless search of a home, and because no reasonable officer could have concluded such a basis existed for the second more intrusive search, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity across the board.

"Objectively reasonable" is not a high bar. But the MPD never had any intent of reaching it. The officer's statement that there was "no time" for the Constitution made that very clear. The failure to find anything in plain view during the first sweep was treated as an excuse to turn a cooperative man's (cooperative except for consent to search) upside down until officers could find something to excuse their steamrolling of the Fourth Amendment. They figured what they uncovered would save them after the fact. That's the ends justifying the means and that's precisely what the Fourth Amendment is there to protect against.

So, it seems that justice for the vet might finally win out in this case, but only after having his home upended and a long, drawn-out court case.

What [else] is a citizen to do?


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:34AM (#429311)

    > But it's also a system which almost never does the right thing; this is an exception to the rule.

    Don't be fooled by media coverage. You don't normally hear about the cases where the system works because that's not newsworthy. For example, there is a registry that a lot of states (in the South no less) use to track cops who are fired or who quit before being fired in order to prevent them from being hired somewhere else. Its not (yet) comprehensive, we really need it to be nationwide, but there are literally zero reports each time a fired cop is refused employment at a different department because they are on the do-not-hire registry.

    I am not trying to downplay the problems. There are a lot of problems. But the successes go unreported because they are boring. That doesn't mean there aren't successes.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:27AM (#429330)

    Firing and blacklisting from police work is insufficient.

    This is an agent of the government denying someone their civil rights under the auspices of government authority. Huge civil damages and prison time should be a minimum, and if I had my druthers, revoking their citizenship.

    It is an awesome responsibility to wield government power, especially as directly, and with authority to use lethal force as police. It should not be taken as cavalierly as I don't have time to play this constitutional bullshit, and the graveness of the situation should be impressed upon cops that it is ONLY by the constitution do they have this authority.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:32PM (#429385)

      > Firing and blacklisting from police work is insufficient.

      Oh quit your grandstanding.
      Nobody ever said it was. But is an important part and when it works, nobody talks about it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:58PM (#429393)

        No one talks about it because it amounts to a slap on the wrist for violating the public trust.

        Poor dear, now you don't get to play with a badge and a gun, and are relegated to being a walmart greeter just like a million other schlubs who never did any thing wrong.

    • (Score: 1) by Frost on Saturday November 19 2016, @10:00PM

      by Frost (3313) on Saturday November 19 2016, @10:00PM (#429640)

      This is an agent of the government denying someone their civil rights under the auspices of government authority. Huge civil damages and prison time should be a minimum, and if I had my druthers, revoking their citizenship.

      Deprivation of civil rights under color of law [cornell.edu]:

      Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

      "... sentenced to death." I guess that's one way to revoke citizenship!

      • (Score: 1) by Demena on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:36AM

        by Demena (5637) on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:36AM (#429725)

        The only (arguably) legal way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:38PM (#429564)

    but there are literally zero reports each time a fired cop is refused employment at a different department because they are on the do-not-hire registry.

    Why should it be reported? That is exactly what should happen.