General Law and Lawsuits

[RTH10260]

Cummins Fined $1.67 Billion Over Diesel Defeat Devices In Ram Pickup Trucks

1 day ago
Jake Richardson

It doesn’t seem that long ago that VW was sued for the “Diesel Gate” scandal in which many VW diesel vehicles were found to be using emissions cheat devices.

Now there’s another diesel emissions situation, this time involving accusations that Cummins used diesel defeat devices for almost one million diesel engines in Ram pickup trucks.

If we head on over to the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) website, we get the precise verbiage:

“Engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. today disclosed that it has reached an agreement in principle with the United States and State of California to pay a $1.675 billion penalty to settle claims that it violated the Clean Air Act by installing emissions defeat devices on hundreds of thousands of engines.”

And here are the exact figures with Ram models referenced: “The company allegedly installed defeat devices on 630,000 model year 2013 to 2019 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines. The company also allegedly installed undisclosed auxiliary emission control devices on 330,000 model year 2019 to 2023 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines.” The total number of pickup truck engines involved is 960,000.

Defeat devices, whether mechanical parts or software, can be used to make a vehicle’s emissions appear lower than they actually are. Diesel exhaust contains chemicals that harm human health and the environment.

The DOJ page explains, “The types of devices we allege that Cummins installed in its engines to cheat federal environmental laws have a significant and harmful impact on people’s health and safety. For example, in this case, our preliminary estimates suggest that defeat devices on some Cummins engines have caused them to produce thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides. The cascading effect of those pollutants can, over long-term exposure, lead to breathing issues like asthma and respiratory infections.”

Well, yes, but this explanation doesn’t seem to go quite far enough. Diesel exhaust also contains particulate matter, which can contribute to human fatalities.



https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/27/cu ... up-trucks/

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-wis ... bdf2b&ei=8

A Wisconsin university chancellor was sacked after publishing his own porn series with his wife. Now they say the firing infringed on their free speech rights.

Top university officials in Wisconsin have sacked a university chancellor after he embarked on a side career in pornography with his wife.

Joe Gow, who's released multiple explicit videos of himself and his spouse, has been ousted as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, according to Wednesday statements from Universities of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.

The scathing statement did not mention the videos but said the board had learned of "specific conduct" that inflicted "significant reputational harm" on his university.

"His actions were abhorrent," Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman wrote.

Gow was further accused by Universities of Wisconsin System Regent President Karen Walsh of showing a "reckless disregard" for the responsibilities of his role.

He was unanimously voted out, and the board was "alarmed, and disgusted, by his actions," Walsh said.

Gow holds tenure at UW-La Crosse, and will be placed on administrative leave as he transitions into a faculty role, the statement added.

Gow announced in the fall that he planned to step down and become a communications professor. But his firing surprised him, he told The Washington Post.

In Popehat’s last newsletter of 2023, he explains why Gow is going to lose.

[Frater I*I]

In Popehat’s last newsletter of 2023, he explains why Gow is going to lose.

If he had invested in a Gimp mask he could have avoided all this....

[pipistrelle]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-wis ... bdf2b&ei=8

A Wisconsin university chancellor was sacked after publishing his own porn series with his wife. Now they say the firing infringed on their free speech rights.

In Popehat’s last newsletter of 2023, he explains why Gow is going to lose.

Found it. Like most explanations, it gave me a headache. (One of the reasons I didn't pursue law.)

This was in the comments.

Alex
Dec 29
·
edited Dec 29
Liked by Ken White
A friend of mine who used to teach at UW-La Crosse suggested that his behavior was so odd in general that most people who spent any significant amount of time there wouldn't be particularly surprised by this turn of events (though not necessarily this exact circumstance). Is it possible that establishing a pattern of behavior, with this merely being the tipping point, would give the university a stronger legal position to justify his firing?

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

In Popehat’s last newsletter of 2023, he explains why Gow is going to lose.

If he had invested in a Gimp mask he could have avoided all this....

[RTH10260]

Canada

Court Orders Police to Give Man's Phone Back After 175M Failed Password Attempts

[AndyinPA]

That was interesting.

[RTH10260]

US Marshals ordered to seize Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo's assets

By John MacLauchlan
Updated on: January 10, 2024 / 12:50 PM EST / CBS Miami

MIAMI - The U.S. Marshal's Office has been ordered by a federal court to seize $63,500,000 in assets from Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo.

In a writ of execution filed Tuesday, the United States District Court ordered marshals to seize Carollo's cash, goods, and land.

