[Music] all right looks like we're live uh hopefully this thing is working thanks for joining me this is episode number 58 I believe it is of freedom is scary and you know this guy named James Otis said back in 1761 that one of the most essential branches of English Liberty is the freedom of one's house because a man's house is his castle and whilst he is quiet he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle again James Otis 1761 so the maximum that a man's house is his castle is older than our Republic it's deeply rooted in our jurist prudence and anglo-american Juris Prudence in general um it protects all levels of society down to as Scholars have observed even the poorest man living in his Cottage this formed much of the basis of the Fourth Amendment itself and while these protections the fourth amendment has unfortunately eroded over time in this country um it still you know is important um if at least if you're walking down the side of the street you don't have a whole lot of rights as I've explained many times when you're in your car or maybe even when you're in your in a school or an airport anymore but in your home at least you have retained the original strength of the Fourth Amendment theoretically in your home the home still receives the greatest protection under under the Constitution and it still really is our Castle the only Castle we have um at all under our constitution at this point um you have the castle doctrine you have standard ground laws which have expanded in the states and now really in 2021 we've begun what is really the decade of the Karen and as we're going to see shortly probably as was demonstrated much of last year the debate over the Second Amendment really should be over the police aren't going to protect us um what we need is more freedom to be able to protect ourselves not less Freedom so that's what that's what this is all about that's what I'm all about um not you know we don't need more police we don't need more jails we don't need more laws we don't need more politicians all we need really is more freedom um what I'm going to talk about here today are updates in two different cases and that is the drug task force search case and also the family judge uh family judge search case so I have I have big updates in both of those cases if you don't know what those cases are let me see if this works this is the video from the original drug task force and this is on YouTube if you haven't seen it this is uh involving my client Dustin elwick who basically came home to check his his cameras hidden cameras that he had inside his house to find these these cops basically who were not in uniform searching his house going through all his stuff and they had basically broken in through the window after cutting a camera surveillance camera that was on the outside of the house and if you haven't seen this video it documents it but it goes It goes uh entirely through the case and this is one of these drug task forces this was in putam County West Virginia and the Really the big news is that on Friday I filed the first of of these cases and there there are numerous victims of these guys but you can see them these are police officers who are on duty as we allege and searching my client's house without a warrant and really with no paper trail whatsoever looking for drugs presumably but that in case you haven't seen it that is the drug task force search case and we'll go over this in more detail this other case is the family court judge search case can you all hear all that that video last time I tried this the video didn't transfer if you haven't seen this case this is that's my client Matt Gibson and you're about to see a family court proceeding take place on his lawn and inside his house alleged it's a laughing game for them say it's all laughs and fun for them fast forward at some there is that audio working yeah sound is fine oh good caught up with the technology I'm asking you right now I'm putting in a motion recuse yourself because you're putting yourself in a witness capacity instead of a Judiciary capacity there's no search list of everything not today not today I don't know where got I need to search one get my oh yeah will all right so that was the family court judge search case there's not a whole lot of video in that because my client was forced to turn off the the video and had his phone actually seized during that encounter real quick Daniel slam dunks on both cases um of course of course there's not um a slam dunk in any civil rights case civil rights cases are usually pretty difficult cases to litigate some of them are slam dunks but um they don't require a whole lot of litigating these are both difficult um well both difficult cases this one much more difficult the invol involving judicial immunity so that we'll go through that and U the the judge in that case just today filed a motion to dismiss so so I'll show that to you we'll go through it and hopefully I can explain that all right but first before we get to the updates and those cases just to make sure we're still on we're on the same page let's quickly just run through what the law is here so the Fourth Amendment we know what the fourth amendment is that protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons houses papers effects against unreasonable searches and seizure that's the Fourth Amendment so with few exceptions warrantless searches are per se unreasonable and therefore unlawful or if you prefer illegal as a matter of law under the Fourth Amendment okay at the very core of the fourth amendment is the right of a man to retreat into his own home and be free from unreasonable government intrusion with few exceptions the question of whether a warrantless search is reasonable and hence constitutional U must be answered no so any search in the home is there a warrant if there's not a warrant it's presumptively illegal presumptively unconstitutional presumptively unreasonable all those words for our purposes mean the same thing searches and seizures which take place inside a person's home are illegal which means they are illegal by default according to the Fourth Amendment on the other hand outside your home is different because these protections only apply where there's a reasonable expectation of privacy according to the Supreme Court outside the home there's you don't need a warrant or cops don't need a warrant unless there's the courts have held there's a reasonable expectation of privacy and whatever they're searching so to the contrary the US Supreme Court has found that there is no presumption outside the home where a warrant is required because the the as the scotus is ruled for most places outside the home there is no expectation of privacy that could be bank accounts curbside trash open fields surrounding one's home and it goes on and on but the searches of a home by the government by law enforcement do require a warrant or a valid exception and as of right now there's only two valid exceptions but there's a third one that's currently pending at the Supreme Court and that is the so-called Community caretaking exception but for our purposes right now all we have is consent or exigent circumstances um so law enforcement may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with injury that's known as exigent circumstances and generally means some sort of emergency situation the need to protect or preserve life or avoid void Serious injury and that according to the courts is justification for what would otherwise be illegal absent some sort of excy or emergency again that is an objective rule so that doesn't mean that an officer subjectively thought that there was an emergency even though there really wasn't one it has to it's an objective standard it doesn't matter what his actual reason was or whether he was wrong it's whether the so-called reasonable officer would have thought that an emergency existed based on what they were actually confronted with so let's get to the the Fourth Amendment law surrounding surrounding the house Shy's machine do we really have rights regard with respect to your house what I'm trying to say is yes you do um with respect to your house because it's on them to prove an exception if they searched your house without a warrant then you don't have to do anything else that is as a matter of law presumptively unconstitutional they would have to then prove that either they obtain voluntary consent or that exigent circumstances exist now outside of your home not the same thing if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy according to the case law then there are these you know these uh protections that would require a warrant and so on for which there also could be exception and there's lots of different cases like I said again curbside trash the GPS information with your car um bags in uh inside a trunk um a backpack on a B on on a pedestrian there's there's all sorts of hundreds hundreds hundreds or thousands of cases on these now the first case that we got into again this was the this was the drug task force guide and if you haven't seen this video this is from like January 15th of 2020 that this video was originally put up there I'll also note that day in and day out fighting this was the ending of the first video that was actually taken out media this channel threat from around putam County the group that is here day in and day out fighting crie when it to fighe this group can't battle I wanted fight more people keeping my eyes on this is this is what was taken out of the original video and this was a Fluff piece basically showing this unit of guys this is just in this County the special enforcement unit and I hadn't heard of them before my first client came to me with with this case with with the video he had from his house but then I got to searching and I found this this sort of fluff piece from the local TV news where they following these guys around and they're going and knocking on doors and explaining what they do out of uniform they'll sit down and talk to you they're out driving the streets of putham County and this is basically what they do is they they go up and they they they don't dress like cops they dress like like they're just you know one of the guys from the trailer park I guess and but then they also have guns and then they sort of would you know try to get information out of people by as some would say intimidating them as some would say acting like acting like a gang but but uh after this original video got up on YouTube and I'm talking about this one that I'm playing right now I started getting calls from people just all over with their own stories of yeah these guys came in my house or I I had an encounter with these guys and I Heard lots of different stories where they were doing the same sort of thing there was some video in at least one other case now nothing like this and this is just as I've said before one of the creepiest things I've seen and that is police officers literally in your house going through your stuff when they think that no one's watching after having cut a surveillance camera wire on the outside to disguise what they were doing crawled in through a window and they're looking for drugs looking everywhere and didn't document it weren't going to say anything it because they didn't find any drugs but he just happened to have have these cameras on inside his house so I just thought was really one of the creepiest things I've I've just ever seen and you can see look there's this there's this gun is someone called that Mexican carry Style just sitting in the front of his pants they went through everything they pulled his guns out of the closets and they photographed his guns right here on the counter of that dresser you can see the ashes of my client's dead friend and at one point they grab yeah you can see it maybe right there he grabs the ashes and right there he's he's looking at them with the flashlight he starts shaking them around maybe he sniffs them ultimately runs them through a drug field field test kit to see if they're drugs and leaves the empty field test kits on the floor and we have pictures of them as they were left and it's got little bits of his friend's bones in it I mean just crazy all this without a warrant and when I later did a Freedom of Information Act request to see if there was some sort of explanation no there there was no documentation no paperwork Trail the only reason that these guys were there on paper was to serve a civil summons from a magistrate court case and that's it so I started getting calls just from all sorts of people so the the U really the worst story that I heard was from this family that lived there in putam county and they were afraid to really come forward about what had happened until they saw this video making its rounds on social media and they reached out to me and I drove to their house even with my family and I think my my wife and kids were with me and we sat down in their living room and I met with them and they told me the story and