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Posted: 11/17/2024 9:04:47 PM EDT
| A friend of mine had a run in with the local police several months back. He was arrested on mishandling a firearm for having an unannounced gun in his car when they failed to find any other evidence against him. He got all criminal charges thrown out, but still had to spend a night in jail and was ultimately only charged with an expired tag. Most of the evidence that would have otherwise made his case appears to have been destroyed by the police, but the basic facts are documented and undeniable. I’m wondering if my friend has decent chances of getting a settlement if he throws more time and money into a civil case against the city. His lawyer has advised he pursue a class action lawsuit, but doesn’t appear to be interested in pursuing this further since he specializes in criminal cases. My friend has basically thrown in the towel after this, in a lot of ways. I still feel like there has to be another avenue to pursue here. I’m posting in hopes that someone here might have some advice, or at least confirm that this has run it’s course. I’ll post the details below due to limits on my account. This was in Ohio. |
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He was pulled over driving home very late at night. The reason for the initial stop isn’t apparent, but he unknowingly had and was ultimately charged with an expired tag. Upon pulling him over, the officer asked if he had any weapons in his car “that he needs to know about”. My friend didn’t understand the question and answered that there was nothing he needs to know about. They ask him to leave the car to sign paperwork and detain him for a considerable period of time. Eventually the police officer asks if he can search his vehicle, which my friend declined. They detain him for additional time and eventually another officer arrives with a drug dog. After circling the vehicle several times without alerting, the officer guiding the drug dog yanks his collar to get him to alert, and the police tear my friend’s vehicle apart. No drugs are found, and I know this individually well enough to say with confidence there were none to be found. They do ultimately find a handgun in the vehicle, stored in a backpack in the cabin, and charge him with mishandling a firearm for not announcing it to the officer. He was arrested and spent the night in jail. I woke up the next morning to several missed calls, and proceeded to bail him out. My friend’s family set him up with a lawyer. The case was ultimately delayed 3 times (and 3 months, although some of that may have been due to his own lawyer’s availability), before the prosecutor even came to court having reviewed the police footage. At this point, a lot of footage had gone missing. As an example, they had footage from inside the police cruiser my friend was held in, but not the front facing footage that would have showed them yanking the drug dog’s collar. After another month, my friend’s lawyer finally told the prosecutor that if they chose to proceed, he’d be pursuing the drug dog and potentially invalidating a lot of other cases. They dropped the firearms felony, and my friend pled guilty to driving on an expired tag. |
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Originally Posted By 10mmillie: Being the ex-cop that I am, yes your friend has a case and needs to get an attorney and pursue it. This type of bs happens a lot and shouldn’t. Thanks for that direct response 10mmillie. That's what my gut said as well. However, my friends criminal layer basically advised him to join a class action and then cut contact. This was after initially saying he'd recommend a civil lawyer. The cynical part of me worries he came to some backroom agreement with the prosecutor, but in reality he seemed to represent my friend fine throughout his case. I also worry if he felt there just wasn't enough to go on. But, I guess my next question is, what should my friend do from here? Just start calling civil lawyers? |
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@lawyerup do you have any contacts in Ohio for this kind of thing? |
Heller II - Challenging DC's bans on semi-automatic rifles, large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, and its onerous and expensive handgun registration process. http://www.HellerFoundation.org/
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I'm a current cop and I must respectfully disagree with 10mmillie. Without seeing the bodycam and cruiser footage, I'll reserve judgement about PC and free air aspects of this stop. that being said: Stopped for expired tags. Good stop Failed to notify about having a firearm. Legit criminal offence 2923.16 (Before or at the time a law enforcement officer asks if the person is carrying a concealed handgun, knowingly fail to disclose that the person then possesses or has a loaded handgun in the motor vehicle) Free Air and search Find gun While I don't take a position about the PC and free air, fail to notify is a criminal offense and was a good arrest. You can spend a lot of time and money on this case, but it's a loser for a civil court. Your lawyer might get a couple grand to go away, but it's not a 1983 case. Getting the felony dropped and taking the MM traffic is about as good as you can get. If you find a Lawyer that will PB or contingent the case, great, but I wouldn't be dropping 25k on retainer on this. That being said, YMMV and your discretionary fund checkbook may be much larger than mine. BLUF...you can beat the wrap, but you won't beat the ride. 18Z50..... |
