Court Rules Against Cops Who Arrested Man on Sidewalk - Ep. 7.288

welcome once again to lato's law here's steve lato someone sent me a hard copy of a case of the federal court uh the court of appeals the eighth circuit this is a very very interesting case and it talks about uh something that comes up quite a bit on youtube videos and that is somebody is someplace with a camera and they encounter police and some police don't react well when they encounter someone with a camera especially someone with a camera who doesn't necessarily just respond to what the police say or ask of them and so the question becomes what happens when these things escalate and so in this case the case is daniel thomas robbins versus the city of des moines so this happened in iowa and this is an appeal from the united states district court the southern district of iowa and this whole thing went down legally the case that i'm reading to you was filed january 5th of this year so this is really really new as far as this goes and what we're talking about is the court ruling so in other words the facts that led to this court ruling happened a while back which we'll talk about in a second but the ruling is very very new but there's a really really good reason to be reading this case right now and that is that the court lays out exactly what the standards are and what the laws are in situations like this so daniel robbins was recording illegally parked vehicles from a public sidewalk near the des moines police station so he's standing there on a sidewalk in public and he's filming parked cars and police officers approached him and asked him what he was doing what are you doing now they say that robbins is uncooperative and presumably it's because he wouldn't explicitly tell them what he was doing but if you stood there and watched him he's standing on the sidewalk filming cars now some people say steve what's what's illegal about that i didn't say it was illegal but apparently it perturbed the police so the officers temporarily seized him and his camera and cell phone for which he then sued the city of des moines and three of its officers in their individual and official capacities alleging violations of his first fourth and fourteenth amendment rights the district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on all claims so he filed the lawsuit and the federal court looked at it said no and dismissed the entire thing the entire every count every defendant dismiss the entire thing and that's what happens a lot of times and a lot of times the lower courts will kind of look at these things and dismiss the case but interestingly the court of appeals goes through this count by count and finds some things that should not have been dismissed and sends it back down for another look by the district court so a little more detailed facts here mid morning may 10th 2018. brad youngblood left the police station to get into his car while walking towards his car he observed robbins recording vehicles as well as officers and civilian employees entering and leaving the police station so they add in here that they think he may have been filming people people walking around in public because youngblood was aware that vehicles had recently been stolen from and vandalized in that area and because he was aware of a previous incident which two officers had been murdered by a person with a history of filming the police detective youngblood approached robbins to make inquiry at about the same time defendants lieutenant joseph leo and a sergeant named curtis along with several other people approached robbins as well at that point robbins was on the sidewalk surrounded by law enforcement officers so you got the picture right okay robbins would not identify himself and when they asked him what he was doing he said i'm taking pictures because it's perfectly legal for me to do so i'm taking pictures because it's perfectly legal for me to do so lieutenant leo initiated physical contact by lifting the back of robbins's shirt grabbed his forearm and placed it above his head and patted him down robbins repeatedly asked what about his conduct was illegal and the officers responded that while he was not doing anything illegal they found him suspicious eventually the officers ordered him to leave again he's standing on a public sidewalk but near the police station and they've asked him to leave the officers then told robbins he was loitering and if he did not identify himself he would be arrested detective youngblood suggested that the officers just make a suspicious activity case and confiscate the camera until we have a reason for what we're doing so when somebody says you know we should just do something until we have a reason for what we're doing you're doing it backwards you should do things for reasons you don't do things to make up reasons or to come up with reasons later now i'm not talking about police i'm just telling everybody so if you're gonna do something that's significant shouldn't you have a reason for doing it or do you really say i'm going to do it and come up with a reason later for what i'm doing at this point robbins asked do i have an arrest in essence am i being arrested detective youngblood said yes yes robins asked am i detained at this point to which young blood said yes you are now at this point of course they usually ask that any other order am i being detained am i under arrest but he asked those and was told yes to both of these you are under arrest you are being detained while officers put robin's hands on the bed of a pickup and patted him down they again asked for identification which he said he did not have when asked his name he responded with john doe but then he did actually give them his actual name he said i'm gonna do this under protest but my name is daniel robbins so he did say here's my name and he gave them his name and and he was truthful about that the officers seized his cell phone and his camera detective youngblood photographed robins for his file and then told him he was free to go but remember they've got his cell phone on his camera the cell phone and camera were retained by law enforcement until may 22nd 2018 so the initial contact is may 10th so they had his cell phone and his camera for about 12 days the entire incident from when they first made contact to when they left okay that was also 12 minutes long that was 12 minutes long but here's the thing the cell phone camera were kept by the police for 12 days and then eventually detective youngblood authorized the return of the property after robbins attorney demanded the return of the property so an attorney calls the police and goes look i represent this guy you arrested him 12 days ago but then you let him go but you still have his camera and his cell phone so they said okay fine they returned it so robin's filed suit in september of 2018 asserting three constitutional torts three wrongs count one he says he is unlawfully