The Law Is an Ass, but this Georgia Sheriff Who Arrested His Ex-Wife Is a Total @$$hole

[EasyAce]

Claimed she and another women defamed him by calling him "POS" on Facebook.
By Nick Gillespie
http://reason.com/blog/2017/02/06/the-law-is-an-ass-but-this-georgia-sheri/print

Via Ken White of Popehat comes a dispiriting but important story of the wide gulf between how freedom is supposed to work and how,
depending on the local situation, power operates with near-impunity. Anne King of Washington County, Georgia complained that her ex-
husband wouldn't help her out by picking up some medicine for their sick kids. A friend of King's, Susan Hines, replied via Facebook that
she'd pick up the meds and drop them off in King's mailbox. She also referred to the ex-husband as "POS," which is short for "piece of
sh!t."

As it happens, explains White,

Captain Corey King of the Washington County Sheriff's Department. And when it comes to American law
enforcement, your right to free speech is more theoretical than actual.

In her federal lawsuit, Anne King contends that her husband, a friend in the Sheriff's Department, and a county
"magistrate" put her in jail for her Facebook comment. According to her, Captain King filed a police report with his
friend, Washington County Sheriff's Investigator Trey Burgamy. Washington County magistrate Ralph O. Todd —
who is not a lawyer, and who ran unopposed last year — issued a warrant requiring Anne King and Susan Hines
(who had responded on Facebook by suggesting Captain King is a "POS") to appear at a hearing. After a hearing
at which Captain King was the only witness, Magistrate Todd caused a warrant to issue charging Anne King with
criminal defamation: "SUBJECT DID, WITHOUT A PRIVILEGE TO DO SO AND WITH INTENT TO DEFAME ANOTHER,
COMMUNICATE FALSE MATTER WHICH TENDS TO EXPOSE ONE WHO IS ALIVE TO HATRED, CONTEMPT, OR
RIDICULE, AND WHICH TENDS TO PROVOKE A BREACH OF THE PEACE, SPECIFICALLY, SUBJECT DID MAKE
DEROGATORY AND DEGRADING COMMENTS DIRECTLY AT AND ABOUT COREY KING, FOR THE PURPOSE OF
PROVIDING A BREACH OF THE PEACE. Anne King also contends that Magistrate Todd threatened to "ban her
from Facebook."

Anne King's story has a vaguely happy ending. After being arrested and booked and semi-charged (they really didn't break any
laws, you see), she and Hines were released and in a subsequent hearing, everything was dismissed.

Anne King has sued Captain King, Investigator Burgamy, and Washington County for civil rights
violations and various state torts. She can't sue "Magistrate" Ralph Todd because, despite the fact he's not a
lawyer, he's cloaked by absolute judicial immunity. The statements above are merely her contentions.
Moreover, the law governing suing state actors in federal court is complex, and the defendants will have
many defenses to liability.

Anne King's story is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a rare one. Particularly with the rise of social
media, law enforcement officers across the country have been abusing the legal system to retaliate against
insults: from the police supporting Jim Ardis' petty and petulant revenge in Peoria, the Renton PD investigated
satirical videos, and the Parma PD prosecuted a man through trial for a satirical account.

Anne King has First Amendment rights, in theory. Their nature and extent are well defined by the courts. It's
straightforward to respect them. But what does it mean to say she has those rights? In Washington County,
Georgia — population approximately 21,000 — with a hostile ex-husband a Captain of the Sheriff's Department,
and with Ralph Todd as a magistrate, does she really have them in any meaningful way? What is a right, when
the state defies it?

Ken White, who has done some legal work for Reason as well as writing for us, is a former prosecutor who is now a defense
attorney. Read his "Confessions of an Ex-Prosecutor" if you want to trim your nose hairs without using clippers. He knows the
legal system inside and out, from both sides, and he is especially strong on how apparently iron-clad rights somehow dissolve
into rust depending on very specific local situations. The story of Anne King is, on its own, a disturbing abuse of power that
reveals much of how the real world operates. That her story is not, as White puts it, "a rare one," makes it even more troubling
and worth noting. There are all sorts of power differentials that override protections and one of the main interests of libertarians
should be to uncover, publicize, and minimize such situations to the smallest number possible.

More at Popehat.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Isn't it illegal to put something other than official U.S. mail in a mailbox?

Should have called the feds on the ex-wife's buddy!

[r9etb]

Claimed she and another women defamed him by calling him "POS" on Facebook.

I think a jury would agree that the man is, indeed, a POS.

[Frank Cannon]

My suggestion would be for everyone to call this cop and magistrate a POS on Facebook and see what happens.


Corey King

[EasyAce]

Isn't it illegal to put something other than official U.S. mail in a mailbox?

Technically, it is. But I've had people I know drop things off to me in my mailbox (sometimes at my request,
sometimes at their suggestion, and I do have a rather large mailbox), and neither I nor my mailman have ever
been inclined to have them arrested for it. (During the last campaign there were tons of political materials
left in my mailbox, not all of which had the stamp of official mail. I could have been an ass and had
the senders sought and busted, but I just pitched them into the C.S. file.)

What would be the more egregious offense: someone leaving meds for her friend's kids in her friend's
mailbox, or a country sheriff's deputy full of himself and his power having them busted for insulting him
on Facebook? Between the two, I'm pretty damn sure I know which one is the worst of the two---and it isn't
the mailbox suggestion.