8th Circuit Court of Appeals: Cops Can Come Up w/Probable Cause AFTER the Arrest

[BB62]

This is *exactly* the kind of behavior that poisons people's view of cops.

The title of the thread, which is somewhat inaccurate, comes from the video I watched describing the decision:

Here's the Appeals Court decision: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-1726/22-1726-2023-09-06.html

Mason Murphy v. Michael Schmitt, No. 22-1726 (8th Cir. 2023)

Court Description: [Per Curiam - Before Grasz, Melloy, and Kobes, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. The police officer defendant had probable cause to stop plaintiff because he was walking on the wrong side of the road in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. Sec. 300.405, and the district court did not err in dismissing plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claim; plaintiff failed to plead facts sufficient to demonstrate a facial plausibility that police commonly see violations of the statute on similar roads and fail to make arrests, and thus he failed to fall within the exception set out in Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1727 (2019) to the general rule that probable cause defeats a retaliatory arrest claim. Judge Grasz, dissenting.

 

[color of law]

This case virtually has no value. Why? Because this case is an unpublished opinion. And unpublished opinions are decisions of a court that does not have sufficient precedential value. In other words, it has no binding authority. It applies only to the parties to the case.

The plaintiff cooked his own goose. “The parties agree Schmitt had probable cause to stop Murphy because Murphy was in violation of Missouri Revised Statute § 300.405.” Or you could say maybe the attorney for the plaintiff helped him cook his own goose.

Nowhere in the case does it say Murphy was charged with, convicted of or acquitted of walking on the wrong side of the roadway. The way it reads, Murphy was cut loose after after the cops got his name and he had no warrants.

As the old question goes, where is the beef?