PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "After his release, Sosa sued the sheriff’s department for violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable seizure and to not be deprived of liberty without due process, but the trial court ruled that the deputies had not violated Sosa’s rights and dismissed the case. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the case, likewise ruling that Sosa’s constitutional rights were not violated. Sosa and The Rutherford Institute have now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and reverse the lower court rulings to hold the police accountable."
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RELEASE: "Rutherford Institute Calls Foul After Police Twice Arrest the Wrong Man and Hold Him in Jail for Three Days Before Verifying His Identity," published by The Rutherford Institute, on August 25, 2023. (The Rutherford Institute describes itself as a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.)
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The release can be read at:
Sosa v. Martin County, Florida
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GIST: WASHINGTON, D.C. — "The Rutherford Institute is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hold police accountable for misidentifying and wrongly arresting an innocent man twice in five years, then jailing him for three days before taking a few minutes to verify his identity.
Although David Sosa shares the same name as a man from another state named in an outstanding warrant more than 20 years old, he has a different date of birth, height, weight, and social security number, and did not have any tattoos, unlike the suspect listed in the warrant.
Nevertheless, police failed to take the necessary, fundamental steps to confirm Sosa’s identity before arresting and jailing him.
Weighing in before the Supreme Court in Sosa v. Martin County, Florida, The Rutherford Institute warns that if police are not held accountable for violating Sosa’s rights, then nothing will deter law enforcement officers from wrongfully arresting him over and over again or from committing similar reckless behavior toward other innocent citizens.
“What this case shows is that we have no real due process,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “If the powers-that-be want to lock you up, then you’ll be locked up, whether you’re innocent or guilty, with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.”
In 2014, David Sosa was stopped for a traffic violation by a sheriff’s deputy for Martin County, Florida, which is where Sosa lived.
Sosa worked in research and development of airplane engines.
The deputy discovered an arrest warrant for a “David Sosa” from 22 years earlier out of Texas for selling crack cocaine.
Even though Sosa had a different date of birth, height, weight, and social security number, and did not have any tattoos as listed for the accused in the warrant, the deputy arrested him anyway.
After three hours, the sheriff’s department confirmed Sosa was not the same person named in the warrant and released him.
However, four years later, another deputy from the same department made a traffic stop on Sosa and found the same outstanding warrant.
Once again, despite the identifying information on the warrant not matching his description and Sosa informing the deputy about the previous misidentification incident, the deputy arrested Sosa on the same warrant.
But this time the jail held Sosa for three days before taking just a few minutes to run his fingerprints to confirm his identity and release him.
After his release, Sosa sued the sheriff’s department for violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable seizure and to not be deprived of liberty without due process, but the trial court ruled that the deputies had not violated Sosa’s rights and dismissed the case.
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the case, likewise ruling that Sosa’s constitutional rights were not violated.
Sosa and The Rutherford Institute have now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and reverse the lower court rulings to hold the police accountable.
James C. Martin and Taylor A. Marcusson of Reed Smith LLP helped advance the arguments in the amicus brief in Sosa v. Martin County, Florida.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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