detained seized and searched and his property was unlawfully seized in retaliation for engaging in protected first amendment activity that is he was simply observing and recording public police activities count two he says he was falsely detained arrested and his property is unlawfully seized in violation of the fourth amendment in account three he maintains the city failed to train the officers on the first amendment right to observe and record public police activities causing him to suffer an unlawful retaliatory detention seizure and search the district court as noted dismissed all of those counts so we get to the discussion by the court and i'm going to kind of try to summarize this because it's lengthy courts do that but discussing counts one and two first and this is against all defendants as noted previously government officials generally are entitled to qualified immunity unless their conduct violates a clearly established constitutional statutory right of which a reasonable person would have known now we recently talked about the case where riojas pulled that out of my back of my mind uh and so that law might be changing but generally speaking uh it's still gonna be a while before that works its way through the entire system the question is has robbins shown a deprivation of a clearly established right robin's asserts the defendant officers reasonably should have known that the first amendment protects his recording activity his verbal challenge of the police and his refusal to leave a public space but they point out that the officers thought they had a reason for this they said that there had been reports of people breaking into cars there had been reports of other things criminal activity in the area and another incident that escalated when somebody had been filming and asked to stop and turn into a stalking incident and so they said that the behavior here went beyond any constitutionally protected recording activity when it was combined with the officer's knowledge about vehicles being stolen and vandalized in the area and the previous filming causing trouble blah blah blah so the court's not going to buy that one so count two is the fourth amendment the district court concluded that summary judgment was appropriate because the officers had probable cause to stop under the fourth amendment and properly seized the camera on the phone under reasonable suspicion of criminal activity this court disagrees this court disagrees when the court of appeals disagrees they win so robbins argues the defendant officers violated his right to be free from a terry stop unsupported by reasonable suspicion and arrest absent probable cause and seizure of his property without a warrant so they will go through these things one at a time the defendant officers argue that robbins was subjected to an investigatory stop an investigatory stop is a fourth amendment activity and must be based on a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity may be a foot and that's the word the court actually used in a foot we assess reasonable suspicion using the totality of the circumstances approach which requires at least some minimal level of objective justification the inquiry deals with probabilities and not hard certainties and need not rule out innocent conduct an officer will not be deprived of qualified immunity if he had arguable reasonable suspicion which exists when a reasonable officer in the same position could have believed that reasonable suspicion existed the defendants officers are entitled to qualified immunity for the terry stop because they had at least arguable reasonable suspicion so simply stopping the guy and asking what he's doing the court's saying that's okay because there's been problems in the past and the guy's right there and there's cars right there and and things have happened before based on they go look you know simply stopping the guy and asking him what are you doing that's not gonna be something for which the police can be sued at this point in this case however the arrest is an interesting point we next consider whether the stop progressed to an arrest the defendant officers assert that robbins was never arrested but the court says they do this without meaningful analysis their record reflects that the officers told robbins he was arrested if they tell you you're arrested you're arrested can you imagine if a police officer said you're under arrest and you ran away and after they haul you back or whatever they're going to do to you you go i didn't think i was arrested cop again what are you talking i told you you're under arrest obviously you told you know if you're told you're under arrest you have to behave like you're under arrest so you are under arrest and they tell you you're under this is such a bootstrap simple argument that the idea that the attorneys on the defense side actually argued and said the man was not under arrest even though the officer said you are under arrest it's crazy the record reflects that the officers told robbins he was arrested and then they detained him and they frisked him and they seized his property the question then is whether the arrest was supported by probable cause there's no question he was arrested so let's look at whether or not he should have been arrested was there a warrant no so this becomes a warrantless arrest a warrantless arrest that lacks probable cause violates the fourth amendment probable cause for a warrantless arrest exists when the totality of the circumstances at the time of the arrest are sufficient to lead a reasonable person to believe that the defendant has committed or is committing an offense so there could be qualified immunity if there's an arguable probable cause which exists when an officer mistakenly arrests a suspect believing it is based on probable cause if the mistake is objectively reasonable at most the officers at the scene here asserted two possible theories for probable cause first loitering well the problem is of course that viewing the facts in light most favorable to robin's a reasonable officer would not have believed he had probable cause to arrest robin for loitering because there is no evidence that robbins was blocking the sidewalk or disrupting the activity of the police station both of which are required by the des moines municipal code so he wasn't breaking that law you can't arrest him for it the officers also asserted that robbins reported a false name john doe in violation of iowa's false reporting statute now the question is whether or not that's a false report under the statute but the problem is that he gave his name as john doe after the arrest so again the police here came into court and said we arrested the man for giving us a false name even though he gave him the false name after he was arrested now you might go see that's crazy it's even crazier as the district court bought it so meanwhile let's get to the property the fourth amendment specifically