I'll tell you what it they didn't have a video because most people don't have hidden cameras inside their house unfortunately but they told just a compelling story and combined with the fact that this video does exist as well as other people who were willing to testify as to similar similar stories I think it it will be very credible so here is the the well if you look at the website at the Civil Rights lawyer.com I I uh I put a copy of the full lawsuit on there let me see if I can bring that up all right so there's the website it's the last or it's the last uh post on it well I haven't put it up yet but the next case I'm going to talk about I have those things up so I'll have it up there shortly let me just bring it up directly all right here it is so this is the case that was filed on Friday and this is filed in federal court in the Huntington division because it it happened in putham county and and uh if you have a federal civil rights lawsuit that occurred in putam County West Virginia that's in the Huntington division so that's where it goes so this is a section 1983 lawsuit alleging the deprivation of federally protected rights by government officials by police officers who are acting under color of law notice that they're all they're all sued individually and also as a defendant is the employer putam County Commission the political subdivision and that's not for a direct civil rights violation claim that's for what's called a monell claim and I'll get to that also included is a John Doe for an un currently unknown supervisor to be able to make a claim for supervisor liability which which um is I think applicable given the facts in this situation so it's a search and seizure type 1983 claim so here are the facts um January 15 2020 I had originally uploaded the video video that I was showing you showing several police officers most of whom were not wearing uniforms entering my client's house Dustin elswick and cutting the wires illegally entering the residence illegally searching the residents and getting caught on these hidden cameras they had entered through an air conditioning uh well they had entered through a window and after pushing out the air conditioning unit illegally searched a home presumably looking for drugs they didn't find any um they did take his Firearms out of the storage case and took pictures of them etc etc I already told you all right they left the house rans sacked and left everything you know out where where they had left it so these guys were all part of the putham County Sheriff's Office special enforcement unit or the seu and that's that's who these guys were and and I named them I'll go back to it um this is who you see in the video Brian Hall was the main guy xerx ratti was was the the bigger fatter guy Scott loother really you only saw him at the end of the video he was outside in tactical gear you see him cross the bridge he wasn't um he wasn't observed on the video inside the house but he was sort of guarding from the outside Brian lockart and uh Kenny Davis I don't think wasn't in that video but he was involved in this case that I'm going to tell you about Brian lockart was in the the video and these are all sheriff's deputies who are all technically employees of the putam County Commission which is the actual political subdivision in West Virginia who is the employer now back to the facts those are the defendants these guys are all part of this seu the special enforcement unit and again I showed you that fluff piece from the local news this was just sort of a you know fight crime sort of deal where they sort of look like they you know they they're cool to talk to or they're intimidating looking um when they're trying to get information out of you that was just sort of their stick and let's see and what I learned is after talking to I don't know dozens of people who had interacted with him around the time of of this video here's what they would do they would obtain tips about individuals who may be in possession of mostly what I heard was marijuana who who may be selling marijuana so they'd find somebody who would have some pot and they'd you know intimidate them threaten to to charge them and say look we'll let you out of this you tell us who you got it from and then they'd go to the next person's place so they make a warrantless entry into a residence of a suspect in possession of marijuana when they found it they would get a tip from that person then they'd go and threaten and pressure the suspect to give them another tip or to identify another individual who's in possession of marijuana also in exchange for not being arrested or charged then the seu members would leave taking with them any marijuana They seized along with any cash or firearms that they had located in the legal search and seizure so that is sort of the important important part here is not that they were doing this which I'm sure Other Drug Task Force do but that they're doing it with no warrants and then they're taking the cash the drugs and any Firearms they find and they're leaving no paper trail so no police reports no warrant applications no charging documents no inventories following their search and seizure what happened to the seized marijuana what happened to the cash money what happened to the firearms that were seized they would dis appear into the possession of the seu members without ever being properly documented how do I know that well we've alleged in the lawsuit because we've served the employer with foyer request Freedom of Information Act request and received little to nothing in response only I think maybe in one case or two cases was there any paperwork at all in only one case was their actual documentation of all right we actually had a a raid and and entered the house and and looked for or found something only one that that that that I I looked at so here's the allegations um pertaining to what they did to this actual family so this happened on April 18th 2019 the Johnson family were at their home this is located on POA River Road in Poca putham County West Virginia so April 2019 sort of a Suburban nice little road along the poker River in putam county and there was actually some road work taking place right across the street from my client's house and so there were plenty of witnesses present who were on this road work crew and there was a bunch of people at my client's house and they were had they had family that were visiting from Virginia and this is a a multi-racial Hispanic family so the father is is you know your regular white guy from West Virginia and he married a woman who I believe was from Peru everybody in the story was in this country either a citizen or in this country completely legally completely documented no illegal aliens U were involved in this at all so it shouldn't even have to be mentioned but you'll see why I have to mention it so it's a really nice nice little house a split level style house their home extended family present everybody's having a relaxed afternoon and I believe that the father bliss bliss Johnson was helping put together a cabinet with his father-in-law and oh next thing you know these guys arrive suddenly these guys uh defendants Hall ratti Lo Davis and lockart were all present none of them wearing uniforms so these police officers they were on duty acting as the special enforcement unit exited their vehicles and these are police cruisers unmarked police cruisers these were not personal vehicles they approached the Johnson home and they straight up entered the Johnson residents letting themselves in the front door they didn't have a warrant t or the home they didn't seek nor did they obtain voluntary consent to enter the home nor did they have exent circumstances to enter the home and remember we went through the law police officers entering a home without a warrant presumptively unconstitutional the exceptions which they have to prove are either voluntary consent or exent circumstances some sort of emergency as we've alleged no warrant no exent circumstance an es no consent apparently there had been a tip that there would be some marijuana in the house possessed by the Sun instead of investigating that doing actual police work assuming that that was a priority for them instead of seeking a search warrant the defendant officers instead just barged into the house as other people have alleged they did just to find the marijuana so here's how they did it they began knocking on the front door and shouting within a few moments they just let themselves in and searched the home finding what appeared to be a dead marijuana or possibly hemp plant in the basement belonging to the son Bliss B Johnson they were asked by the father where's your warrant the officers responded they didn't need a warrant because they already had probable cause since they found what they believed to be a marijuana plant in the basement now you don't have to be a lawyer to know because I already explained it to you is that the standard for seizing marijuana inside somebody's house or alleged marijuana or a dead marijuana plan which even could be a hemp plan is that the standard probable cause oh too late we found it so we don't need a warrant uh obviously not probable cause is the standard for a pedestrian walking down the street and they have to have it before they search not after so they got two things wrong there still needed a warrant but you'll see how they sort of did things and this was particularly really made me very angry during the search of the home the officers forced this entire family again we're talking about kids we're talking about at least one family member who was developmentally disabled who although was of adult age um was was uh like I said disabled uh mentally and forc them all and the extended family who the grandparents basically who were in from I believe Northern Virginia originally from Peru but lived in Northern Virginia they forced them to all sit around the kitchen table where they were guarded in their own home restricted from moving away from this kitchen table then they were threatened they told them that they beli they were selling heroin somebody had given them information that they were selling heroin so the father sort of motioned around the room and said uh does it look like we're selling heroin it's just a your regular s of suburban house um everything from grandparents to to grandkids just sort of enjoying the afternoon and again this was a mostly Hispanic family except for the father and what did they do they threatened to have them deported so they just incorrectly assumed that there were illegal aliens in the house they threatened to put the occupants of the house in handcuffs and demanded repeatedly we need to see some green cards the defendant officers were also threatening to call CPS to seize the four-year-old child who was in the home as well as the adult child with Down Syndrome because the rest of the family as they threatened was going to be taken into custody and they also rummaged through the luggage of the extended family from Virginia that and went through their medications and asked them detailed and private questions about the prescriptions that they had in their luggage which were completely legal and violating really their their private Health Care information but it it still gets worse hopefully I'm not losing you here and where do you deport an American citizen that's exactly right Ed well that escalated quickly didn't this was sort of this was sort of their their uh their mm Mo you know they'd bust in they'd find the drugs hopefully and then they would just sort of use that as leverage and kind of circle the people and be like look you're in big trouble you know that and we can even charge you with a felony so you're gonna have to help us you're G to have to tell us you know where we need to go next and that was sort of the idea of of this unconventional unit to really fight drugs but this is where it ended up so here's where they went while the family's being guarded in the kitchen one of the officers locates a safe under the father's bed he was physically forced by the officers to use the combination and open the safe inside the safe was cash savings that they had been saving for a long time of around $10,000 also in the safe were several I shouldn't even have to say this because it doesn't matter because they didn't have a warrant several lawfully owned and possessed firearms and I'm not even talking about ARS or anything this is like a shotgun bold action style hunting rifles that sort of thing the type of thing that you have in the gun safe or the gun cabinet or even the closet of really any home in West Virginia so what are they do the officers confiscate the cash and the firearms they forced the family to sign some sort of document and I say some sort of document because they weren't given a copy of whatever they were forced to sign declaring that they were donating these seized items to the putham county sheriff and I believe that was the Firearms you know the cash wasn't