Articles Posted in Constitution – Bill of Rights

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Bob Glasscox sued Officer David Moses and the City of Argo, Alabama under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment for injuries he received when Officer Moses tased him four times in rapid succession. Glasscox, a type 1 diabetic, suffered a severe hypoglycemic episode while driving his pickup truck on Interstate 59 near Argo, Alabama. His condition caused him to begin driving erratically, and after other drivers reported his erratic driving Officer Moses was dispatched to the scene. The events that unfolded were captured on his body camera.

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David Lazaro Oliva’s appeal dealt mainly with a Speedy Trial issue. After an investigation into two large scale burglaries that took place in October and November of 2011, revealed the burglaries were committed by Oliva and Rafael Uranga, they were indicted in November 2013 with conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. They were not arrested until October 2015, some twenty-three months later. They moved to dismiss their indictment based on a Sixth Amendment speedy trial violation. The United States Magistrate found that the delay between the indictment and the arrest was the result of the Government’s gross negligence but ultimately recommended that the motions be denied. The District Court agreed and both plead guilty. In their appeal they raised the Speedy Trial issue.

The case was investigated by Michael Donnelly, a Gwinnett County Police Department officer serving as an FBI Task Force Officer assigned as the sole investigator in the case. After the indictment Donnelly was responsible for locating and arresting the two but he mistakenly believed the United States Marshals Service had this responsibility. In January of 2014 after no arrests happened he asked another task force officer to communicate with the Marshals. That officer found out that the Marshals do not handle the arrests, but he failed to communicate this to Donnelly. Donnelly still failed to ask about the FBI procedure or whether the Marshals would begin locating the defendants. Donnelly still did not know it was his responsibility and failed to communicate with the U.S. Attorney’s office about the issue during the two year period.

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Khaled Elbeblawy was convicted and sentenced in Miami federal court for conspiracy to commit health care fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1349. His offense arose from his ownership and management of home health agencies that provided in-home medical nursing and other services to homebound patients which he used to defraud Medicare for millions of dollars. His fraud included billing Medicare for services that were never provided, paying doctors in case for referring patients, hiring patient recruiters and nurses for referrals. He would disguise check by inflating the rates paid for staffing services and described checks to patient recruiters as payments for consulting and other services.

After an investigation focused on Elbeblawy, he decided to cooperate with the government and helped investigators obtain evidence against his former conspirators. He signed a plea agreement and a written factual basis for the agreement. The agreement stated that the government would be free to use against him in any criminal proceedings any of the statement provided by him including the factual basis for the plea. After he signed the agreement, he changed his mind and refused to plead guilty and the government prosecuted him for the charges he was indicted. Prior to trial Elbeblawy filed a motion to suppress the signed factual basis for the plea agreement on the ground that he did not knowingly and voluntarily waive the Rule 11 and Rule 410 protections. The district court denied his motion.

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In this case civil rights action Cozzi was arrested for robbing one pharmacy and for the attempted robbery of another. After he was released because the police found no evidence linking him to the crimes, he sued an officer of the City of Birmingham Alabama and several other law enforcement officers alleging a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unlawful arrest pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court denied the officer’s summary judgment motion and the officer took this appeal arguing that he was entitled to qualified immunity on that claim because he had arguable probable cause to arrest Cozzi.

The only issue the court had to resolve was whether the officer is entitled to qualified immunity from Cozzi’s claim that the officer violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unlawful arrest. To invoke the qualified immunity doctrine the officer has the initial burden of showing he was within his discretionary authority. The officer met this burden without dispute. The burden then shifted to Cozzi to show that the officer violated his constitutional right and this right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.

For the arrest to be in compliance with the Fourth Amendment, the officer needed arguable probable cause to make the arrest. Whether a reasonable officer could have believed he had probable cause to arrest depends on the totality of the circumstances.

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The lawsuit by Livingston Manners  claiming federal civil rights violations by several police officers from the City of Hollywood for excessive force, malicious prosecution and a common law false arrest was ultimately rejected.  This is how the facts unfolded.

At 3:00 in the morning Manners was sitting in his car on the side of a residential street in Hollywood Florida getting ready to drive to work when Officer Cannella drove by. The officer was patrolling the area in response to recent theft crimes in the area. As Cannella passed, Manners drove off. Believing that he saw Manners run a stop sign, Cannella made a u-turn and began following Manners about four or five blocks before activating his lights and siren. It was undisputed that Manners did not stop when he saw Cannella’s behind him with lights and siren. Manners explained that he was afraid, so he continued driving and until he reached a well-lit gas station where there was surveillance and there he pulled over.

Canella approached and informed Manners he was under arrest and ordered him to stay seated in the car. According to video taken from the surveillance cameras, a physical struggle took place when Cannella attempted to arrest Manners and place him into custody. Eventually other officers arrived while the struggle was underway, and Manners was tazed and eventually subdued.

