<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/multiple-david-sosas-ask-supreme-court-to-overturn-decision-saying-its-fine-to-arrest-any-david-sosa-when-cops-are-seeking-a-specific-david-sosa/>
"Never mind fitting the description, even though that, too, has its own
problems. In Texas, it apparently only matters how your name is spelled. If you
share a name with a criminal suspect, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has
said you have no recourse if you’re wrongly arrested and detained for multiple
days.
That horrendous decision is now being appealed to the Supreme Court.
Contributing to the cause is the Institute of Justice and a whole bunch of
David Sosas. This is from the amicus brief [PDF] the IJ composed in hopes of
keeping people with the same name as criminal suspects from having their rights
violated.
This case is about the constitutionality of Florida police arresting and
detaining David Sosa of Martin County, Florida, on a Texas warrant from 1992
for a man named David Sosa. To be clear, that’s not the David Sosa who
chairs the philosophy department at the University of Texas. Nor is it the
New York-based songwriter David Sosa. It’s also not the David Sosa who’s a
cardiologist in Albuquerque, the one who works at the USDA, the law student
at University of Miami, or the David Sosa who owns a construction company in
Winston-Salem.
None of the David Sosas who submitted this brief are wanted in Texas,
either. Two are from North Carolina and two from Los Angeles. Two of the
amici David Sosas have even been confused for each other before! There are a
lot of David Sosas in this country—at least 924, if not more. Only one of
them is suspected of selling crack cocaine in Harris County, Texas, back in
the 1990s. Yet every David Sosa now faces up to three days in jail without
any recourse under § 1983 anytime police in Florida, Georgia, or Alabama run
a warrant check.
Ten of the 11 judges on the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Petitioner David
Sosa has no legal recourse for police wrongfully arresting him twice based
on the same blatant mistake of identity. Seven of those judges went much
further and ruled that state officials do not even violate the Constitution
if they hold an innocent person in jail for three days simply because that
person shares a name with someone else in the country who has an outstanding
warrant.
This decision blessed officer inattentiveness. It gives law enforcement a free
pass for failing to do the job correctly. It’s clearly the wrong call by the
Eleventh and it involves an egregious violation of rights. That’s why the IJ
and its many supportive Sosas want the Supreme Court to roll this decision
back."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