mentioned that I know of again they didn't give this family a copy of this and and for the reason that I'll tell you in a in a few minutes even the agency itself didn't have a copy of whatever was signed because it apparently doesn't exist they were threatened with physical harm if they didn't sign this document whatever it was they threatened to take um one of the family members to the basement to choke them to death they were threatened with criminal prosecution with being deported but also having their children seized by the CPS which is a much more realistic threat this day and age the father and the son were uh forced to sign consent to search form despite the fact that the house had already been searched they were told that if they didn't sign the paperwork they were going to jail the bigger guy ratti threatened that he would take Mr Johnson downstairs I believe that was a son downstairs and choke him choke him to death I believe he said neither the the donation forms nor the consent forms were subsequently located by putam County's lawyer after we served him with a foyer request with a Freedom of Information act request so if this is true which I believe it is that there was a search there would have been on file a warrant that was produced with our foyer request or that would have been of record in the courthouse if items were actually seized legally there would be documentation of what was seiz there was there would be inventory forms um there would be at least whatever document they had them sign to make them think that thing you know there was paperwork and they were giving them these items but that never was produced by putam County's lawyer when we served them the foyer request and these foyer request again are all being served after this video had already gone viral on YouTube so everybody everybody knew about it and law enforcement there and uh and as far as their lawyers I mean I made sure that they had lawyers I was dealing with their lawyers to get me the documents if I'm misunderstanding something that's fine get me the documentation if the clients misunderstood what was happening if there's a reasonable explan or any expl explanation from this for this then show me the documents nothing nothing exists they also searched the sun's car in the driveway that's Bliss B Johnson that was the son they found 300 bucks in cash and they kept that as well one of the officers ERS it was recalled put a rubber band around it and just stuck it in his pocket never to be seen Again by this family or by any paperwork with the employer so what did they tell them was the reason why they were taking the guns anyways well they told Mr Johnson they were taking his guns so he couldn't seek revenge on them now mind you Mr Johnson is not a prohibited person from possessing firearms instead this man this father is a military veteran and law-abiding citizen period after the search these guys instructed the son it's confusing because they have similar names the son to meet them at an abandoned building in T's Valley that's in in in West Virginia where they pressured him to sign donation forms I'm not sure if those are additional forms or that's when he signed the form and the father signed them back at the house they also attempted to get him to give them information of some other Target who may have illegal drugs that they could kind of go do the same thing to however he had no information to provide after that they were deeply afraid of these police officers they were too afraid to tell anybody what had happened it wasn't until they saw this video the Dustin elswick video that video that they really had the courage to come forward and contact me about what had happened to them and they didn't even know all the details they knew what they saw in the video but when I talked to them there were other details that they didn't know that wasn't that weren't released that really matched exactly what what I already knew and had uh heard from other people because these weren't the only people that contacted me with the story so just regarding the you know how we know that there was no paperwork so you look at this little footnote so March 2nd 2020 I served the Freedom of Information Act request on the putam County Commission this is the employer through their Council requesting any and all documentation of any kind relating to an April 18th 2019 search of their home the response provided that they had no records pertaining to the event the only thing that they had on file was a May 2019 which is after this search it was just a name and address for for Bliss B Johnson I think that was the the son so after the search no documentation from the time of the search or before the search so there was no documentation of the fact that they were at the Johnson residence and that's what I expected that's the exactly what I expected if there's that documentation fine show it to me but I was positive I was pretty positive that there would be none that there there'd be no documentation just like there wasn't for the elswick search the police officers failed to document the fact that they were at that house that they were in that house that They seized cash from that house they failed the document that They seized firearms from that house to to date it's been over a year since that foyer request there still has been no supplementation of a foer request of any found documents of oh yeah sorry we we did have a search warrant here it was we just missed it nothing there's been nothing absolutely nothing provided so before I get to the accounts themselves you know did we did we cooperate with internal investigators yes we do did I went and met personally with the two detectives that were tasked with investigating the this matter investigating this guys the the internal investigation met with them opened my file to them gave them anything and everything they wanted the original um elswick videos I brought Mr elswick and and and the other witness that we had to meet with them I sent them the video another video of somebody who didn't even want it public at all didn't want to file a lawsuit didn't want to be involved I I sent them that video with the p person's uh permission gave them the details of other cases including this one and I don't know what happened in the internal investigation or whether there was any discipline um I mean I'm sure there there were no criminal charges or anything like that but absolutely it wasn't like we boom filed the lawsuit went straight to trying to get money out of them we tried to go the disciplinary route uh process route first and really that was you know because it was the the right thing to do you know we had you know well me as a civil rights lawyer I had no nothing financially to gain because of that because you know if the agency decides to throw a police officer under the bus and say indict them criminal charges I've had that happen before you know what happens the insurance company then sends me a letter stating that look if if a crime committed that's excluded under under the insurance coverage we're not covering that so we had nothing to gain by that but it was just the right thing to do um Daniel investigation results are public record uh not necessarily you know not necessarily um investigation results are you know there was an investigation and there's going to be some documentation of that I assume and I it's probably not something they're going to hand over as a public record in a foia but it will be handed over as Discovery and litigation so I don't know what happened with the internal investigation I heard things but I don't know I don't know what's true and what's not true so no generally they are not you know Personnel files are not public record but a lot of times when they take action there will be some press release or or public aspect of it I just heard nothing when way or the other in this case uh David Benner no documentation that it must have been theft how much is kicked back to the sheriff at all I I have I have absolutely no no knowledge of that I don't know I don't know the as far as the items that that were seized there's just no paper trail whatsoever now they did get a new sheriff after all this stuff happened and I had heard things to the Great Vine that the the new sheriff part of you know why he wanted to be Sheriff was to put an end to stuff like this I don't know what if that's true or whether he ever did you know there are agencies out there who are in a good position to do things about things like this one one is in Washington DC but I think they're a little bit too busy going after insurrectionists and things of that nature to be bothered with you know corrupt police officers and in fact you know all they had to do that even an internal investigation really couldn't do and that even the state police couldn't do all they had to do was send agents in there and be like hey you know were you because they knew about the original video before it went to YouTube they had the opportunity all they had to do was go in and say Hey you know were you ever at this house were you ever inside this house were you on inside this house on such and such date if so why if they said no boom you had them why were they in the house they've never explained why were they why they've why they were seen in this video why were they in there what's their side of the story I don't know they haven't had to tell it yet to me have they told it to internal investigators have they told it to criminal investigators I don't know what is their explanation what explanation could there be for being inside someone's house either you had consent to be there or you had a warrant or there was some emergency happening inside those are really the only exceptions now what do I what do I suspect is the reason and I've said this before what do I suspect was their justification in their minds well here's what I think was going on is they had what they were there to serve that day now they knew we would argue they knew that my guy wasn't excuse me wasn't home that he was at work they knew that because there was a phone call to the employer again new information no one knows this yet there was a phone call to the employer earlier that day as if checking to make sure that my client was not home so they go to the home and there's several police cruisers there again they're on duty they're in police cruisers no uniforms but they're in police cruisers they got guns at least one dude's on the video video you'll see him with a sheriff badge on where no there he is all right so see that guy that's loother Scott lther so it says sheriff on his Bat so I mean it's is really no way to claim that you weren't there in a law enforcement capacity but I suppose they could they or they maybe they have to but here's what they're going to say is they were there to serve civil summons paperwork because here's what happened is the client's mother saw a bunch or somebody saw a bunch of police cars at my client's house and contacted him and then his mother went to check on like what in the world's going on in my son's house and she had a friend a witness with her and they confronted these guys at the house so boom they were caught red-handed and that's that's that's how we we know about it and they didn't know they were on video at the time and so that's when they said oh we're here to serve this and they and the mother was kept away from the house but she was shown the Civil summons paperwork and it was it was a eviction summons so it was an it was an allegation he hadn't paid all his rent yet and he was the the beginning stages of an of an eviction lawsuit had started there was no court order or anything it was just a lawsuit that you have to serve on people and ultimately he wasn't evicted the you know he had made a deal with his landlord over what the dispute was and and the it never proceeded but they were there to serve a civil Summit so here's what their complaint their allegation might be is we had the permission of the landlord to be in the house that might be what they were going to say so that that you know that brings up the question all right well say the landlord hired these guys or sent them there to because they weren't the process servers for the county and I can go into who the process server was it was neither of these guys the real process server wasn't there so I don't know how this ended up happening but they were there to serve the paperwork on behalf of the landlord procedurally so what if they say the landlord gave us permission to be in the house and even a lease says that we get to go inside the house or the landlord gets to go inside the house to inspect it well that doesn't do much good for them because there's like a 1950s 19 1959 US Supreme Court case that says a landlord cannot give the cops permission to go inside the tenant's house to search period I mean very very wellestablished case law that was from a a a moonshine case where the landlord had every reason to believe there was a legal Whiskey