protects the rights of individuals to be free from unreasonable seizures of their papers and effects a seizure occurs when there is some meaningful interference with individuals possessory interests in the property here there's no question that the property was in fact seized the warrantless seizure of property is per se unreasonable unless it falls with a well-defined exception to the warrant requirement they claim they've got such an exception in this case but uh clearly they don't but they pointed to some cases where other police departments had seized seize things like cell phones and so on but you know if they cite a case for instance out of the 11th circuit where somebody sees a cell phone for two days but the problem here is of course the officers did not tell robbins any precision when or how he'd get his property back rather detective youngblood told robbins he was investigating a homicide and would apply for a search warrant at some point youngblood disposed of his suspicions and the need for search warrant after discovering robbins had a youtube page dedicated to illegally parked vehicles even so youngblood continued to detain robin's property until his council demanded their return so under the facts of this case the government interest which was presumably to dispel whatever suspicion the officers had does not outweigh the intrusion to robbins the seizure was unreasonable in the absence of arguable probable cause so there's another claim about the training of the officers and the courts point out that it's extremely difficult to prove that officers weren't trained properly because they simply make mistakes so that one gets tossed and that one stays tossed but the important thing here is that in conclusion the court of appeals affirms in part and reverses in part and remands for further proceedings consistent with the opinion and they affirm the district court's grant a summary on accounts one and three but on count two defendants were entitled to summary judgment and robin's claim that he was subjected to an improper terry stop however the false arrest claim and the unlawful seizure property claim are both good they're going to survive so what happens here is this case will get sent back down to the trial court with a copy of this order and the court now will have to look at it and say okay you originally filed a three count complaint two of your accounts got dismissed so we're now going to have a trial potentially on one count and the one count includes the false arrest and the seizure of the property and they can proceed on that now they might settle it okay or theoretically they could appeal this also but they'd be appealing this one to the supreme court probably wouldn't get taken up there i don't think but really what you're looking at is the false arrest and the seizure of his property and the interesting thing is that the guy has a website apparently where he goes out and films illegally parked cars i've taken photographs of illegally parked cars i i i pulling their parking onto somebody you know across two lines and across the the split so they're actually blocking four spots i you know see if i get all the time you know but um apparently the guy's got a youtube channel devoted to this and more power to him that works for him but no question that the police encountered him they questioned what he was doing they weren't quite sure what to make of it and they got upset because he was in their minds belligerent now whether he was belligerent or not i wasn't there but the point is that that they asked him some questions and he said i'm on public property i'm i'm filming cars and the police didn't like that answer and so they could have thought about it some more and said he's not breaking any laws might not like the fact that guy's walking on filming out here but this is public property he's on the sidewalk he's not blocking anybody he's not breaking any laws that we know of so even though we might not like it gotta let him do that instead they arrest him now it's true they didn't take him into the police station and fingerprint and throw them in a jail cell they arrested him and then apparently decided to just let him go but the point is they did in fact arrest him they told him is under arrest and they took his cell phone and his camera and they kept those things for 12 days now i don't know about you but if i didn't have my cell phone for 12 days i'd be in a world of hurt okay and now if you actually said steve i'm gonna take your cell phone from you you won't have it for 12 days um i would actually go and get another cell phone i'd have to i can't function without one so i don't know if this guy is in a position to do that or not but not a lot of people aren't so if they take your cell phone for 12 days that is a problem now is this a multi-million dollar case that's going to you know break financially the city of des moines um i doubt it i doubt it but what the court is saying is this man has the right to take this to court put it in front of a jury and and tell them what happened and have the jury decide if he should be compensated for this and the court of appeals eighth circuit says absolutely he's entitled that he's he gets that so right now the case is still alive and it's alive on two very very easily provable things with respect to liability the false arrest and the seizure of his property without a warrant only question is what are his damages and i've discussed this before when you file a lawsuit to win you need two things and imagine it's a mathematical equation when you multiply things together so if you have liability but no damages you get zero if you've got no liability but damages you get zero but you got some of each then you're entitled to go to the jury and say hey what do i get and we'll see what the jury does to compensate him for what happened in his case so the case is daniel thomas robbins versus the city of des moines and a bunch of other people in case you're curious someone will ask the man's name is in fact young blood young blood y-o-u-n-g-b-l-u-t it could be young blues which i apologize if that is the case but i was not mispronouncing it by not saying young blood so there you go questions or comments do put them below i'd love to talk to you later bye-bye thank you for watching lato's law you keep using that word i do not think that word means what you think it means you

Channel: Steve Lehto

Views: 599,179

Rating: 4.9026084 out of 5

Keywords: lemon law, michigan lemon law, lemon law attorney, lemon law lawyer, http://www.lehtoslaw.com, steve lehto

Id: 2KPHJDz5NQM

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Peoplegottabefree]

This only happens about a thousand times a day in America and it's because cops are cowards and know NOTHING about the laws they are way over paid to enforce.

[u/DefendCharterRights]

Earlier AmIFreeToGo thread on this topic.

[u/Rodem]

These cops should be charged with armed robbery.