The seized cash and property will be used to satisfy a federal civil judgment.

Last November, a federal court ordered the city to garnish the commissioner's wages after he was liable in June for violating the First Amendment rights of two businessmen who accused him of trying to destroy their businesses as political retaliation.

Carolla was accused of orchestrating a vendetta against William Fuller and Martin Pinilla, the operators of a string of businesses along the Little Havana business corridor that includes the iconic Ball & Chain nightclub because they supported a rival candidate for political office.

Jurors in the civil trial ordered Carollo to pay $63.5 million in total to the men as a result of the verdict.

According to a federal order, Carollo is ordered to pay $34.3 million with interest to Fuller and $29.2 million with interest to Pinilla.

[RTH10260]

Here’s Some Bitcoin: Oh, and You’ve Been Served!

January 10, 2024

A California man who lost $100,000 in a 2021 SIM-swapping attack is suing the unknown holder of a cryptocurrency wallet that harbors his stolen funds. The case is thought to be the first in which a federal court has recognized the use of information included in a bitcoin transaction — such as a link to a civil claim filed in federal court — as reasonably likely to provide notice of the lawsuit to the defendant. Experts say the development could make it easier for victims of crypto heists to recover stolen funds through the courts without having to wait years for law enforcement to take notice or help.

Ryan Dellone, a healthcare worker in Fresno, Calif., asserts that thieves stole his bitcoin on Dec. 14, 2021, by executing an unauthorized SIM-swap that involved an employee at his mobile phone provider who switched Dellone’s phone number over to a new device the attackers controlled.

Dellone says the crooks then used his phone number to break into his account at Coinbase and siphon roughly $100,000 worth of cryptocurrencies. Coinbase is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which alleges the company ignored multiple red flags, and that it should have detected and stopped the theft. Coinbase did not respond to requests for comment.

Working with experts who track the flow of funds stolen in cryptocurrency heists, Dellone’s lawyer Ethan Mora identified a bitcoin wallet that was the ultimate destination of his client’s stolen crypto. Mora says his client has since been made aware that the bitcoin address in question is embroiled in an ongoing federal investigation into a cryptocurrency theft ring.

Mora said it’s unclear if the bitcoin address that holds his client’s stolen money is being held by the government or by the anonymous hackers. Nevertheless, he is pursuing a novel legal strategy that allows his client to serve notice of the civil suit to that bitcoin address — and potentially win a default judgment to seize his client’s funds within — without knowing the identity of his attackers or anything about the account holder.

In a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages, a default judgment is usually entered on behalf of the plaintiff if the defendant fails to respond to the complaint within a specified time. Assuming that the cybercriminals who stole the money don’t dispute Dellone’s claim, experts say the money could be seized by cryptocurrency exchanges if the thieves ever tried to move it or spend it.

The U.S. courts have generally held that if you’re going to sue someone, you have to provide some kind of meaningful and timely communication about that lawsuit to the defendant in a way that is reasonably likely to provide them notice.




https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/01/her ... en-served/

re SIM card swapping attack, read viewtopic.php?p=239529#p239529

[RTH10260]

Nevada

law suit claims state forfeiture law unconstitutional

[RTH10260]

Canada

Meta offers Canadian Facebook users $51M in class-action lawsuit

By Ashley Joannou The Canadian Press
Posted January 12, 2024 7:54 am

A multimillion-dollar settlement proposed by Meta sends a message to other companies about the importance of paying attention to the country’s privacy laws, says a lawyer representing Canadians in the class-action lawsuit against the social media giant.

Meta is offering $51 million to settle the lawsuit in four provinces over Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories” advertising program, which ran from 2011 to 2014, using people’s names and photos without their knowledge.

Christopher Rhone, a partner at the Vancouver law firm Branch MacMaster who represented the plaintiffs, said large social media companies are usually not based in Canada but still expect to do business here.

“It’s important for them to review and consider the privacy rights that the individuals, the residents of these provinces, have in Canada, before they start engaging in their work here,” he said.

Rhone said the companies need to take a closer look at the Canadian legal landscape, “in order that residents of these provinces can be protected in the ways that our legislatures and courts want them to be protected.”

The legal action filed by a B.C. woman was expanded outside of the province in 2019 to include residents of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador.

As part of the sponsored story program, if someone “liked” a product, Facebook generated a news feed endorsement using their name and profile photo, but didn’t tell them their information was being used.