Still In inside inside his structure that they weren't even real tenants that it was just a front called the cops cops ironically climbed in through the window ended up convicting the guy of all sorts of crimes for running a moonshine still inside this landlord's structure and everything's thrown out goes to the Supreme Court and they hold that no no no that was an illegal search a landlord cannot give permission to enter a tenant's house they still have to go get a warrant so if that's the explanation then then it's just you know a a you know they were mistaken about what the law is if that's their explanation so that won't do any good so really the only the only way out of that is to somehow come up with a search warrant somehow come up with a search warrant because there's no way to come up with consent um there's no way to I don't see how you could come up with an an an emergency or ex excy excuse and I'm not going to I'm not going to give them any theories to work off of but there's there's really no excuse for it so here are the claims in the other in this new case Okay count one basic unreasonable therefore unconstitutional search and seizure violation of the Fourth Amendment and you'll see that it's very very specific very very specific so that doesn't get knocked out on a motion to dismiss but it comes down to this no objectively reasonable police officer would believe that they possess the authority to enter this home without a warrant without voluntary consent and without exent circumstances and same thing for seizing items including um Cash Money Firearms um even a marijuana dead marijuana plan without a warrant without voluntary consent without exent circumstances so again this is about a different search than the one from the video and this one was filed first because the the statute limitations approached first so this happened like five or six months before the one from the video and this happened under color of law they weren't there in any other capacity now count two monel claim remember the County Commission itself is a defendant in the case that's not because the agent the agency is liable for the conduct of their employees this is you have to establish what's called a monel claim that they had basically an official policy or a pattern of practice of engaging in civil rights violations and that's really this might be one of the rare successful monell claims because this is sort of what we had here an official policy custom and practice of violating the rights of homeowners in that county engaging in a pattern and practice of warrantless searches and seizures under opes of fighting against illegal drug use and crime they wore no law enforcement uniforms gave the appearance they were acting sort of outside the law no rules no documentation no paperwork and this allowed the use of intimidation and sort of a perceived lawlessness to more effectively and efficiently acquire information and sources and as I've as you've heard me say before if you've watched my videos the Constitution is designed in such a way as to not be efficient as to not allow the government to be efficient and effective so that's not this the standard of constitutionality it's not well this works better no it's supposed to be hard to go in someone's house and search I mean that's part of the reason that we fought the Revolutionary War all right so in in accordance with that official policy and a practice what they did in this case to this family was was also done as a part of that same practice that they had and they did commit other s similar violations against other victims in putam County West Virginia others who will be the the plaintiffs and lawsuits and others who may just be Witnesses we'll we'll see count three supervisory liability this is the John Doe now who was the supervisor of these officers I don't know his name but definitely he had actual knowledge that these guys were engaged in conduct that proposed an unreasonable risk of constitutional injury to to the plains that PE that they would be searching people's houses and seizing their stuff without a search warrant potentially or any other exception to the search warrant requirement to the Fourth Amendment so I can't imagine how the supervisor was doing a good job of supervising these guys so let me put the video back back up go back to the end I mean heck everybody everybody sort of knew if you watch the local news for fugitives from around putam County and this is the group that is here day in and day out fighting crime when it comes to fighting crime this group can't and doesn't do it alone the more people that find out we're out here the more information we're getting they're a group of Four putam County deputies but together they make up those are my words on the top OB they're not undercover even though they're not in uniform most people are more relaxed with us when we're out of uniform they'll sit down and talk to you they're out driving the streets of putham County every day checking on tips called into the agency's anonymous drug tip line a lot of times it is people calling in on their neighbors or people in their neighborhood or they observe a lot of traffic unusual traffic at different times late at night they also serve warrants and track down fugitives in the county just recently the group became deputized to work with the United States Marshalls cuff task force the Marshall service not only do we go with them but they're willing to come come to our County and serve warrants as well since their formation hundreds of arrests have been made they've captured accused heroin dealers uncovered drug operations nabbed fugitives and all with your help if they wish to remain anonymous they're going to remain anonymous we're not going to we don't tell people where the information come from because we want more information we want people to call us all the time proactive policing made possible by those who don't want crime in their neighborhood all right so that's that's like the verboten um news footage I had to take out of the original video I didn't have to but but I think would have been a distraction to fight them over that um so it'd be hard to claim that nobody knew that these guys were doing this sort of thing and that was that was sort of the the stick that they were allowed to run with of like all right you're going to be this like unconventional like Delta Force of putam County where you're gonna you're gonna like bust into people's trailers and and find out who their drug dealer is and so on so that that's that case again these cases are going to kind of run together but it's been a long time coming and people have asked me over and over and over again what's going on on with that drug task force case well well it's now come to fruition now we're going to litigate it we're going to get the opportunity to take depositions and see what their official side of the story is and again why did it take so long well we participated in and gave them every opportunity to conduct their internal investigation waited and waited and waited to hear waited and waited to see if they were going to sort of make things right with the clients as well you know we don't have to to file a law suit if they're going to you know step up and and make things right but we you know they didn't say they weren't going to but they just never did and kept putting it off so here we are so now now we're gonna litigate it so that is the first of the drug task force cases and there will be others filed very very shortly including the elswick one again their choice not ours now the other well let me check see if there's any any recent questions here before moved to the family court case yes West Virginia Freedom task force absolutely the the shirts tell you that you know the the 1776 and the American flag on the shirts yes they're they're fighting for your freedom while they're in your house searching through your stuff David what does the supervisor know LOL I would be checking on individuals and units even late at night and early Dark 30 in the morning if you had to be babysat you did not work under me well I think that might play a part in it I mean clearly these I mean I guess at any job it'd be great to be like all right if you're a cop I'm saying I I'm not saying I would I would not ask for this all right I want to both be a cop work at your agency but I don't want to wear a uniform I want to wear like just Grunt Style shirts and jeans and I want to I want to like Mexican carry my my GL but I won't carry One in the Chamber so I don't shoot my junk off and I want no supervision now he could have had that one guy could have had a holster technically I I I didn't see whether it was a Glock or not some there are little holsters like Raven Vanguard concealment holsters that I've used myself that you can appendix carry like that you can't tell that they they just sort of cover the trigger on a Glock because that they don't have a manual safety so I'm I'm sort of being tongue and cheek there there could be a holster there I don't know the point is is that there was really no supervision and that's the point if there's no supervision you're turning this these guys loose on the local trailer park and I'm being factious because the clients I filed this on on behalf of are not in a trailer park very nice neighborhood nice home nice family the Dustin elswick video you can see is is a rural Farmhouse I mean I think it was a log cabin actually wasn't a a trailer park wasn't a drug area I mean these are just regular good people that are are being terrorized by what is a bunch of cops looking and acting like a gang those are the allegations and therefore I would like to hear what the supervision was and if the defense says for the supervision that well there was no supervision you can't blame me that sort of makes the claim that well there was there was a lack of supervision because you know you did set up this this seu and you did turn them out onto the community and you even told the news about it but you didn't watch them at all you didn't look to see whether they were getting search warrants or whether they were seizing things and if so what was happening to the things that they were seizing okay and well I'll do more I'll do more on that case as this progresses so now to move on to the family court case again that's this case that's the the family court judge with with uh her back to you that is her bayth I believe his name is MC PE standing to the right that's the ex-wife's lawyer that you can hardly see in in the green suit and then that's my client Matt Gibson to the left so watch that video if if you haven't seen it um this is the complaint that we recently filed I'll just briefly show you the complaint so that's the complaint also southern district of West Virginia federal courts now this one instead of Huntington division this is Beckley division because it took place in Raleigh County West Virginia also a 1983 case also for an unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional search and seizure of the plane of s now this is a more recent search this happened on March 4th 2020 right before right before this giant state of emergency was declared that we're still living under again that's a different video I don't need to go into that plenty of other videos that you can hear my opinion on that so we filed this lawsuit I've gone over it before but basically a 26-year family court judge literally searches my client's house brings the ex-wife and her lawyer in and law enforcement allows the ex-wife to to to look for certain items of personal property and to seize them and leave the premises with them under the opes of it being a basically a home view version of a family court hearing that they they literally left the family court and resumed the hearing in my client's front yard and then took it inside the house so when I first saw the video I was like this is crazy I've never heard of this before we put it on YouTube the news picked up with it and also the judicial investigation commission picked up with it and they ended up investigating the judge and filing a formal statement of charges against the judge and one other judge who was doing the same sort of thing at least twice and that's still really being litigated but ultimately we filed this federal civil rights lawsuit and that's it you can read it it's it's up on on the website um and what happened today so there's news today in that case and here's what happened so we just filed this lawsuit on March 22nd and we served all of the defendants it just had them served with a copy of the complaint and the summons and so now all the answers were due today and we had several motions to dismiss that were filed and so that's what was filed today and if you look at the website the Civil Rights lawyer.com you will see the the uh motion or the memorandums that were filed arguing for dismissal of our lawsuit um it's exactly right that uh and they wouldn't have gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddling