Repeater
Regular Member
The victim of a false arrest, Shawn Northrup, may proceed with a Section 1983 lawsuit.
Analysis by Eugene Volokh:
The Fourth Amendment and open carry of guns (where such open carry is legal)
As Eugene says of the opinion above:
The Toledo blade has more:
Appeals court clears way for Toledoan to sue police
Cops use that “furtive movement” excuse way too often to justify disarming and handcuffing law-abiding citizens.
And if OC could be construed to 'inducing panic' like the old "Yelling fire in a crowded theater" then we are all doomed.
Analysis by Eugene Volokh:
The Fourth Amendment and open carry of guns (where such open carry is legal)
From the Sixth Circuit federal court of appeals decision today in Northrup v. Toledo Police Dept.:
...
While open-carry laws may put police officers (and some motorcyclists) in awkward situations from time to time, the Ohio legislature has decided its citizens may be entrusted with firearms on public streets. Ohio Rev. Code §§ 9.68, 2923.125. The Toledo Police Department has no authority to disregard this decision — not to mention the protections of the Fourth Amendment — by detaining every “gunman” who lawfully possesses a firearm. And it has long been clearly established that an officer needs evidence of criminality or dangerousness before he may detain and disarm a law-abiding citizen. We thus affirm the district court’s conclusion that, after reading the factual inferences in the record in Northrup’s favor, Officer Bright could not reasonably suspect that Northrup needed to be disarmed.
As Eugene says of the opinion above:
But to coercively stop a person — and certainly to handcuff the person, which is what happened in this case — the police do have to have such reasonable suspicion. And if all they see is someone openly carrying a gun in a state in which such open carry is legal, the Fourth Amendment prevents them from “search[ing]” or “seiz[ing]” that person. One can support open carry or oppose it (some states ban open carry of guns but broadly offer licenses to carry concealed), but if open carry is legal, this result seems quite right under Fourth Amendment law.
The Toledo blade has more:
Appeals court clears way for Toledoan to sue police
A federal appeals court today cleared the way for a Toledo resident to sue a city police officer for allegedly detaining him illegally for openly carrying a semi-automatic handgun.
“The Fourth Amendment no doubt permitted (Officer David) Bright to approach Northrup and to ask him questions,” wrote Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton. “But that is not what he did. He relied on these facts to stop (Shawn) Northrup, disarm him, and handcuff him.
“Ohio law permits the open carry of firearms …, and thus permitted Northrup to do exactly what he was doing,” he wrote. “While the dispatcher and motorcyclist may not have known the details of Ohio’s open-carry firearm law, the police officer had no basis for such uncertainty.”
...
The officer claimed Mr. Northrup removed his cellphone and then moved his hand back toward the gun where the phone had been, which the officer saw as a “furtive movement.”
Mr. Northrup said he removed his phone to record the interaction. He kept asking questions rather than comply with the officer’s demand that he turn around and raise his hands above his head.
Cops use that “furtive movement” excuse way too often to justify disarming and handcuffing law-abiding citizens.
And if OC could be construed to 'inducing panic' like the old "Yelling fire in a crowded theater" then we are all doomed.
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