MNP Ltd., the court-appointed administrator handling the proposed settlement, said in a statement the agreement needs to be approved by a B.C. Supreme Court judge in March, along with a process to determine class members’ share of the money.




https://globalnews.ca/news/10221593/met ... a-lawsuit/

[RTH10260]

Judge Orders Wind Turbines Removed From Osage Nation

By GREG HENDERSON
January 9, 2024

A federal judge in Oklahoma has ordered the removal of an 84-turbine wind farm spread across 8,400 acres in Osage County with a final ruling that ends a decade-long legal battle over illegal mining on the Osage Reservation. The cost for removal of the turbines is estimated at $300 million.

The ruling in Tulsa federal court by U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves was against Osage Wind LLC, Enel Kansas LLC and Enel Green Power North America Inc. The order grants the United States and the Osage Nation through its Minerals Council permanent injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass.”

The Osage Allotment Act of 1906 states that the Osage Nation owns the subsurface rights to minerals in the area. The Minerals Council is an arm of the Osage Nation that manages the Osage Minerals Estate.

A trial date for damages due to the tribe has not been set, but a spokesman for the Osage Minerals Council said the tribe would expect at least the value of damage to the land, all lawyer fees, profits and tax incentives Enel received as a result of the installation.

At issue in the case was whether a mining permit was required to construct the wind farm, located in tallgrass prairie between Pawhuska and Fairfax. The defendants began leasing surface rights from private landowners for the project in 2013, and construction on the wind towers began in October 2013, with excavation for the towers beginning in September 2014.

A 2017 appellate court decision determined the construction of the wind farm constituted mining and therefore a lease from the Osage Nation’s Minerals Council was required.

“The developers failed to acquire a mining lease during or after construction, as well as after issuance of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision holding that a mining lease was required,” Choe-Groves said.

“On the record before the Court, it is clear the Defendants are actively avoiding the leasing requirement,” Choe-Groves said. “Permitting such behavior would create the prospect for future interference with the Osage Mineral Council’s authority by Defendants or others wishing to develop the mineral lease. The Court concludes that Defendants’ past and continued refusal to obtain a lease constitutes interference with the sovereignty of the Osage Nation and is sufficient to constitute irreparable injury.”



https://www.agweb.com/news/livestock/be ... age-nation

[RTH10260]

commenting above is Steve Letho

► Show Spoiler

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-19/ ... /103368866

Court orders DNA sample can be taken from man accused of Melbourne stabbing attacks

Mr Raftopoulos, who was connected to the court hearing via video link, tried to interrupt proceedings when they began.

"You have incarcerated me for protecting every planet in the solar system," he said.

"I think we'll put you on mute for the time being," the magistrate replied.

[RTH10260]

Long Beach to Pay $300K to Settle Civil Rights Suit Brought by Cancer Patient

by Contributing Editor
January 18, 2024

The City of Long Beach has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by a prostate cancer patient who alleged he was kneed in the groin for no legitimate reason by a police officer during an arrest for driving with an expired registration, officials announced Thursday.

Johnny Jackson filed suit for civil rights violations last year in Los Angeles federal court, alleging excessive and unreasonable force during the Sept. 3, 2022, incident. The Long Beach city council approved the settlement on Tuesday.

The blows to Jackson’s groin resulted in emergency medical complications, including severe pain and blood in his urine, his attorneys said.

A spokesperson for the Long Beach city attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The incident was captured on Jackson’s security camera and on an officer’s body-worn camera. It began as Jackson, who had prostate surgery just the day before, was returning home from Staples after making a copy of a doctor’s note to give to his employer when he noticed he was being followed closely by an unmarked Long Beach Police vehicle, according to the suit.

Jackson says he pulled into his driveway and was approached by three officers as he got out of his car. Worried about their intentions, Jackson informed them about his recent surgery and that he was aware of an infraction on his vehicle registration, he said.

The situation escalated when officers issued differing commands as a gust of wind blew pages from the doctor’s report off Jackson’s vehicle. When he went to put his hand on the report, one of the officers jumped off Jackson’s porch, grabbed, pulled, and twisted his left arm, according to Jackson

The plaintiff’s attorneys allege the officers grabbed Jackson’s arms, pulling in different directions, and one of them kneed him in the groin three times with significant force after another officer hit Jackson in the head and attempted a takedown maneuver.

Despite Jackson not resisting, he was handcuffed, placed in a patrol vehicle, and cited for expired vehicle registration and purportedly resisting arrest, according to the lawsuit.