kids Bubba no rights in your house no rights in your car guns being taken away America land of the free well this is a really interesting case when it comes to home rights because there are people arguing including Family Court judges that this is absolutely legal for them to do that there's no Fourth Amendment right to keep a family court judge or any judge out of your house if they want to go search your house really bizarre and here is the again if you go to the website I had have these filings civil rights lawyer.com but we can look at a better version of them so let me look at first let's you want to look at the judges first or the cops first let's look at the judges first that's the most interesting okay so here's here's the judges filing that came down today just received it I've I've had enough time to to Breeze through it and write to drop down some notes basically but this is it they you know this is written by the lawyers the defense lawyers so they go through all the legal ease and let me get to the substance of it here and so this is the this is absolutely expected so as a here's their big argument as a Judicial officer acting in that capacity as a judge judge Goldston is absolutely immune from pl's claims so it's well settled that judges are absolutely immune from a suit for deprivation of civil rights brought under section 1983 even if such Acts were allegedly done maliciously corruptly or in bad faith and no matter how erroneous the ACT may have been and however injurious in its consequences the judicial act may have proved to to the plth so as they note it's a form of absolute immunity it doesn't merely protect them from being assessed damages but also from having to participate in a lawsuit at all and that's the same thing of qualified immunity it can be brought up at a motion to dismiss stage it can be brought up at any time up to and even during the trial and really after the trial on appeal it could be brought up so qualified immunity or even judicial immunity or absolute immunity can be brought up any time and a lot of times it isn't brought up this early but I absolutely expected judicial immunity to brought up very early in this case as I would if I were the defense lawyer so just some some of the other legal EAS and I'll get to what the law actually is so absolutely absolute immunity so even though it may be unfair a general principle of the highest importance to the administration of proper Justice is that a Judicial officer in exercising the authority vested in him shall be free to act upon his own convictions without apprehension of personal consequences to himself let's see so they cite the mlles versus Waco case now this is an interesting case the meli's case and I I think I cited that in the complaint but the Mel's case was a supreme court case from 1991 I was thinking it was 1985 but it's a it's a fairly old Supreme Court case where a judge got sued by a lawyer for a section 1983 claim for excessive force and here's what the judge did the judge basically said to her b or to his Baya it was a guy said I want you to go get you know lawyer John Doe whoever he was maybe it was Morales I want I want you to go get this guy this he's in a different courtroom I want you to go get him and when you get him I want you to use excessive force bring him back to me and make sure you use excessive force so being the trustworthy bayth the bayth went out and actually did go get this lawyer and used excessive force when when brought the lawyer back in so the lawyer sues sues the Baya and also sues the judge and the judge gets out of it in that case claiming that you know judicial immun and the Supreme Court held that you know while it was wrong what the judge did it did violate the attorney's rights that judicial immunity applied because literally the judge was still sitting on the bench and that it was still acting in the judicial capacity you know sufficiently in the judicial capacity you know when this thing happened I'm paraphrasing we can go through that and there allegations here basically that the judge says that she continued the the hearing to the client's front yard and to the litigant front yard and was having the hearing there and then took the hearing inside the house and because a hearing was still being conducted she should get the the lawsuit dismissed based on judicial immunity and that that is a I I'll get to my response to that here's the the other thing that was bizarre they brought up I wasn't expecting this I'll take a look at this they're saying that the federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's claims due to the application of the 11th Amendment now do you know what the 11th Amendment is I know what it is I've litigated before here's what the 11th Amendment says the 11th Amendment says that a state you can't sue the state in federal court that's why see I can sue to the putam County Commission as we just went over I can sue them in federal court they're a political subdivision they're not the state so since they're not a state the 11th Amendment which says that the state can't be made a party in the in the federal courts doesn't apply so if I if I were to sue for instance the times I've the many numerous times I've sued a West Virginia State Police Officer a state trooper I haven't been able to say in Federal Court you know I'm I'm suing the West Virginia State Police because they're the employer now one of the the main reason I can't do that is because of the 11th Amendment I can't sue a state agency in Federal Court unless they agree for me to do so or under certain exceptions generally can't I have to name the individual officer and so I name the individual officer Trooper soand so as an individual and when I do that the 11th Amendment doesn't apply doesn't apply and so I'm not sure where why they think it applies here because if we look back at the complaint let's do it well actually we don't even need to look back at the complaint let's look at their own memorandum all right let's look at the top of their own memorandum all right there's the judge how is she sued individually as an individual and so in the complaint it specifically makes clear UN in the one of the first paragraphs that this defendant as with the other defendants are being sued individually because I know you can't sue in the official capacity because that's the same as suing the state itself if it's a state employee you can't do that the 11th Amendment but it's as if they they they don't realize that I I don't I'm not sure but they they pretend that this is an official capacity claim since she's a family court judge which is technically falls under the judicial bran the state judicial branch the state supreme court that were basically suing the state the state court system and this is outrageous and it's 11th Amendment says you can't do that but we're not doing that and so they go on and on about this 11th Amendment says that you can't sue a judge but we're not or that you can't sue the state we're not suing the state we're suing the individual and I'll just just to pound that Point home let's bring the complaint back up all right here's the complaint wait that's not the complaint here it is all right at the top the judge well I can't highlight that one Louise e Goldston individually and let's look down at the party section see parties paragraph let's see where is it okay defendant louisi Goldston was at all times relevant here too a judge of the 13th Family Court Circuit has served in that capacity for approximately 26 years at all times relevant to the allegations herein she was acting under color of law she is named herein as a defendant in her individual capacity all right so how can they argue that this is an official capacity claim where they could bring up a defense of the 11th Amendment when it's expressly it's an individual capacity claim I don't know I don't know maybe just trying to confuse the judge or maybe they don't quite understand that it can be confusing but the 11th Amendment cannot cannot apply to that 11th Amendment does not say that you can't sue somebody who is a judge in their individual capacity now the doctrine of IAL immunity says you can't do that under some circumstances so before we get to the officer's case let's just talk about that what does what does that mean what does judicial immunity when does it apply when does it not apply again we looked at the Morales I don't know how you pronounce that Morales versus Waco case 1991 US Supreme Court that is that the case that they cited and it expressly says that a judge is not immune from liability for non-judicial actions I.E actions not taken in the judge's judicial capacity secondly a judge is not immune for actions though judicial in nature are taken in the complete absence of all jurisdiction so those are the two exceptions and so how do we know when they apply well it's being case law it goes on and on whether an act by a judge is a quote judicial one relates to the nature of the act itself whether it's a function normally performed by a judge and to the expectations of the parties whether they dealt with the judge in His official capacity I'll bring this up for you as well these are just some of my own research that I've compiled just some of the notes I I compiled researching this so look here's the law judge is not immune for liability for non-judicial actions actions not taken in the judge's judicial capacity whether an act by judge is a Judicial one relates to the nature of the act itself whether it's a well let me zoom in some here I don't know if it'll let me make this any bigger there we go whether an act by a judge is a Judicial one relates to the nature of the act itself whether it's a function normally performed by a judge and to the expectations of the party I.E whether they dealt with the judge in his judicial capacity and in the Mor's case they found that a judge's direction to court officers to bring a person who is in the courthouse before him is a function normally performed by a judge so all right they they rely on the mlli case so the judge is on the bench and says go get that damn lawyer and I want you to use excessive force when you bring him here okay that is an act that normally judges do all around the country they may say to a bayith or to any other person go get this person go get this lawyer and bring him in the courtroom that is completely fine what what makes that wrong what happened it was that the judge said I want you to use excessive force when you did now can we contrast that situation with what happened to my client Mr Gibson is it a function normally performed by a judge to go to a litigant house and to search their home to physically go on their property and go walk into their their home and walk downstairs and sit on on the recliner and direct guys with Badges and guns on on what they where they can go where they can't go what they can take what they can't take to bring an ex-wife in the house and her lawyer and to let them take pictures or DVDs is it within a function normally performed by a judge to allow or to force one in their own home to open up their their safe to allow their ex-wife to look in it or law enforcement to look in it no these are not functions that are normally performed by judges and that's a big difference from what the Morales case says judges do not search homes period they don't do it so what does judicial immunity protect from well it protects from judges being sued over making mistakes or acting in excess of their Authority but they're still sitting on the bench and and and just uh you know took it too far or something like that this is so outside of what judges do nobody would expect in any Court in the country whether family court or any other type of court that a judge is going to go search their home absolutely not so the relevant inquiry is here the relevant inquiry is the nature and function of the ACT not not the act itself in other words we look to the particular acts relation to a general function normally performed by a judge and this case the Morales case the function of directing police officers to bring counsel and a pending case before the court so a judge's direction to an executive officer to bring Council before the court is no more executive in character than a judge's issuance of a warrant for an executive officer to search a home so the issuance of a search warrant is a Judicial act so therefore what is not a Judicial act so there's a difference between judicial acts and executive acts so the judge ABS a judge generally can is is uh can issue a search warn now a family court judge in West Virginia can't and that's that's a different that's a that's a different area that we're getting into but a just any judge they it would be a Judicial act for them to issue a certain warrant not under any circumstances to go personally engage in the executive Act of enforcing that order that is an executive function that's what law enforcement does let's see and there there I mean there's a