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Originally Posted By 18B30: I'm a current cop and I must respectfully disagree with 10mmillie. Without seeing the bodycam and cruiser footage, I'll reserve judgement about PC and free air aspects of this stop. that being said: Stopped for expired tags. Good stop Failed to notify about having a firearm. Legit criminal offence 2923.16 (Before or at the time a law enforcement officer asks if the person is carrying a concealed handgun, knowingly fail to disclose that the person then possesses or has a loaded handgun in the motor vehicle) Free Air and search Find gun While I don't take a position about the PC and free air, fail to notify is a criminal offense and was a good arrest. You can spend a lot of time and money on this case, but it's a loser for a civil court. Your lawyer might get a couple grand to go away, but it's not a 1983 case. Getting the felony dropped and taking the MM traffic is about as good as you can get. If you find a Lawyer that will PB or contingent the case, great, but I wouldn't be dropping 25k on retainer on this. That being said, YMMV and your discretionary fund checkbook may be much larger than mine. BLUF...you can beat the wrap, but you won't beat the ride. 18Z50..... That sounds like the officer has to ask if you are carrying a concealed handgun, not a general "do you have anything I need to know about?" ETA, I also appears that he was detained longer than necessary for the purposes of the stop, so they could get a dog, which is unconstitutional. |
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Response to 18B30, since post length won't allow me to quote. We both learned a lot about Ohio law from this mess. Strictly speaking you are right about Ohio code, as I understand it, the law requires him to announce his firearm to the officer. E1 For those who want the details. From a legal standpoint, my question is whether the gun can even be considered given that it wasn't covered under the condition for the search (drug dog). From a personal standpoint, I'm just frustrated they didn't clear this whole mess up with a follow-up question. But, you can imagine this very quickly turns into a situation of his word vs. the officers. The questions recorded in the police report was much more direct than what was actually asked of him. I told him he should have had a dashcam.... Not trying to sound smart or anything, I appreciate the response. His criminal lawyers seems to have taken a similar stance, based on the lack of contact. I think situations like this are going to become a lot more common since constitutional carry now allows a lot of people who haven't been trained to announce their weapons to find themselves in the same situation as my friend. To also address MHIDPAs point, he was detained for what he described as an extremely long time. His lawyer seemed to indicate there were discrepancies in the times recorded in the police report, and I suspect this was also covered up. There was also an additional police officer from a neighboring city. It's still not clear what his role was, my friend described him as a "babysitter". he didn't make it into the police report either. |
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Unless Ohio law is SIGNIFICANTLY different than everyone else, if he has a legitimate 4A exception (I.e. the dog) then they can look anyplace that's reasonable for the contraband to be located. They dropped charges either because they kept you too long for the dog (at all, in this case unless something was left out) or they lost or "lost" the dashcam footage...no way a prosecutor wants to take that to a jury. |
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My limited experience in this area is that, once your criminal lawyer gets you off, they consider it done and don't want to get involved in going after civil damages if you were wronged. I'd suggest shopping it around to at least several lawyers in your area and get a consensus of their opinions of whether or not you have a case. The class action sounds like a red herring to me, and much more complicated than necessary. Just go after your own case. |
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The lawyer suggesting a class action either indicates there's a pattern of misconduct that multiple aggrieved parties can benefit from and someone is pursuing it or he's tossing it out there to placate someone who feels wronged just to give them something to chase that isn't inside his office. I would think if he had knowledge of such a class being assembled or certified he would have passed on the name of a firm handling the litigation. That aside, you can file a lawsuit against pretty much anyone for just about anything. The only true test of a good case is if you can find a reputable attorney to take it. I would probably start there. Talk to a few and see what they say. |
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Can you name the city? Why a class action? Does this lawyer have a bunch of people that the ouija dog screwed up on? |
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Politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could see their corporate sponsors.
