Posted on 08/16/2008 12:35:47 PM PDT by Daffynition
Fayetteville Police Chief Tom Bergamine is accused of violating his son’s constitutional rights when his son, Joey, was arrested on a drunken driving charge last year.
The violation is so severe that a judge should dismiss the case, Joey Bergamine’s lawyer Dave Boliek said in court papers filed Wednesday.
Boliek thinks he has a persuasive argument that when Joey Bergamine was arrested in July 2007, Chief Bergamine couldn’t separate his role as Joey’s father from his role as a police officer and supervisor of the two officers who were investigating the case.
Joey Bergamine, then age 18, was arrested in his home early July 14, 2007, after a woman called the police because someone drove a car through her flower bed. In January, he was convicted by a judge in District Court of driving while impaired. He appealed the conviction to have a jury trial in Superior Court.
A police officer said at Joey Bergamine’s first trial that he found several teens drinking at a party nearby who said Joey had been with them until he got angry and drove away. The officer’s supervisor called Chief Bergamine.
That call changed Tom Bergamine’s role in the matter from “father” to “police chief,” Boliek said. It’s unlikely any other parent would have received a similar call, he said.
The two officers said they met Chief Bergamine at his home about three miles away.
According to testimony, Chief Bergamine kicked open Joey’s locked bedroom door after Joey did not respond to knocking. Chief Bergamine tried to wake Joey, and finally got him up by pouring a pitcher of water on his head. The chief and the officers then talked with Joey in the hall.
At that point, Boliek said, Joey Bergamine was legally in the custody of the police officers. Kicking in the door, Boliek said, combined with Chief Bergamine’s role as a police officer, violated Joey Bergamine’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure.
Also, Boliek said, the officers’ questions amounted to an interrogation, so Joey Bergamine should have been given his Miranda right not to say anything. Because he wasn’t, whatever Joey said — an officer testified that Joey admitted to squealing his tires and losing control as he drove away from his friend’s house near the flower bed — is inadmissible in court, Boliek said.
Further, Boliek said, Joey Bergamine was arrested on a misdemeanor charge without a warrant. While that is sometimes allowed — such as if a police officer sees someone driving drunk — Boliek said the officers in this circumstance, by law, should have gotten a warrant first.
Approximately four to five hours after the woman’s flower bed was run over, the officers took Joey Bergamine to the county jail, where a machine recorded his blood-alcohol level as 0.13 percent. The legal standard for drunken driving is 0.08 percent, but because Joey was younger than age 21, he wasn’t allowed to have any alcohol in his system while driving. They charged him with drunken driving, reckless driving and hit-and-run.
The reckless driving and hit-and-run charges were dismissed at his trial in January.
Joey Bergamine, 19, continues to live with his father, Boliek said, but is paying his own legal bills.
The new trial is expected to begin in the third or fourth week of September, Boliek said.
I don’t know how I feel about this one. It sounds like father and son are both a$$es.
The Metro Area of Fayetteville, NC has 341,000 people!
This is not a small town cop doing a family a favor but rather Big City Police Corruption.
Fayetteville is not Mayberry.
Spankings in school? Don't report them. That involves a telephone conference and yet another one at home.
Oy Vey! Grandpa was worse, but if you could argue your case in Hebrew, Latin, or Greek, it could help.
Well behaved and paying attention, because some old barstids insisted....
/johnny
Fayetteville might have a big city population, but it still has a small town way of thinking.
The son of a guy I work with was probably at that party. When I go to work in a couple of days, I’ll ask him what really happened.
Why is the father an a$$?
Was Otis at the party?
How about Gomer and Opie?
I bet Aunt Bee is really mad this time.
Come on over. I’ll take you to Aunt Bee’s grave.
Disloyalty. What kind of father would want to saddle his son with a criminal record? He should have intervened as his father, not as a cop. I’m of a mind that God and family are more important then the interests of the state.
Police chief or not, the punk was still living under his father's roof, and engaged in illegal activities... Daddy had the right.
But notice the defense has nothing to say about the puke's guilt or innocence- they are trying to get him off on a technicality. The puke was guilty, and his dad was trying to teach him a lesson.
Damn, i thought she was still alive and doing great at 109.
What a novel idea - a Dad that is parenting! I believe that by calling the officers to the house the Chief was trying to separate himself so that he could parent. Anyone remember the term “scared straight”? It works.
Anecdote. Don’t make a federal case out of it. Move on.
Naw. When she retired, she moved here to Siler City. She had been here during the run of the show for a promotional tour, and decided she liked it here.
She’s buried in a cemetery right next to Highway 64 on the west side of town. Her’s is the tall white stone near the bottom of the hill. It actually says “Aunt Bee” on it, along with her real name.
“I’m of a mind that God and family are more important then the interests of the state.”
I 100% agree. A lot on this board won’t, though.
Out of curiosity, I looked it up. It's very nice.
Oh that’s great, lets wait until he is 21 and then try to teach him respect.
By then he’ll have a real problem, if not already, he’ll think it’s ok to drink and drive and that way he won’t be concerned if he kills an entire family.
Of course its a long time ago,but in 70 Fayetteville
was called Little VN.Saw a local cop like to have kicked
a drunk GI senseless in the middle of the street in daylight.
Didn`t know its gotten that big a town
We used to call it Fayette-nam.
The soldiers are a lot more civilized now.
The cops ain’t though.
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