few other there's a few other cases in there and you know one of the another case is a stump case ironically we have a stump defendant here here but a court must assess whether the part's expected to deal with a Judicial officer in that officer's judicial capacity so generally as a party in any court you don't expect a judge to come search your house now maybe maybe they argue that that was the expectation in this particular judge's court because it had been happening there for 26 years but my client was not a litigate there for 26 years this is something that he had 10 minutes notice of you know he's there representing himself and the judge says just supon which means the other lawyer didn't even ask for it what's your address we're going to your house be there in 10 minutes and so like I said this judge got charged with a formal statement of charges by the state judicial investigation commission and one of the allegations which was admitted in writing was that the judge in this case properly left the judicial the the role of of unbiased and neutral judge presiding over a case and entered the role of a litigant so entered the role of representing my client's ex-wife because this was a contempt proceeding and one of the things that the the judicial prosecutors brought out here was was the admission that there was no even you know she didn't even make the other the lawyer prove contempt before they went to the house so he wasn't held in contempt this was a part of them attempting to prove contempt allegedly so she had basically acted as a litigant or as a lawyer against my client that she took the the role of proving contempt by taking everybody and forcing them into his house under threat of being arrested and jailed and brought them in the house in order to see if these items were there and that therefore whether to see whether or not he was in contempt and that's it just violated a number of judicial rules all of which almost all of which the judge admitted with councel to violating all these rules of judicial conduct so it's gon to be I think it's a difficult argument to say that judicial immunity applies because of the Morales case well it's a little different because when she chose to go off the bench and or the front yard it's a little hard to claim that a little hard to claim that Andre um thanks I'm the best advocate for fair common human rights and treatment simply by embracing US Constitution appreciate that Sharkies why do police I guess you're talking about the the other case why did police get to investigate themselves well you know they I guess any anybody can investigate themselves any company any agency I mean no one's no one's stopping them the fact is is is that you know why isn't some other agency investigating them I don't know I don't know kareno who is the ruler of yard well I'm I'm I'm glad you asked kiero um there is a Supreme Court case I believe it's Florida versus jardines which states that the you know the area outside of your house is really treated like the inside of your house as well I can get that exact quote for you here I deal with this fairly often it's here somewhere see there's lots of cases you got to go through a bunch of them all right Florida versus jardines a US Supreme Court case from 2013 officers took a train K9 to Mr Jardine's front porch the Kine alerted for Narcotics and then they went and obtained a search warrant based upon the alert and the question is whether you know they they could even though they're not inside the house um they're they're on the property and they're outside the front door but they're close to it and they end up going on the porch whether that constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment so the Court held that the areas areas immediately surrounding the house um including the curtilage of the house which would be with you know the yard that this video shows does enjoy protection under the Fourth Amendment as part of the house itself but it that is a is extremely good question let's [Music] see what's the doj's rule with self-investigation I'm not sure I'm not sure what that I'm I'm not sure that they have a rule I mean you can look at the department of Justice's proposed like policies and procedures for for police departments I don't even know that that really they're good at this point for most purposes but they do have mechanisms for accountability that are probably good some of them that have to do with unbiased and actual legitimate investigations some sort of detached Internal Affairs or other agency investigating things and my opinion that's absolutely a great idea that's not necessarily a constitutional issue because they they're allowed to you know run their internal you know Administration however they want to but somebody needs to do it other than just depending on just private lawyers to file lawsuits right the other thing I need to I mean that's the basic judicial immunity and I'm going to next draft a formal response and generally you have 14 days to file a response to a motion to dismiss like this so within 14 days hopefully sooner I'll upload a a response brief to this and explain pretty much everything I just explained but just with the citations and probably thought out a little better and here's the danger of filing these things and a lot of times uh lawyers representing police officers in regular qualified immunity cases sometimes don't file motions to dismiss and the reason one of the reasons I think is is because well what happens if you lose a motion to dismiss well you get a court order from a federal judge explaining why if the allegations are correct you violated somebody's civil rights and that can have negative consequences it might be a lot better for the client to just settle the case and make it go away without having any court order describing your client's conduct but if you win you win I guess I guess that it's worth it if you win but if you lose then you know it's not good and also maybe the value of the case is greater now because the judge has called called out the defendants and also you have some indication on how the judge might rule on summary judgment at the next step and also you've incurred additional attorneys fees and the whole point of section 1983 litigation is is that if the government officer is being sued loses they're liable for all the attorney's fees at you know $350 an hour or so usually you know a lot of times maybe 400 bucks an hour of all the time that I spent on the case or another lawyer spent on the case if they're if they're worth that money and they can prove it so everything you do you're increasing the value of the case if you lose geez I don't what happened to this cigar but the all right here's the the other memorandum let me get to from the police officers now this is this deals with everybody's favorite topic of qualified immunity all right so separate this is to be expected separate lawyer or separate Law Firm represents the county defendants to this case so you have the judge who's technically you know under the Supreme Court I mean they're all individuals as far as the defendant the being named in the lawsuit goes but then you have the count County defendants so you have the County Commission who really means the sheriff's department who's the employer and then you have the particular deputies were all sworn law enforcement officers who were involved in this case you have the boff who was Jeff mCP then you have just three other or two other deputies that showed up to the scene after the bayth called them for backup you have Brian White and Bobby stump so this is their begging to get out of the case basically and like I said basic qualified immunity motion to dismiss they go over the allegations and the complaint blah blah blah blah blah legal standard to get a mo to get a dismissal at this point all right here's their argument they're entitled to qualified Immunity on all counts so again you can get qualified immunity up front in the middle or at the end so they go through just some of the basic legal ease and you have to really go down to just a very I mean most of this is legal e doesn't make any difference you go to the relevant portions of their argument it's going to have to do with the facts all right so the alleged search and God I can't highlight this one alleged search and seizure happened during these are their words what happened what during during what the defendants believed was a continuation of a contempt hearing now now it it whether it was a continuation of a contempt hearing they're standing in the plan of's front yard and in his living room and in his basement Etc so you know you're not in the courtroom defendant MC PE acting as bayth went to the pl's residence he had an objectively reasonable belief that he could go to the plaintiff's residence with the judge as she continued to contempt hearing and in their defense they say the the qualified immunity defense protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law and it protects law enforcement officers from Bad guesses in Gray areas and ensures that they're only liable for transgressing bright lines and all that citing case law a bayf is an officer of the court to which he or is assigned subject to the Court's control and supervision and responsible for preserving order in decorum taking charge of the jury what jury guarding prisoners what prisoners well I mean technically I guess there were prisoners and other services which are reasonably necessary for the Court's proper functioning so all right a bayth defense all right all right so because he was the bayth his presence just with the judge you know she was doing it so his presence with her was reasonable under the circumstances now in reality if you watch the video you see that the judge uses the bayth to force her way into the house threatens my client with arrest in jail like six or seven times during the course of this happening so I don't it it seems like it wouldn't have happened but for the BFF who had a badge and a gun and handcuffs but he sort of claims that that he was he was you know just just innocent he was just supposed to guard the judge and he was there guarding judge all right and and also this is the guy that took out his cell phone during a part of this search that lasted like 30 or 40 minutes and took like six or seven minutes I think it was a video from his own personal cell phone and they bring this up all right oh and and also seized my client's cell phone at the direction of the judge so defendant goston didn't want the plff to record the contempt hearing so he's the bay sees the plff phone just so just as he would have done had they been in court but they weren't in court as such he's entitled to qualified immunity plth is also uh prop property I guess that's a typo plead any facts indicating that the other two cops actually took part in the unlawful search and seizure on the plaintiff's property I don't think that's the case um let's go ahead and I can probably disprove that pretty easily let's look back at the complaint all right so if you look at the complaint where is it it's up on the screen but I still got to find it on my screen all right here it is all right so there's two sections you got the factual allegations and then you have the counts themselves all right so looking in the counts themselves all right the other officers white and stump acted under color of law they entered the plane of home as alleged here in on March 4th 2020 blah blah blah blah blah so I alleged they did it while acting under color of law defendants white and stump deprived them of his fourth amendment rights um said defendants acted unreasonably um went through all the all the law so they're named in that portion if we go up to the factual portions pretty sure we talk about those guys where are they so they weren't there from the beginning it was just the the bayth MC PE and then he calls for backup and these two guys show up all right so yeah once inside the home judge gson directed deputies to assist plain's ex-wife and defendant lawyer in searching and seizing the home's contents lasted a total of 20 to 30 minutes throwing the search and seizure blah blah blah blah blah remove different items of personal property all right here we go during the search defendant police officers stump and white arrived and entered plaintiff's residence after being called by defendant mc mc peek thereafter they began to jointly partic participate in the search and seizure occurring inside plaintiff's house shortly after arriving defendant stump went back outside and instructed plaintiff's witnesses to leave the property meanwhile defendant Goldston allowed plaintiff's ex-wife's boyfriend father and brother to remain on the plaintiff's property without the plaintiff's consent so they're referred to repeatedly and specifically when they arrived what they did when they arrived and that they jointly participated in it I mean when police officers search a house a lot of times it's not just one guy there's a whole