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ZW17, I’ll avoid naming the city specifically here, but it is a city this lawyer works in, so it’s certainly possible there’s a pattern of misconduct. It’s also a large and economically depressed city, so I’m sure they have a legitimate drug problem and probably struggle to keep officers. It’s also a neighboring city to my own, which is how my friend found himself in this position to begin with. You can imagine how I feel about that. If there is a class action, my friend was never contacted about it. It is possible the criminal lawyer was shopping this around and couldn’t get someone to take it. It sounds like the dashcam footage was the one thing that could have really sealed this. Without that, its his word against theirs whether the search was legitimate. After we found out that footage was “lost”, we even went to the gas station he was pulled over at and asked if they had security camera footage. Unfortunately, they retain records for two months and we were more than three months in at that point. One of then things that’s strangest to me, is they supposedly had interior footage of my friend sitting in the cruiser, but no front facing footage. I get that an officer could tamper with his bodycam, but it seems like footage from the cruiser itself would be stored on one system and accessed by someone other than the officer. That makes me question if there weren’t some higher level people involved in covering this up. Or maybe they just put something in front of the camera. The lawyer viewed the footage. I told my friend if he can’t get the footage from the lawyer, he should put in a public records request. I don’t think he’s hopeful that there’s much of use to be had though. The lawyer didn’t seem to think the footage was of much use for the criminal case. I appreciate all the input thus far, you all have provided some good context. I’m going to encourage my friend to at least call around, but maybe to temper his expectations a bit. |
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Originally Posted By wayfar3r: Response to 18B30, since post length won't allow me to quote. We both learned a lot about Ohio law from this mess. Strictly speaking you are right about Ohio code, as I understand it, the law requires him to announce his firearm to the officer. E1 For those who want the details. From a legal standpoint, my question is whether the gun can even be considered given that it wasn't covered under the condition for the search (drug dog). From a personal standpoint, I'm just frustrated they didn't clear this whole mess up with a follow-up question. But, you can imagine this very quickly turns into a situation of his word vs. the officers. The questions recorded in the police report was much more direct than what was actually asked of him. I told him he should have had a dashcam.... Not trying to sound smart or anything, I appreciate the response. His criminal lawyers seems to have taken a similar stance, based on the lack of contact. I think situations like this are going to become a lot more common since constitutional carry now allows a lot of people who haven't been trained to announce their weapons to find themselves in the same situation as my friend. To also address MHIDPAs point, he was detained for what he described as an extremely long time. His lawyer seemed to indicate there were discrepancies in the times recorded in the police report, and I suspect this was also covered up. There was also an additional police officer from a neighboring city. It's still not clear what his role was, my friend described him as a "babysitter". he didn't make it into the police report either. You keep harping on the time for the dog to arrives. Is that relevant? Is there a law that states the dog has to be there in a certain time frame? |
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Originally Posted By NotIssued: You keep harping on the time for the dog to arrives. Is that relevant? Is there a law that states the dog has to be there in a certain time frame? SCOTUS Has held that you can't be held at a stop to wait for a dog beyond the time needed to complete the stop. US v. Rodriguez |
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Originally Posted By NotIssued: You keep harping on the time for the dog to arrives. Is that relevant? Is there a law that states the dog has to be there in a certain time frame? USSC has ruled on this, Rodriguez v. United States. Police cannot prolong a traffic stop just to wait for drug dogs to arrive unless the police have reasonable suspicion of another crime. Detainment exceeding the time necessary to handle the matter for which the stop was originally intended violates a person’s right to be free from unreasonable seizures. So about the time it takes to run his info, write the ticket, and send him on his way. I believe 15min has been the benchmark to detain someone for a traffic violation, but I will let a lawyer chime in on that fact. |
What is a democrat? Someone who wants everything you have, except for your job.
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Politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could see their corporate sponsors.
