Why isn't it "Of they can come for Anthony Novak, they can come for you"?

Consider how people like Rep Andy Biggs can say "If they can come for Trump, they will come for you.", but we never hear...

If they can come for Anthony Novak, they can come for you?

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away an Ohio man's claim that his constitutional rights were violated when he was arrested and prosecuted for making satirical posts about his local police department on Facebook.

The justices' rejection of Anthony Novak's appeal means his civil rights lawsuit against the Parma, Ohio, police department cannot move forward. With its decision, the court again declined to consider revisiting "qualified immunity," the contentious legal defense that allows police officers and other government officials off the hook in civil rights cases if a constitutional violation has not been "clearly established" at the time it occurs.

At issue in the case was whether the police officers were correctly granted qualified immunity by a lower court under the rationale that previous court precedent had not clearly established that Novak's actions constituted protected speech under the Constitution's First Amendment.

In March 2016, Novak set up a Facebook page that purported to be the Parma Police Department. He published six satirical posts during a 12-hour period, one of which claimed there was a job opening to which minorities were encouraged not to apply and another warning people not to give food, money or shelter to homeless people.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rejects-ohio-mans-bid-sue-police-arrest-facebook-parody-rcna70435

If they can come for Michael Lowe, they can come for you?

A man’s life was changed after he spent 17 days in a New Mexico jail because American Airlines wrongfully accused and identified him to police as a shoplifter at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

Michael Lowe boarded a flight at DFW Airport in May 2020. More than a year later, he said, he was on vacation in New Mexico when he was arrested on warrants he had never heard of for a crime he did not commit.

For more than two weeks, Lowe was held in Quay County Jail at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in “grossly unsanitary conditions,” according to the lawsuit. Lowe said he didn’t even find out what he was charged with until after his release.

“I’ve never heard of this fact pattern in my life or my career,” said Lowe’s attorney, Scott Palmer. “If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-sues-american-airlines-says-140000813.html

If they can come for Nicholas Chappelle, they can come for you?

Nicholas Chappelle spent nearly a year at Snake River Correctional Institution after he was arrested and convicted for driving with a suspended license.

But he never should have spent a day behind bars.

Chappelle is one of untold numbers of Oregonians stopped by police, arrested, put in jail and even wrongfully convicted based on faulty DMV information -- a breakdown in record-keeping that has existed for years but the state never fixed.

The DMV has no idea how many people have been charged and prosecuted because of the erroneous records, but DMV administrator Amy Joyce acknowledges the problem has gone unaddressed for years.

https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2023/02/false-oregon-dmv-records-lead-to-mistaken-arrests-convictions-for-driving-with-suspended-license.html

If they can come for Martell Williams, they can come for you?

The mother of a Waukegan teenager who was charged a year ago with a shooting he did not commit is suing that northern suburb and three of its police officers, blaming them for the child’s false confession.

Police arrested the teen, Martell Williams, at his school and drove the 15-year-old freshman to a police station, where they interrogated him until he confessed to the shooting, which injured a dollar-store clerk. Charged with aggravated battery, he spent two nights in juvenile detention and was not released until his family proved he was playing a high school basketball game in another suburb when the shooting took place.

“It has just been a continuous pattern by this city,” said attorney Kevin O’Connor, who filed the suit Wednesday in federal court for the boy’s mother, Shanika Williams. “They are extracting false confessions, and they’re letting people who commit murders or attempted murders go free.”

The lawsuit’s three officer defendants did not return messages seeking comment.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/2/19/23604868/teens-family-sues-waukegan-cops-for-extracting-false-confession-to-a-shooting

If they can come for Lamar Johnson, they can come for you?

CNN — A Missouri man who has been serving a life sentence for nearly three decades was set free Tuesday after a judge ruled he is innocent and vacated his murder conviction.

Lamar Johnson was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 1995 after being convicted of murder in the death of Markus Boyd the year prior. At the time, police said Johnson and another man, Phillip Campbell, shot and killed Boyd.

But Johnson was given a new hearing after St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner filed a motion last year saying his conviction was based in large part on false eyewitness testimony and accusing prosecutors and investigators of misconduct.

On Tuesday, Missouri Circuit Court Judge David Mason ruled that Johnson’s trial included “constitutional error” and said “there is clear and convincing evidence of Lamar Johnson’s actual innocence,” according to the judge’s order.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/lamar-johnson-murder-conviction-overturned/index.html

If they can come for John Galvan, they can come for you?

In 2007, John Galvan was about 21 years into a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit when he saw something on the prison television he thought might finally help him prove his innocence and secure his freedom: A re-run of an episode of the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters.

The episode, “Hollywood on Trial,” which originally aired in 2005, sees the show’s hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage attempt to reproduce famous scenes and commonly used plot devices from Hollywood films with the goal of ascertaining their scientific validity. The pair and their team investigate whether a person can break down a door with four types of locks, whether a sinking ship — like the Titanic — can actually create a whirlpool, and whether a lit cigarette can really ignite a pool of gasoline.

It was the last of these questions that caught Mr. Galvan’s interest.

...

In 2017, when John finally had his evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims, Ms. Thompson and his legal team presented multiple alibi witnesses, in addition to seven witnesses who testified to being tortured by the same officers who had coerced his confession, documents showing that police had fabricated probable cause to arrest him, and an arson expert who testified that John’s false confession was scientifically impossible. (And it still took years to free him)

https://innocenceproject.org/discovery-channel-mythbuster-john-galvan-wrongful-conviction-innocence/

If they can come for Shane Lee Brown, they can come for you?

LAS VEGAS — A case of mistaken identity has cost two Las Vegas-area law enforcement agencies a combined $90,000.

The Henderson Police Department will pay Shane Lee Brown $25,000, while the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will pay the 25-year-old $65,000 after he was held for nearly a week for a crime a 51-year-old man named Shane Neal Brown is accused of committing, KVVU-TV reported.

After running a warrant check, however, Henderson officers took Shane Lee Brown – who is Black and 5 feet, 7 inches tall – into custody on an outstanding felony weapons warrant with Metro.

As it turns out, the actual subject of the arrest warrant was a 5-foot-11, 49-year-old white man with a “bushy white beard” and blue eyes, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported when the lawsuit was filed by Shane Lee Brown’s attorney, Brent Bryson, in January.

https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/trending/black-man-arrested-warrant-white-man-awarded-90k-settlement/2TCI7GDZNZGVDATBULEOQDYM4I/

... funny, right?

Categories: Across time, Class disparities, Double standards, Hypocrisy, NOT, Selective outrage, Serious consequences, Trying to have it both ways