“The city should issue an apology to Mr. Jackson for the outrageous conduct of its officers,” civil rights attorney Patrick Buelna said in a statement. “No one should have to endure such a humiliating and painful experience at the hands of what are supposed to be public servants.”




https://mynewsla.com/crime/2024/01/18/l ... r-patient/

the event

[RTH10260]

Legal Filing Defends Douglass Mackey’s Free Speech Rights
New Amicus Brief.

By Dan Frieth
January 14, 2024 Posted 12:53 pm

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

America First Legal (AFL) in collaboration with Boyden Gray PLLC, has submitted a legal brief to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, staunchly defending the free speech rights of Douglass Mackey.

Douglass Mackey, a once well-known creator of memes on Twitter, was sentenced to seven months in prison.

The conviction marked a dramatic escalation in how free speech is being handled in the United States. Rendered in the New York criminal court, Mackey was declared guilty of perpetrating a “conspiracy against rights.”

Mackey, who operated under the alias Ricky Vaughn, had made and shared memes critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential race. His memes humorously suggested that Clinton supporters cast their ballots through text messages – a patently invalid method of voting.

The filing challenges the actions of the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ), which has been accused of selectively prosecuting Mackey under the Ku Klux Klan Act for his internet postings of satirical memes.

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

This case has ignited concerns over free speech, especially in the context of political discourse and satire. AFL’s brief emphasizes that misleading or inaccurate speech about elections and political rivals, particularly satirical in nature, has been a staple in democratic societies. They argue that the government’s interpretation of Section 241 of the Ku Klux Klan Act in this case overreaches its historical and legal boundaries. AFL’s brief points out several issues with the government’s stance:

• The government’s broad interpretation of Section 241 surpasses its accepted limits.
  A narrow application of the government’s rewritten Section 241 is unfeasible.
  The government’s interpretation lacks definitive boundaries, raising concerns about its potential misuse.
  The interpretation invites the risk of selective prosecution.
  The government’s choice of venue further amplifies these concerns.

AFL asserts that such a broad application of Section 241 by the government could lead to limitless future applications.

Gene Hamilton, Vice President and General Counsel of America First Legal, voiced strong concerns about the Biden Administration’s approach to free speech and its handling of the DOJ.

“If you have any doubts about the current state of affairs in the United States, the Biden Administration’s lack of respect for free speech, or the extent of the weaponization of the Department of Justice, the Biden Administration used the ‘KKK Act’ to prosecute Douglass Mackey for posting memes on social media. This unprecedented prosecution could set the stage for even more prosecutions by the Biden Administration for speech with which it disagrees. This cannot stand, and we are proud to file a brief in support of Mr. Mackey,” said Hamilton.



https://reclaimthenet.org/legal-filing- ... ech-rights

[RTH10260]

Families condemn Koch brothers over ploy to avoid asbestos compensation
Georgia-Pacific, owned by Koch Industries, employ controversial legal tactic to circumvent paying millions to sickened workers

Michael Sainato
Mon 22 Jan 2024 12.00 CET

Asbestos victims, their families and attorneys are claiming a Koch Industries-owned company and its lawyers are using a controversial bankruptcy maneuver to avoid paying millions in compensation to its former employees.

Workers at Georgia-Pacific, a paper and building products company, have been locked in a years-long battle with a company over claims asbestos in its products caused fatal cancers.

The case has come as the Koch brothers’ political network has pushed for legislation to protect companies facing asbestos-related claims and limit payouts for victims.

Koch Industries bought Georgia-Pacific in 2005. The company faces over 60,000 asbestos lawsuits but has not paid out anything since 2017 when the company conducted a controversial maneuver known as the “Texas two-step”.

Under Texan bankruptcy law, a corporation can divide itself into two companies, loading any lawsuit liabilities into one company and its assets into another. In Georgia-Pacific’s case, a new firm, Bestwall LLC, was created for the asbestos liabilities. Bestwall filed for bankruptcy in 2017.

Georgia-Pacific, which also makes Brawny paper towels and Dixie cups, has continued with its normal operations. Koch Industries received $2.5bn in dividends from Georgia-Pacific in 2022 and has received over $5bn in dividends since the asbestos liabilities were moved to Bestwall. The lawsuits filed for and on behalf of asbestos victims have been in limbo.

Last year lawyers for the asbestos victims called the case “a roadmap for solvent corporations to abuse the bankruptcy system” in court documents, and said the issues in the case were “exceptionally important and likely to recur”.

