Constitution - Bill of Rights Category Archives — Page 3 of 12 — White Collar Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog Published by Miami, Florida White Collar Criminal Defense Attorney

Published on: December 17, 2020

Students’ dismissal of claims against Broward County from Parkland shooting upheld

Nikola Cruz shot and killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. Fifteen students who were bystanders suffered traumatic harm and psychological injuries from the shooting. In their lawsuit against Broward County, Robert Runcie, Scot Peterson, the students allege that the Parkland tragedy was exacerbated by government blunders before and after the shooting because Broward County Sheriff’s Office failed to act on the many dozens of calls it received that warned of Cruz’s dangerous propensities. Sheriff Scott Israel and Superintendent Runcie knew that Cruz might be dangerous, and Runcie was warned that the school had inadequate security, but neither official attempted to improve it. After Cruz started shooting, Scot Peterson, the police officer in charge of school security, stood outside the school with three other officers and did not enter or attempt to stop the shooting.

They claimed that the failure of Broward County and the officials to protect the students violated their rights to substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court dismissed the claims, and the students took this appeal.

Published on: December 5, 2020

Fourth Amendment violation saved by the inevitable discovery exception

by The Swartz Law Firm

Latecia Watkins was a supervisor at the Boca Raton, Florida, Post Office when she was arrested on for importing more than five kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Here is how it unfolded.

Two packages from Trinidad and Tobago addressed to the Boca Raton Post Office were intercepted at the international mail facility and found to contain cocaine. Law enforcement agents removed the drugs and placed a GPS tracking device with sham cocaine into the packages and put both packages into the mail stream headed to the original destinations.

The agents monitored the GPS and the Post Office’s internal tracking system. They set up surveillance of the Boca Raton Post Office the morning of August 11, 2017 when they expected the packages to be delivered. The GPS device stopped working but they were able to track the packages by the Post Office tracking system. They began to realize some strange occurrences because one of the packages addressed to a Boca Raton post office which did not have a P.O. box number was accepted without the number. Normally a package could not be received unless the addressee had a rented a post office box. The agents then suspected an inside job and the suspect was most likely a supervisor and not just an employee because a postal employee would not have access to certain aspects of the scanning system to manipulate the tracking history of the package.

Published on: December 3, 2020

Prosecution statements not reversible; restrictions against using the internet not a First Amendment violation

by The Swartz Law Firm

Bobal was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of using a means of interstate commerce to attempt to persuade a minor to engage in sexual activity in violation of 8 U.S.C. sec. 2422(b) and committing a felony offense involving a minor after being required to register as a sex offender in violation of 18 U.S.C. sec. 2260A. Bobal had a prior conviction in Florida for using a computer to solicit a child to engage in sexual activity. His trouble began when he sent a picture of his penis to a man posing as a 14-year old girl. The F.B.I. got involved and an agent posing as the 14-year-old girl began exchanging text messages with Bobal which were sexual in nature and eventually arranged a meeting. When Bobal arrived at the meeting location he was arrested.

Published on: June 17, 2019

Officers not protected by qualified immunity for pretrial inmate’s death from tasing

by The Swartz Law Firm

Ricky Hinkle died in a Birmingham City jail after being shocked twice with a taser and his son Hunter filed federal civil rights lawsuit against Deputy Dukuzumuremyi under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for a violation of Hinkle’s constitutional right to be free from excessive force. Hunter also claimed that Sheriff Hale and Captain Eddings were liable as supervisors for the deliberate indifference for policy or custom implemented by the officers. The officers moved to dismiss on grounds of qualified immunity and the district court denied their motions, and they took this appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. Dukuzumuremyi’s qualified immunity claim was rejected but the court found no supervisory liability by the Sheriff and the Captain.