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The issue disputed in Koeppel v. Valencia College was whether Valencia College violated Jeffrey Koeppel’s statutory or constitutional rights when it suspended him for his harassing conduct against another student. Koeppel’s suspension followed an investigation by the Valencia Dean of Students after a “Jane Roe” lodged a complaint about messages Koeppel had been sending her. The investigation showed that he sent Jane Roe dozens of messages making lewd reference to her body and send these unwanted massages over a period of days. He continued to contact her despite her repeated pleas that he stop contacting her and after the Dean issued an order that he not contact her.

After the Dean determined that Koeppel likely violated the school’s Code of Conduct for four types of conduct prohibited by the Code, a disciplinary hearing was held by the Student Conduct Committee. At a hearing held by the Committee they reviewed the evidence of the text messages and questioned Koeppel about his messages. It concluded he was responsible for the charged conduct and suspended him for attending the college for one year.

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Stephon Williams was convicted of federal charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. 846 following a jury trial in a Georgia federal court. Williams was charged with conspiring with his codefendant Donterius Toombs who also went trial with Williams. The government called a witness named Bennet to testify at their trial.

At the time of this trial Bennet was appealing his drug conviction by challenging his sentence enhancement for an obstruction of justice for sending a letter to Toombs, Williams’ coconspirator, asking him to cooperate on Bennett’s in exchange for a substantial payment and to market a cooperation-for-hire scheme to inmates seeking sentence reductions. The attorney representing Williams at his trial was also representing Bennet on his sentence enhancement challenge in the Eleventh Circuit court of appeals.

In his testimony Bennet did not mention Williams by name but he supported the government’s case against both Williams and Toombs by directly describing and by corroborating other witnesses’ testimony concerning the drug distribution conspiracy alleged in the indictment. In his direct examination, Bennet made no mention of his letter to Mr. Toombs or how he had received and obstruction of justice enhancement at sentencing. Toombs’ counsel cross-examined Bennet but did not bring up the topic. Williams’ counsel asked no questions when it came to his turn on cross examination.

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Jose Luis Morales appealed his conviction and 15 year sentence for one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). He was arrested after Miami Dade Police Officers conducted a search of the home where Morales lived and found a Rossi .38 caliber revolver and a .22 caliber pistol in the closet of Morales’ bedroom. Morales lived in the house with his girlfriend, their two children, and his girlfriend’s mother. The search took place after the police approached the house while investigating drug activity in the area. Their focus was drawn to Morales and while Morales was outside of his house speaking with officers another officer approached the house and spoke to the Morales’s girlfriend’s mother. She gave consent to a search of the house and a K-9 alerted to the area of the closet in Morales’s bedroom where the firearms were found.

On his appeal Morales argued the Miami federal court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence seized in the search of his bedroom, claiming that the mother’s consent was not voluntary. He also argued that even if her consent was voluntary, his Fourth Amendment rights were violated because he was a physically present co-occupant who was intentionally denied an opportunity to refuse entry to the officers and to refuse their request to search.

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Touset appealed his conviction for three counts of receiving child pornography, transporting and shipping child pornography and possessing a computer and computer storage devise contain child pornography.  He was arrested after his arrival on an international flight at the Atlanta Georgia airport, when a Customs and Border Protection agent inspected his luggage and found two iPhones, a camera two laptops, two external hard drives, and two tablets. The agent manually inspected the iPhones and the camera, found no child pornography and returned those devises to Touset.

But the agency detained the remaining electronic devices. A forensic search revealed child pornography on the two laptops and the two external drives. With that information agents obtained and executed a search warrant for Touset’s home in Marietta Georgia which turned up evidence showing Touset purchased thousands of images of child pornography, having sent more than $55,000 to the Philippines for pornographic pictures, videos, and webcam sessions. In some webcam sessions he instructed prepubescent girls to display and manipulate their genitals. He also created an excel spreadsheet that documented the names ages and birthdates of those young girls as well as his notes about them.

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The issue here is whether a police officer seizing a cell phone from someone recording an incident violates the Fourth Amendment. In this civil rights appeal, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Beatty claiming he was entitled to qualified immunity for seizing the plaintiff’s iPhone after from Crocker after he took photos and videos of a car accident crash scene from where he stood on the interstate grass median. The district court denied his motion for summary judgment and he took this appeal.

Crocker stopped while driving on Interstate 95 in Martin County, Florida when he observed an overturned SUV. Soon after he stopped, emergency personnel arrived but he remained in the interstate median about fifty feet from the SUV.  Crocker then took out his cell phone and proceeded to take photos and videos of the scene that included images of empty beer bottles, the overturned vehicle, and firemen. About thirty seconds after Crocker started using his camera, Beatty walked over to him, reached out from behind him without warning or explanation and took the iPhone out of his hand. When asked by Beatty why he was on the scene Crocker explained that he had stopped to assister before first responders had arrived. Beatty told the plaintiff to leave and the plaintiff agreed to but wanted his cell phone back. Beatty replied that the photos and video on the phone were evidence of the state and the plaintiff would need to drive to the nearest weigh station to wait for instruction about the return of his phone after the evidence could be obtained from it.

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