The law firm Jones Day, Greg Gordon, has completed similar splits for four major corporations facing thousands of lawsuits since 2017: Johnson & Johnson, Saint-Gobain, Trane Technologies, and Georgia-Pacific, the first company to use the tactic. The law firm and the companies claim the separation is the best way to compensate victims fairly, but lawsuit plaintiffs have derided long delays in reaching agreements and claimed it’s an attempt to escape accountability.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ia-pacific

[Slim Cognito]

[RTH10260]

Pat Cipollone, other ex-Trump lawyers join Bill Barr's law firm

By Mike Scarcella
January 17, 202411:02 PM GMT+1Updated 6 days ago

Jan 17 (Reuters) - Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone has joined the law office founded by Trump-era U.S. attorney general Bill Barr and former Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot, part of a key expansion of the year-old firm in the Washington, D.C.-area legal market.

Cipollone will join the firm with former Trump White House deputy counsels Patrick Philbin and Kate Todd, according to a statement on Wednesday from Torridon Law, which has offices in D.C. and Arlington, Virginia. They and several others join from the law firm Ellis George.

Cipollone had been a name partner at Ellis George after joining the firm in 2021 from the White House, where he helped defend Donald Trump at his first impeachment trial. Philbin also was on Trump's impeachment defense team.

Todd, a former head of litigation for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was managing partner of the D.C. office of Ellis George, a small litigation-focused firm.

A spokesperson for Torridon said the firm anticipated continued growth.




https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindu ... 024-01-17/

[Rolodex]

No big surprise.

My favorite thing about him was when he was doing the impeachment trial. Every time someone said his name, my closed caption wrote it as "Patsy Baloney."

[Slim Cognito]

IMG_2337.jpg (159.67 KiB) Viewed 13251 times

[RTH10260]

Man Reaches $25 Million Settlement After 44 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment
The city of Concord, N.C., acknowledged that “significant errors in judgment and willful misconduct” led to the wrongful conviction of Ronnie Long, 68, on rape and burglary charges.

By Michael Levenson
Jan. 11, 2024

A man who spent 44 years in prison after a jury in North Carolina wrongfully convicted him of raping a woman in 1976 has settled a lawsuit against state and local law enforcement officials for $25 million.

The settlement included a public apology to the man, Ronnie Long, 68, from the city of Concord, N.C., which acknowledged that “significant errors in judgment and willful misconduct” by previous city employees led to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

“We are deeply remorseful for the past wrongs that caused tremendous harm to Mr. Long, his family, friends and our community,” the Concord City Council said in a statement announcing the settlement on Tuesday.

“Mr. Long suffered the extraordinary loss of his freedom and a substantial portion of his life because of this conviction,” the statement said. “He wrongly served 44 years, 3 months and 17 days in prison for a crime he did not commit. While there are no measures to fully restore to Mr. Long and his family all that was taken from them, through this agreement we are doing everything in our power to right the past wrongs and take responsibility.”

Mr. Long had insisted on the public apology, along with the monetary settlement, which includes $22 million from the city and $3 million from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, one of his lawyers, Jamie T. Lau, said on Wednesday.

“One of the biggest things for him, even through those 44 years, was to clear not only his name, but his family’s name, to make it known that he was not involved in the assault that led to his conviction and to make it known that he came from a good, working-class family in Concord,” said Mr. Lau, a supervising attorney at the Duke Law School Wrongful Convictions Clinic, which represented Mr. Long.

Mr. Long was a 21-year-old cement mason with a 2-year-old son when he was convicted on Oct. 1, 1976, of breaking into a home in Concord, about 25 miles northeast of Charlotte, and raping a 54-year-old woman earlier that year. He was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences even though no physical evidence linked him to the crime, his lawyers said.

Mr. Long’s lawyers said the Concord police had been under pressure to close the case in part because the victim’s late husband had been an executive at a local textile company, Cannon Mills, which had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.



https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/us/r ... ction.html

[RTH10260]

when you ask a police officer to reposition their cruiser ...

MCC, fired professor settle federal suit for $275,000

Carl Hoover
Jan 23, 2024 3

McLennan Community College and a government professor who claimed he had been wrongly fired after a Jan. 25, 2022, incident involving campus police have settled a lawsuit for $275,000.

Casey Hubble, a tenured government professor who had taught 16 years at MCC, sued the college and MCC President Johnette McKown in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Oct. 19, 2022, alleging the college had violated the First Amendment and his rights to due process when it revoked his tenure and fired him in July 2022.