This is how the facts unfolded. Hinkle was arrested while “visibly intoxicated” and taken to jail where he began suffering from alcohol-withdrawal symptoms and exhibited delusional behavior. When officers found him in the corner of his cell wearing only underpants and shoes telling them he wanted to die, they decided to move him to a padded cell. As they walked him toward the cell and asked him to remove his shoes, he began running down the hallway and grabbed a shower curtain. As the officers attempted to pull Hinkle into the new cell Dukuzumuremyi fired his taser hitting Hinkle on the left side of his chest. As a result of the shock Hinkle fell to the floor and urinated on himself. Dukuzumuremyi ordered Hinkle to roll over to be handcuffed by Hinkle remained unresponsive. Dukuzumuremyi tased him again on the front left side of his neck eight second after the first shock. During that time Hinkle remained motionless on the ground. Shortly after the second shock Hinkle went into cardiac arrest and was later pronounce dead in the hospital.

Published on: May 28, 2019

Reversing the dismissal of inmate’s Eighth Amendment claim for excessive force

by The Swartz Law Firm

Dismissal of inmate’s Eighth Amendment claim was incorrect

Sears filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights lawsuit for excessive force and deliberate indifference as a result of a physical assault and having been pepper sprayed after he was handcuffed and compliant. This incident happened while he was an inmate in Polk Correctional institution in Polk City, Florida. The district court ruled in favor of the correctional officers based on the Eleventh Circuit’s precedence in O’Bryant v Finch. The court of appeals reversed because it found the district court misread that decision and misapplied it by crediting the defendants’ version of the events over the Sears’ sworn allegations.

Sears had a dispute with another guard and tried to see the captain to lodge a complaint. The guard with whom he had the dispute told two other guards, the defendant, who tried to place him in handcuffs. When he resisted, he was forced to the ground and handcuffed. While he was restrained one of the defendants began punching him on his body while the other choked him. through it all a third defendant kept spraying him in the face with the chemical agent. They continued beating him. Sears estimated the entire physical altercation lasted about 16 minutes.

Published on: May 15, 2019

Reaching into a pants pocket to seize a bullet was a constitutional pat down search

by The Swartz Law Firm

In U.S. v. Johnson the Eleventh Circuit court of appeals reversed a panel decision which held that an officer conducted an unconstitutional search and seizure when he removed a round of ammunition from the defendant’s pocket after conducting a pat down of the defendant who was a burglary suspect. The en banc court decided that the seizure of the ammunition was a constitutional search under Terry v. Ohio. The facts show the Opa-Locka, Florida, Police Department received a 911 call about a potential burglary in progress at a multifamily duplex. Behind the duplex was a fence that separated the duplex from the adjacent property. The 911 caller described a black male wearing a white shirt trying to get through the window of a neighbor’s house.

Soon after officers arrived, the defendant was seen coming from the back of the complex through an alley. He fit the description of a black male wearing a white shirt. He was ordered to the ground and handcuffed and detained until they could figure things out. Because of the nature of the call and the high crime nature of the area, the officer conducted a pat down of Mr. Johnson for officer safety. The officer felt a nylon piece of material and then underneath it he felt a hard-like, oval-shaped object which led him to believe it was ammunition. He removed it thinking that there might be a weapon nearby or another person in the apartment that may come out with “something.” It was a black nylon pistol holster and one round of .380 caliber ammunition.

Published on: May 13, 2019

Ignoring a detainee’s need for medical treatment was deliberate indifferent in violation of the Eighth Amendment

by The Swartz Law Firm

After Almus Taylor died from internal bleeding after being kept in a jail holding cell overnight, Almus’s father Bonny Taylor sued the jail guards under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and Alabama state law alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to Almus’s serious medical needs. After the district court dismissed Bonny’s claims based on qualified immunity, he appealed to the Eleventh Circuit court of appeals raising the question whether qualified immunity shields the guards from Bonny’s constitutional deliberate indifference claim.

These are the background facts. Taylor was found in a battered pickup truck by a Covington County Deputy who called Emergency Medical Services and Alabama Highway patrol. While the EMS offered to take him to the hospital, he refused because they could not accommodate his request that he bring his dog along. The Alabama state trooper then arrested Almus for driving under the influence and took him to jail.