group of them and if they're all entering the house they're all participating in the Fourth Amendment activity there the the the uh alleged violative activity of searching and seizing somebody's house that you don't have to allege that you know officer white picked up this DVD and actually took this I mean he doesn't get out of liability for being inside the house and participating in it just because he didn't specifically take anything that's not how any of this works he was there he entered the house he didn't have a warrant he didn't have um he didn't have voluntary consent I guess he could try to claim exigent circumstances that he got called to the scene and thought there was some sort of emergency but then how does he account for him staying on the property and then continuing to enable this search and seizure to continue so you know if that's the defense I guess that's the defense but but uh you know we'll see all right back to back to the the request for qualified immunity for the officers all right so they're saying we didn't allege that they did anything wrong yeah well we kind of did during the contempt hearing they entered the plaintiff's home to search and seize items of personal property blah blah blah they believed it was a continuation of a contempt hearing I already read this part plff has also failed to properly plead any facts indicating the white and stump actually took part in an unlawful search and seizure on the plan's property I think I just read that did they simply responded to a call for backup when they responded to the plaintiff's residence and responding to a call for backup is in their official duties as police officer you know a motion to dismiss the court is supposed to take everything the plff says is true is the allegations in the lawsuit this is how many pages is this lawsuit it's very specific and now they tried to sneakily like sneak in other things so they're trying to sneak in that it call for backup is in their official duties as police officer well where's that coming from that's not in the complaint it's not in their I mean yeah they're they're acting under color of law we said that plaintiff has also failed to prove that they actually that white and stump actually seized any of the plaintiff's property themselves again that doesn't that that's not the standard that's not an element that like the jury has to check off when we get to trial that they actually took a DVD from the residents no I mean the second they crossed the threshold without a warrant and without an applicable exception that it's their burden to prove because again this is presumptive it's his home it's his castle they violated the Fourth Amendment doesn't matter if they didn't take anything n not a single DVD or family photo or chainsaw could have been taken from the residents that day and it's still a Fourth Amendment violation whether or not they just like the other video where they're searching for drugs they don't find any drugs didn't take anything that we know of does that mean it wasn't a Fourth Amendment violation no it's an unreasonable therefore unconstitutional search and seizure whether or not they actually leave the premises with anything or not there's a seizure there there's a search there they didn't remove anything in store it in the sheriff's department well you know duh that's the point here the ex-wife took it they let the ex-wife take it plth also failed to properly plead or point to any case law or statute indicating the officers were required to file a report about their presence at the plaintiff's residence okay um no the the reason that we brought up the fact that they didn't document any of this they didn't file any sort of report is because they knew they were acting outside of the law they're acting outside of the rules they're not allowed to be in somebody's house participating in a search and seizure with a judge and an ex-wife I mean where they going to put that in a report put it in writing no so their actions were reasonable under the circumstances I mean what we'll see that's why they build cour houses all right now they so that's their that's their claim for qualified immunity so I don't know that I I can't imagine them getting qualified immunity especially at this point but we'll see all right first amendment so we made a First Amendment claim because my client's cell phone was forcibly taken by one of the officers by the bayth and this is before the other two got there and he was denied the the constitutional right to film the fact that there were government officers and officials on his property in the process of searching his home so if you're filming police to hold them accountable or any government official you that's protected you have a First Amendment right to film so the pl if has failed to properly plead that defendants white and stump seized his cell phone that's true white and stump did not seize the cell phone and they're not we're not seeking to hold them liable for seizing the cell phone they didn't do that it was defendant mCP who did that so then they try to get him out of it defendant mCP was acting on an order from defendant Goldstein so I should get qualified immunity because the judge told me to do it well if you look back at that moral case from the Supreme Court 1991 the BFF also got sued in that case and he sort of did the same thing he claimed well the judge ordered me to do it so I did it and actually claimed that you know I should get qualified IM or absolute judicial immunity and the Supreme Court said no all you get is regular qualified immunity you're a police officer you're not a judge and doesn't matter matter who order if the judge orders you to do something the judge gets judicial immunity you don't so you you still have to act as an objectively reasonable police officer so you just get the basic qualified immunity standard so their own case that they well I guess it was the judge that used that these are the officers in a different different Law Firm defending them but that sort of that that sort of proves that that's not going to work probably why they only donated one paragraph to to that argument so what I've said from the beginning is that I knew it would be a fight over judicial immunity with the judge but heck we you know the the deputies should have known better they didn't have a warrant and it's their burden then to prove exent circumstances or voluntary consent we'll see if they can do it in any event it's not a good situation for a motion to dismiss it's really more for a trial and this is their last argument is to try to get the county out of it they claim that the county has qualified immunity now I was sort of surprised to see this as well that the county gets qualified immunity I mean it's always been my understanding which is the law that counties cannot get qualified immunity only individual defendants individual police officers can get qualified immunity and they sort of they they go all through this but I can sort of prove this to be um um I I could sort of well I don't even need to prove this is wrong qualified immunity isn't an issue with with um with um you know monel claims which is just what this is um qualified immunity is not something that can be granted to a political subdivision so I'm not sure why they they think that exists let's see and they go into the the 14th Amendment here but you know when you see this small of a of a paragraph and a half devoted to it's really not going to apply so the main argument for the police officers is qualified immunity that's not going to apply to the employer they can't get qualified immunity the main argument for the judge to get out of it is judicial immunity that's a much better argument now also defendant in this case if you look at the we don't want to leave him out if you look at the the lawsuit again I wish they made I wish I could have more than one document up at a time like they let me let me do the videos let's see where is it all right if you look at the lawsuit also defendant is the ex-wife's lawyer oops can't highlight that all right so he's the only he's he filed a motion dismissed today too and I didn't spend a whole lot of time on it but I'll bring it up his motion dismiss he's saying that he didn't get served I'll show you his motion to dismiss and it literally just I saw it like an hour ago make that a little bigger all right so that's the lawyer's motion dismiss so two things one is he saying that the complaint same thing that the complaint fails toh State a a claim for relief which can be granted against him since he's not a a state actor he's not a public employee and then secondly he's saying that he didn't get service of the complaint so he filed an affidavit stating that that he just got served with a complaint and not the summons the summons wasn't attached to it so he just got this complaint summons didn't get it so therefore technically I'm not going to respond I'm not GNA respond to it at all it at least just to file a motion to dismiss and just a quick look at the actual records shows that that's not true let's see all right he was not served a copy of the summons and I'll show you proof that he was all right there is the summons that was served on him there's the case there's [Music] him signed by the clerk returned executed to the court by the sheriff's department process server served him on such and such date served him personally with this summons here it is this officer tested that he served it on him returned it it was uploaded to the court the or court ordered him to respond so he's claiming he didn't receive it well apparently he did receive it you know why didn't he just respond anyways yeah the dog must have ate it I guess the dog ate it so I mean the the other claim is that he's not a state actor and that therefore he shouldn't have to be involved in a civil rights lawsuit because generally private parties can't violate the civil rights of others and that is usually technically true but one difference here is that you can I mean there's an exception to that let me look for the actual language looking back at the lawsuit and this is really a detailed complaint if you haven't looked at it it has a lot in there but it goes over all the specific claims it's very very specific somewhere in here is the must be at the bottom the complain against the lawyer here we go all right conspiracy count six conspiracy with the state official all right the lawyer the defendant lost the lawyer and the defendant judge engaged a long-term practice agreement relationship and understanding where the defendant lus the lawyer possess the ability as well as the perceived ability to request that defendant goldsten the judge illegally visit the homes of opposing litigants appearing before her in order to search and seize items of personal property therein defendant lus would then invoke threaten to invoke this ability during settlement negotiations with other attorneys and proa litigants such as my client and he was caught on tape doing this um in order to gain an advantage so we have a recording of him saying back when my client had a lawyer look I want him to get on the stands say he doesn't have certain things and then the judge is going to go search's house she's big on that I think he said and that's how he was gonna really stick it to my client get him get him uh in a bad position because he knew that the judge would if he wanted to wanted her to would search his house and look for these items he said he didn't have that was a year before the actual search took place then he called my client the night before the search took place and demanded $5,000 for it not to take place and then when they showed up he really didn't even have to do anything according to the judicial investigation commission he just kind of sat there and let the judge take the Reigns and say all right we're we're going to your house be there in 10 minutes and this isn't the first time this had happened this this was a ongoing conspiracy that spread over the course of of 20 years according to the judge and was done in numerous cases and I talked to a lot of different people that had this happened to them or threatened to be happen happened to them and you could get out of it by writing a check and that's what's alleged here this relationship and agreement was demonstrated on March 4th when the judge actually searched and seized my client's house removed items of personal property as detailed in this lawsuit this was performed pursuant to private exp parte agreement between the judge and between the lawyer and the plaintiff's only means of stopping this from happening was to pay an arbitrary and outrageous sum of $5,000 supposedly to his ex-wife payable to her lawyer probably all right yes he's not a state official but he acted under color of State law by conspiring with one or more State officials to deprive the plth of his ferally protected rights a private party who jointly participates in the alleged constitutional wrongdoing with a state or local