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Sheriff and deputy sued after Greenville (SC) woman was jailed for old, paid speeding ticket
Greenville News ^ | 3/31/206 | David Dykes

Posted on 04/01/2015 4:58:00 PM PDT by Gamecock

Arrested and handcuffed as her 12-year-old daughter watched from a nearby window, April Christina Carter spent two days held without bond in a Greenville County Detention Center cell with a double-murder suspect.

Her offense: a $50 speeding fine that she said she had paid more than a decade ago but which remained on the books in Greenville County, triggering a bench warrant for her arrest.

Two days after she was taken into custody in the driveway of her mother’s house, Carter was released from the jail without explanation.

Now, Carter is suing Greenville County, Sheriff Steve Loftis and Deputy John Spencer Williams Jr. alleging they violated her constitutional rights and for false imprisonment, negligence and assault.

Her complaint, filed in Common Pleas Court in October, also lists as defendants two unknown county employees identifed as John Doe and Jane Doe.

In a court filing, the defendants denied wrongdoing and asked that the complaint be dismissed. The Sheriff’s Office referred questions to Christopher Antley, a Greenville attorney for the defendants. He couldn’t be reached.

“One of the biggest fears we have in our society is doing what you are supposed to do, being a law-abiding citizen, and being pulled over and arrested and incarcerated for 2½ days for no reason other than a government official didn’t do their job properly,” said Peter Protopapas, one of Carter’s attorneys.

According to Carter’s complaint and her attorneys:

In October 2001, when she was 18, Carter was cited for driving too fast for conditions or speeding less than 10 mph over the speed limit.

The citation called for her to appear in court for trial two months later. On the scheduled day of her trial, Carter appeared in court and paid a $50 fine. She received a receipt from West Greenville Summary Court and was told that by paying her fine, the issue was resolved and she was free to go.

She never received notice that her ticket hadn’t been paid, nor was her driver’s license revoked or suspended for failure to pay a traffic citation.

More 11 years later, when Carter pulled into her mother’s driveway that day in March 2013 and got out of her vehicle, two uniformed sheriff’s deputies parked behind her.

One of the deputies told Carter to put her belongings on the ground and her hands on the roof of the car. Her mother, aunt and daughter were in the house and watching.

One deputy told Carter she was being pulled over because a car fitting her vehicle’s description had been reported stolen.

A background check on her license turned up an outstanding Greenville County bench warrant from her 2001 citation.

Carter was arrested for failure to appear for the citation, even though she told deputies “on numerous occasions” she had paid the ticket on time.

She alleged in her complaint she was handcuffed, searched, placed in the patrol car and driven away while her family watched.

Carter was taken to the Greenville County Detention Center, where she was booked, searched again, fingerprinted and photographed, her complaint said. Then, she alleged, she was placed in a cell with a double-murder suspect and held without a bond hearing.

No criminal charges were filed and she remained in jail for two days before being released “with no further explanation,” Carter said.

In her suit, Carter contends the bench warrant was “facially deficient and obviously invalid” because it only stated she had been convicted of a speeding violation in October 2001 but failed to specify facts constituting a criminal offense such as failure to appear or failure to pay the fine.

She alleged she has suffered “stigmatism of reputation and character,” mental and emotional distress, depression and anxiety as a result of her arrest.

In their answer to the complaint, the defendants said they acted reasonably and in good faith and didn’t violate any of Carter’s “clearly established” rights. In addition, they said they were employees of a governmental entity and immune from the suit under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act.

A trial date hasn’t been set. Carter is asking for a jury trial and for actual and incidental damages. She also is seeking punitive damages.


TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: donutwatch
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To: CaptainK

Not in 0bama’s Amerika.


61 posted on 04/02/2015 7:35:36 AM PDT by Gamecock ("The Christian who has stopped repenting has stopped growing." A.W. Pink)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
Years ago I was pulled over for doing 30 in a 25 mile an hour zone. But I was 23 and brunette.
62 posted on 04/02/2015 7:37:04 AM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: Gamecock
LOL don't make me defend Obama. I think this is a problem that has been going on for years, decades, in many municipalities across the nation.
63 posted on 04/02/2015 7:39:00 AM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: logi_cal869
The wake-up call is, “Are others 100% sure???” (that government bureaucrats/clerks did their job)

I've had two incidents in the past year involving gruberment bureaucrats/employees "not doing their job".