His suit was dismissed last week, after both sides reached an agreement in December to settle the case for $275,000 with each side paying its own legal fees. The settlement also includes a non-disparagement clause that bars each party from negative statements about the other.

Hubble’s attorney, Douglas Becker of Austin, acknowledged that Hubble had originally asked for reinstatement to MCC in his suit, but the settlement did not call for that.




https://wacotrib.com/news/local/educati ... 640a8.html

[RTH10260]

Loveland to pay $400,000 over Colorado DUI arrest, Driver had no alcohol, drugs in system

By Brian Maass
Updated on: December 12, 2023 / 9:36 AM MST / CBS Colorado

The City of Loveland has agreed to pay a Windsor man, Harris Elias, $400,000 over a 2020 DUI arrest in which breath and blood testing indicated Elias had no alcohol or drugs in his system.

"It sounds like a lot of money, but my gosh," said Elias,"what they did was atrocious."

Elias filed a federal lawsuit in 2022 against the City of Loveland and two of its officers over the case. Federal court records show the two sides came to a settlement agreement on Dec. 4. Sarah Schielke, Elias' lawyer, said Loveland is not admitting wrongdoing in the case. A spokesperson for the City of Loveland did not respond to a text message or phone call from CBS News Colorado.

On Jan. 4, 2020, Elias was driving home through Fort Collins when Loveland police officer William Gates pulled him over for failing to signal that he was changing lanes and driving 18 mph in a 45 mph zone.

When he approached the car, Gates said he smelled an "overwhelming odor of alcohol."

Elias told CBS News Colorado he had some of a single alcoholic drink five to six hours before the stop, but that was it. He declined to do roadside sobriety tests and Gates arrested him for suspected DUI.

A breath test at the police station showed no alcohol in Elias' system.

"I thought they would thank me for my time and give me a ride back home," Elias said.

Instead, police pressed Elias to take a blood test.

That subsequent blood test confirmed no alcohol or drugs in the man's system.

"The entire system is set up to go after people for no illegal or logical reason," said Elias.

His attorney Sarah Schielke believes the problem stems from a police culture that incentivizes officers to make more and more DUI arrests. She says officers who make the most DUI arrests are honored, given better shifts and compete with other departments to see who can make the most DUI arrests.

"When you incentivize making more arrests of that type of crime you're going to get exactly what we're looking at right now," said the attorney. "Nobody cares about the innocent people, they only care about that stat."

She called it "a culture of competitive pursuit of DUI arrests with reckless disregard for driver innocence ... in order to generate ... more bragging rights, more funding, more equipment, more officers and more (literal) trophies."

Curiously, Elias went through a similar situation with Fort Collins police in 2021. In that case, a Fort Collins officer arrested him for DUI. He spent three days in jail, but his blood test later showed no traces of alcohol or drugs. Elias is suing Fort Collins police over that arrest.

"It's just striking that it was me twice," said Elias. "I'm surprised it didn't happen to more people twice. All that they cared about was one notch in their belt and I just happened to drive by twice. Both the City of Loveland and Fort Collins picked the wrong guy to pick a fight with. And I picked the right attorney," said Elias.



https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/h ... do-driver/

[RTH10260]

You Can Now Face Jail Time in Las Vegas if You Stop Walking in Certain Areas
The county said it's all about ensuring safety.

Chris Malone Méndez
Jan 17, 2024 4:22 PM EST

The Las Vegas Strip attracts millions of visitors every year thanks to the glitz and glam of Sin City and the bright lights that make it a city that truly never sleeps. If you find yourself on the Strip, be sure to take it all in—but just don't stop to take a picture.

A new county ordinance took effect Jan. 16 that bans "stopping, standing or engaging in an activity that causes another person to stop" on certain parts of the Strip. Tourists often stop on the pedestrian bridges to take photos of all the casino lights or to watch street performers, but that practice could soon land you behind bars. People who violate the new law could be charged with a misdemeanor and face up to six months in jail or a $1,000 fine for their actions.

The new ordinance aims to crack down on people who stop in these newly designated "pedestrian flow zones," which include the bridges and up to 20 feet surrounding the stairs or escalators connecting them to the ground. Critics of the law like Nevada ACLU executive director Athar Haseebullah believe that it "mak[es] criminals out of ordinary Nevadans stopping for a mere moment on the pedestrian bridges they fund as taxpayers." Clark County, for its part, said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the law isn't meant to stop people from moving entirely.



https://www.mensjournal.com/news/jail-t ... op-walking