WND 10/5/2023
'A blow to due process safeguards'The Supreme Court has refused to hold accountable police officers who exhibited "reckless" behavior by arresting and detaining the wrong man – twice.
The institute's explanation of the case background:
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.
Sosa sued officers for violating his Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, regarding unreasonable seizure and deprivation of liberty without due process.
But the trial court dismissed the case, the 11th Circuit fell in line with that, and now the Supreme Court has let those decisions stand.
More:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/stunner-supremes-wont-punish-cops-arrested-wrong-man-twice/