official is engaged in state action there's the citation US Supreme Court Luger versus Edmonson Oil Company 1982 there's another one Dennis versus Sparks 1980 and then there's another US Supreme Court case 1970 they must have missed those defendant Lusk agreed to with and engaged in a concerted action with a defendant judge to participate in this conspiracy blah blah blah blah blah you get the point so yes a private party under some circumstances if you have strong evidence of some sort of conspiracy to violate someone's civil rights can be held liable and when would this ever come up remember the the Civil Rights era for instance where you know it's say in some of these some of these places in the South it could be a a a private business owner conspiring with the the local police to keep black people out of the restaurants or to spray them with fire hoses whatever you're saying you can't sue you can't sue the private party for violating people's Civ civil rights of course you can if the if the if the if there's evidence of a joint conspiracy absolutely and that's very very well established in in the federal case law so I think there's there's we've alleged more than S sufficient evidence here to show that that occurred David uh $5,000 in many foreign countries I lived in this would possibly be called a bribe interesting it it could be called that um have you ever heard of the Court switching your court date to a prior date and then not sending notification so you get a warrant happened to me seven times I've absolutely heard of that absolutely um I've heard that many many many times and that's that's a due process issue Tabby's Daddy what color is the law um you know what I mean it's like traffic tickets make a donation to the police retirement fund Liberty not licensed how much was going to the judge I have no to be clear I have no evidence that any of the alleged $5,000 was was to go to the judge or that any other form of payment you know went to the judge in in any of these C circumstances we've alleged basically that this was this was sort of a quid quid proquo Arrangement that was going on only in this particular family court in West Virginia no really no other family courts where these local lawyers who had a relationship with the judge you know had had the knowledge or the perceived ability that they could bring the judge into the client's house or the other party's house and then this would be used as a sword basically in negotiations and um if you had an outside lawyer that didn't know that this was going on they wouldn't have that that same ability and that's why we also made 14th Amendment claims or a prosay party is being is also at a detriment doesn't have that ability now is that just because they're all friends and that's the way they do things or is there actually some sort of quid pro quo there you know for instance campaign donations or or Goodwill for for campaigns I don't I don't know other than other than what we've alleged but I would expect that more information might come out and the discovery um everything they give you give you everything you need to prosecute everything is on paper absolutely it was all there on a uh silver platter uh Mike Murphy they should appoint me as a judge well fortunately people don't have to worry about that because who appoints judges but the governor and and I've sued the governor three times and I don't think I'm in any danger of being appointed by to to judgeship by our governor my dog Rex that's a great Point how far will a cop go following judges orders will a cop rob a bank rape rape the mailman falsely arrest falsely in prison exactly I mean would that be a defense um I mean the choven trials going on now does he does he have any defense all right the judge told me to do it the judge told me to you kneel on on George Floyd's neck I mean no that that wouldn't be a defense if it were true to anything doesn't matter if you're a sworn law enforcement officer you know that the judge can't tell you to go hide a body and well you just have to follow orders and and do it or El and that's a defense if you get caught no obviously not and as for I mean at some point the this hopefully if they if these motions to dismiss aren't all granted there will be testimony under oath at some point as this as to the details on all this stuff um Mary um thanks I appreciate that if you can't tell it's it's Mondays are are really really busy for me they you know if if something is going to go wrong it's a Monday and always very tired by the end of the day Raven Dark Shadow when does anyone actually get any justice on these things ever I mean part of the part of the the story of this case already has been and it you know some justice that occurred and that was that the state disciplinary board went after this judge and got the judge to agree to sanctions agree to admit to having violated all these judicial rules and this really bizarre thing happened at the end where this judicial hearing board sort of threw the whole thing out because a family court a sitting family court judge judge stotler objected to it and felt like family court judges should have this ability and I've written on this and I've done videos on this if you if you want to learn more about it but that is just I mean really crazy in the end it's headed to the Supreme Court the state supreme court and they'll be deciding that but I mean absolutely not there's there's uh there's no authorization for any judge much less a family court judge which is a court of limited jurisdiction in West Virginia to go search anybody's house they could even issue a search warrant they do important things but they're supposed to do it in the courtroom and it doesn't have anything to do with searching people's houses I mean they could issue a warrant awarding item or even ordering the seizure of an item that's supposed to go to a certain person but that's for law enforcement to to execute it or the parties um conspiracy with individuals federal case law resources if you look at the complaint it's all laid out at the complaint so you can find all this stuff at the website at the Civil Rights lawyer.com you'll see the federal case law that I cited I think there were three different US Supreme Court cases on um private party conspiring with a state official and this is for purposes of of civil lawsuits section 1983 lawsuits so it's not criminal charges that's not what I do Evergreen was that a gunshot glass yes yes it was it was uh we had a particularly uh Rowdy day here at the office and uh we took some incoming fire Dreamland thumbs up I appreciate you you all watching and yes please please uh why not give me thumbs up and uh share it and force YouTube to to spread it around maybe they like this one because it's it's it's technically you know they don't like anything that I say bad about you know that which shall not be named or the governor or anything like that but I mean they'll let me bash on Cops usually and they'll probably spread it and not that I'm I'm even bashing on cops because I I've had so many cops you know bring this case up to me and be like that's just crazy I can't believe it and actually my client in this case Matt Gibson he's a federal law enforcement officer so so this is you know the I think this is a case that most people can agree on I think now whether or not the judicial immunity laws are going to are going to stop us in the end we'll find out but you know it's a fight that that needs to happen I think bubba I appreciate that um not going to happen though um like you guys I have to work let's see Janine are Judges supposed to know the law yes they are but they're given this judicial immunity this absolute immunity in case they screw something up and I understand that and I'm not arguing against that um I mean no doubt people would sue judges for anything and everything that went wrong in their case and they don't have to get everything perfect but we have we have appeals that you know sort of sort that out but what happens if they if they even according to the rules of judicial immunity take it too far they don't just automatically get liab liability anyways they get knocked down to qualified immunity like just a regular cop has so that's the way it should happen and it's sort of similar rules for prosecutors as well and there's a lot more case law on prosecutors being sued than there are judges because it it's it's pretty rare that there is this sort of outside the courtroom extrajudicial Behavior or or encounter between you know a litigant or somebody and a judge that has something to do with the fact that they're a judge I mean it happens it's happened but really nothing really like this this is a really really um crazy situation um let me do one more question on this before I freaking fall asleep how are the judges held accountable well there is a disciplinary process there are strict rules really strict rules for judges in every state including West Virginia and if you think they violated a rule in your case or whatever the time limit in West Virginia is two years that you can file a a this disciplinary complaint and you describe it exactly what happened and it'll be reviewed by What's called the judicial investigation commission and they can say all right these allegations are severe enough to where we're going to open investigation or they can send you a letter explaining why they're just denying it outright and in here they thought it warranted absolutely an investigation opening immediately they interviewed the judge and uh the party and they proceeded with it and they ultimately filed a formal statement of charges I mean the there is a process and that process was followed so they they can be held accountable but that being said it's disciplinary so in the end they're limited to really suspending the judge and taking the judge out of the seat they can't even just do it permanently because technically that has to be an impeachment but you'll see if you look at past cases of judicial misconduct usually there's an agreement where the the person steps down and agrees never to be a judge again sort of thing but when they fight it all they can do is get at worse a suspension and a fine and a censure and what was agreed in this case was a censure no suspension a centure in the maximum fine of ironically I just thought about $5,000 the same thing that was demanded of my client but like I said the in the end that family court judge I think interfered and got the judicial hearing board to knock down the punishment to instead of a censure a written reprimand and then lowered the fine I don't recall to what in the end it's up to the West Virginia Supreme Court I don't know what the timeline is on that but I figured well we just need to proceed with our own Justice while that goes on and we'll see what happens all right so that's the update on family court judge case and also the new case that we filed and we'll have more updates updates coming if you follow along with those and with that being said I had a couple other things I was going to get to but man it's I'll have to to save those for Monday because it's just been we went way over what I thought we we'd go over I mean we have let see there following a little bit of what was going on with the the chovin trial the capitol police officer that if you look at the Washington Post today came out today that aha died of natural cause so just unlike what the prosecutor said didn't have anything to do of injuries that he suffered quote defending the US capital um while physically engaging with protesters he wasn't hit with with a a spray or with a what was it a fire extinguisher that caused him to die all this stuff was all just fake news it was a completely unrelated cause of death I guess it was a it was a stroke the day after that this happened there's no evidence that there were any injuries so I kind of wanted to go into that but if you look at the Washington Post I think it's important to understand that and and again that's a whole another video that probably would get me demonetized or censored outright so it's about that time let me just end with this look let's let's defend ourselves here with freedom and why is freed Freedom scary and it's because through the guise of safety we shouldn't have to convince you of this now through the guise of safety that's how we the people lose our liberties under the guise of safety it's how we lose our freedom necessity is the plea for every infringement of human Freedom it's the argument of tyrants it's the Creed of slaves that was said by William pit the younger so don't forget to subscribe for more updates for more videos also o subscribe to our email updates at the Civil Rights lawyer.com where you can follow along with our pending cases and also other stuff so I'll probably see you again on Wednesday same time same place 6:30 and hit some of the other things and um hit some of the non-case updates that I wanted to get to so I'll see you then and hopefully I'll be a little more awake for