It's not their problem, in the game of Gruberment Tag. All they have to do is reach out and say, "Tag! You're It!"

Even after "you've made sure" you've been cleared after paying a fine, it's not necessarily true that you've been cleared.

And it's not their problem.

And they have guys to follow orders to gig you for not "being cleared".

One of the basic problems is that America is over-run with "law enforcement".

It's amazing that the Founders got along with without a cop or two under every rock.

These deputies needed to show some discretion. I suspect that there was a "hot MILF" factor involved in the kidnapping.

64 posted on 04/02/2015 7:47:00 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: logi_cal869
I detect a bit of /s despite lack of a tag.

I think the inferences were plain on the face of the post. LOL! :)

65 posted on 04/02/2015 7:48:22 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: Gamecock

*


66 posted on 04/02/2015 7:50:07 AM PDT by skinkinthegrass ("Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." Hedy Lamarr)
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To: 4everontheRight; CaptainK; Gamecock; AppyPappy; logi_cal869; Fido969; PAR35
4everontheRight wrote: When I first heard this story on local talk radio, I thought, “Man, who did she piss off?”....seems to me someone in authority found this info and used it to show her a lesson. Nowadays the law is used as retaliation against you whether it is legal or not :)

CaptainK wrote: Why are people thrown in jail for automobile tickets? Shouldn’t a court appearance and heavy fines be enough?

Anarcho-tyranny:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyranny

Sam Francis wrote: What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny – the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny.

And he also wrote: The laws that are enforced are either those that extend or entrench the power of the state and its allies and internal elites ... or else they are the laws that directly punish those recalcitrant and "pathological" elements in society who insist on behaving according to traditional norms – people who do not like to pay taxes, wear seat belts, or deliver their children to the mind-bending therapists who run the public schools; or the people who own and keep firearms, display or even wear the Confederate flag, put up Christmas trees, spank their children, and quote the Constitution or the Bible – not to mention dissident political figures who actually run for office and try to do something about mass immigration by Third World populations.

Anarcho-tyranny is why you'll never see Lois Lerner, Hillary Clinton, Jon Corzine, Charlie Rangel, Bill Clinton, or John Koskinen serve a day in jail, even though they've all committed serious felonies.

Those people are all Managers, and in The Managerial State, they are above the Law.

Law is for peasants.

The Managerial State:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managerial_state

Paul Gottfried, in After Liberalism, defines this worldview as a "series of social programs informed by a vague egalitarian spirit, and it maintains its power by pointing its finger accusingly at antiliberals." He calls it a new theocratic religion. In this view, when the managerial regime cannot get democratic support for its policies, it resorts to sanctimony and social engineering, via programs, court decisions and regulations...

67 posted on 04/02/2015 8:19:42 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: kiryandil; CaptainK

“Why are people thrown in jail for automobile tickets?”

Money.


68 posted on 04/02/2015 8:26:57 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: AppyPappy

Yeppers.


69 posted on 04/02/2015 8:53:59 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: CaptainK
Years ago I was pulled over for doing 30 in a 25 mile an hour zone. But I was 23 and brunette.

Dja get a ticket, or did he let you off with a warning and his phone number?

70 posted on 04/03/2015 1:06:16 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

I got a ticket!!
My only one. So far.


71 posted on 04/03/2015 6:14:37 PM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: CaptainK

I take it you’ve learned to play the game, then? My wife is life-long lead foot. About 30 years ago she got stopped by a local town cop and still believes the only reason she got a ticket was because he saw the child seat in the rear after he stopped her.


72 posted on 04/04/2015 4:27:08 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

I will admit to skating 2 tickets by getting teary eyed.


73 posted on 04/05/2015 7:28:58 PM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: CaptainK

Tears! You mean you resorted to total nuclear warfare over a ticket?


74 posted on 04/06/2015 3:15:00 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

The mistake I made the first time. I was stoic.
A woman teary eyed and pleading = no ticket.
Lesson learned.


75 posted on 04/06/2015 7:21:27 AM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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