Published on: May 3, 2019

The emergency-aid exception overcame a warrantless home search challenge

by The Swartz Law Firm

A U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force and counter gang unit sought to arrest Cooks at his home. A member of the Bloods street gang, Cooks was wanted for second degree assault by the Birmingham Police Department. While surveilling Cooks’s home, the officer saw a car arrive at the residence and the driver entered the home without any interest in speaking with the officers. The officers made contact with two other occupants who told the officers the door had been barricaded and locked from the inside and they could not open it because they did not have a key. The officers started hearing drilling sounds coming from inside the house. Soon after one of the occupants was able to exit briefly and before returning to the house she told officers that Cooks was armed. Concluding that they were facing a potential hostage situation, the officers called the SWAT team. A hostage negotiator made contact with an occupant who told the officer that the two occupants wanted to leave but couldn’t. They also told the officer that Cooks was doing something in a hole in the floor. When negotiations failed, the SWAT team broke into the house and removed the hostages. One hostage told the officers that Cooks had put multiple guns in a hole in the floor.

After arresting Cooks, the officers did an initial 30 second sweep, followed by a three to four minute sweep. They found a four by four hole covered by the plywood nailed down with screws. When the deputies remove the plywood covering and entered the hole, they found a several pistols and long guns. Only after the discovery of the guns did they obtain a search warrant to search the Cooks home.

Published on: April 26, 2019

Excessive force claim upheld for injuries sustained from handcuffs

by The Swartz Law Firm

In an important decision the Eleventh Circuit held in Sebastian v. Ortiz that an arrested person can proceed with a civil rights excessive force claim for substantial injuries arising from a handcuffing following a valid arrest. This is an appeal by Javier Ortiz of the Miami Police Department from the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the civil rights excessive force case against the officer by Ruben Sebastian. While driving in the City of Miami Sebastian was pulled over for a speeding traffic violation. When the officer who stopped Sebastian asked for permission to search the interior of the car, Sebastian refused to give consent. Officer Ortiz was summoned and his request to search was also denied. Ortiz then became enraged and removed Sebastian from the car and with the aid of other officers restrained Sebastian and placed him in metal handcuffs which he claims were put on in a manner to purposely cause pain and injury cutting off the circulation in his hands and cutting into the skin of his wrists. When Sebastian was placed in a vehicle for transportation to the police station, Ortiz replaced the metal handcuffs with plastic flex cuffs that were allegedly tight and were intended to cause pain and further injury. Sebastian was taken to the station and detained for more than five house still handcuffed behind his back. The charges against him of resisting an officer without violence were later dropped by the State Attorney.

Published on: April 24, 2019

No illegal seizure following a valid traffic stop

by The Swartz Law Firm

Reginald Gibbs was arrested and pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Before he pleaded guilty to the possession, he filed a motion to suppress the evidence of the firearm seized from him by the police. The district court denied that motion and he appealed the district court’s decision.

The facts leading up to his arrest began when Miami-Dade Police Detective Lopez was patrolling an area he knew as a high crime area in Miami when he spotted an Audi blocking traffic in the direction that Lopez was traveling. He called for back-up and Detective Dweck arrived to assist. When they exited their vehicles the driver of the Audi was standing just outside his care between the Audi and another car parked on a gravel shoulder area next to the road with the space between the two vehicles just wide enough for two people to stand there. Gibbs was standing next to the driver, Jones, and both men stood next to the Audi. When the officers approached, Jones and Gibbs were channeled between the two cars. Lopez approached from one side and Dweck from the other so Jones and Gibbs would not have been able to leave without going through Lopez or Dweck. They were blocked from leaving. As Dweck approached Gibbs, Gibbs appeared to be looking around as if he was about to flee, he then immediately told the detective that he had a gun on him. Because he did not have a permit, he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.