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Ironmaker, if you have more information on that, we'd both be interested to know. Constitutional carry was passed in 2022, but, as far as I can tell, this just extends the privileges and (perhaps unintentionally) the responsibilities of a CCW to every citizen. As far as I can tell, they didn't change the letter of the law regarding concealed carry, just made it applicable to everyone. As I said earlier, I have a hunch things like this are going to become way more common. This happened ~June/July, and only recently reached its conclusion. |
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Middle of page 15, the permit holder is not required to notify, but if asked, must answer truthfully. https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Publications-Files/Publications-for-Law-Enforcement/Concealed-Carry-Publications/Concealed-Carry-Laws-Manual- Attached File |
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Originally Posted By Ironmaker: When did this happen? There is no more “need to notify” in OH. It's my understanding that you have to notify if asked by LEO if you have any weapons. The duty to immediately notify was scrapped. ETA; covered already |
What is a democrat? Someone who wants everything you have, except for your job.
Politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could see their corporate sponsors.
Politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could see their corporate sponsors.
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Ironmaker, ZW17, thanks for that context. As I said, my friend recalled the officer asking him if there was "anything he needed to know about" in the car. The police report said specifically he asked if there were any firearms in the vehicle. My friend summarized the whole encounter to his lawyer over email after this happened, so there is a record that predates any knowledge he had of the police report. Whether that would suffice as evidence, I'm less certain. Ironmaker, I should also note that he was removed from the vehicle, under the pretense of signing some paperwork that was never provided. Again, it feels like I need to give him a nudge to make some calls. With limited evidence, I'm less certain how far he'll get. |
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Originally Posted By wayfar3r: Ironmaker, ZW17, thanks for that context. As I said, my friend recalled the officer asking him if there was "anything he needed to know about" in the car. The police report said specifically he asked if there were any firearms in the vehicle. My friend summarized the whole encounter to his lawyer over email after this happened, so there is a record that predates any knowledge he had of the police report. Whether that would suffice as evidence, I'm less certain. Ironmaker, I should also note that he was removed from the vehicle, under the pretense of signing some paperwork that was never provided. Again, it feels like I need to give him a nudge to make some calls. With limited evidence, I'm less certain how far he'll get. I guess the argument could be made that "anything I need to know about" isn't exactly asking specifically about a handgun or weapon, but since the charges were dropped, it's kind of mute. 4th Amendment violation is also possible since they detained him for longer than needed to wait on the drug dog, this is probably why they dropped the charges. I am not a lawyer, I am just spitballing here. |
What is a democrat? Someone who wants everything you have, except for your job.
Politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could see their corporate sponsors.
Politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could see their corporate sponsors.
|
Originally Posted By ZW17: USSC has ruled on this, Rodriguez v. United States. Police cannot prolong a traffic stop just to wait for drug dogs to arrive unless the police have reasonable suspicion of another crime. Detainment exceeding the time necessary to handle the matter for which the stop was originally intended violates a person’s right to be free from unreasonable seizures. So about the time it takes to run his info, write the ticket, and send him on his way. I believe 15min has been the benchmark to detain someone for a traffic violation, but I will let a lawyer chime in on that fact. Those sound mutually contradictory. Pull over for busted tail light. "I smell weed." Bam, can wait all night for the dog.... right? |
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| Just think before your friend follows suit. These things only wind up costing the taxpayer if a lawsuit is successful, and unless your friend is in some blue dem sanctuary city district, the township or city is probably spending its policing resources right but is stretched thin, like almost all PDs in the country right now. Do you really want to work all the way just for a settlement over improper treatment (i.e., a jail stay) on one night? |
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Originally Posted By sixers79: Just think before your friend follows suit. These things only wind up costing the taxpayer if a lawsuit is successful, and unless your friend is in some blue dem sanctuary city district, the township or city is probably spending its policing resources right but is stretched thin, like almost all PDs in the country right now. Do you really want to work all the way just for a settlement over improper treatment (i.e., a jail stay) on one night? Hey man, accepting government overreach is not in the American tradition, much less accepting government corruption. |
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Originally Posted By sixers79: Just think before your friend follows suit. These things only wind up costing the taxpayer if a lawsuit is successful, and unless your friend is in some blue dem sanctuary city district, the township or city is probably spending its policing resources right but is stretched thin, like almost all PDs in the country right now. Do you really want to work all the way just for a settlement over improper treatment (i.e., a jail stay) on one night? I knew a guy who got $5000 an hour back when $5000 was real money so… yeah. |