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This undated and unlocated handout image released by the Wisconsin Department of Justice on August 28, 2020, shows Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey, who opened fire on Jacob Blake during his attempted arrest on Aug. 23.(Photo: -, Getty Images)

The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back in August, touching off days of violent protest in the city, has returned to regular duty and won't face any administrative discipline.

District Attorney Michael Graveley announced in Januarythat Rusten Sheskey would face no criminal charges in the Aug. 23 incident that left Blake paralyzed from the waist down.

On Tuesday, Chief Daniel Miskinis issued a press release on Twitter stating that Sheskey has also been cleared of breaking any internal policies, and has been back on duty aftermonths of administrative leave since March 31.

"Although this incident has been reviewed on multiplelevels, I know that some will not be pleased with the outcome," Miskinis wrote. "However, given the facts, the only lawful and appropriate decision was made."

Jacob Blake speaking from his hospital bed in a video posted to Twitter on Saturday.(Photo: Elliot Hughes / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

The news came the same day that a suburban Minneapolis police officer, Kim Potter, resigned after she fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop. Her boss, Brooklyn Center, Minn., Police Chief Tim Gannon, who had told reporters that Potter thought she was firing her Taser, not her gun, and referred to the shooting as an accident, also resigned Tuesday.

In the Kenosha incident, an investigation by the state Department of Justice found Blake was armed with a knife in the moments that led up to the shooting. Graveley said he could not disprove Sheskey's claim that he feared for his life when he fired seven shots at Blake.

On March 25, Blake filed a federal civil rights lawsuit for damages against Sheskey.

Blake claims Sheskey's use of deadly force was excessive, violated Blake's rights under the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable seizure, and was done with "malice, willfulness, and reckless indifference" to Blake's rights.

One of Blake's attorneys, Patrick Salvi Jr., called Tuesday's revelation that Sheskey had returned to full duty without discipline very surprising.

"How can anyone say this is a desired result for a police encounter?" Salvi asked. He called it "a very sad state of affairs" if Kenosha police truly believe Sheskey acted in accordance with policy and training.

"But that's not true and we'll prove it in ourlawsuit," Salvi said.

Sheskey's attorneys in that case did not immediately return calls seeking comments.

Protest and violence quickly followed Blake's shooting, which was captured on video by a neighbor.Sheskey fired seven shots at Blake as he was trying to enter a car, after ignoring officers' orders to drop a knife.

The Kenosha County Courthouse area, as well as Uptown a few blocks away,was subjected to three nights of protesting marred by vandalism, arson and, on the third night, deadly shootings.

It was late on Aug. 25 when then 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse used the assault-style rifle he had been carrying all evening to kill Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wound Gaige Grosskreutz, 27.

Rittenhouse faces several felonies, has pleaded not guilty, and has been free on $2 million bail largely raised through social media among conservatives and gun rights advocates. His lawyers say he acted in self-defense. His trialis set for November.

ContactBruce Vielmetti at (414) 224-2187or bvielmetti@jrn.com. Followhim on Twitter at @ProofHearsay.

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Kenosha officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back returns to full duty, won't face any discipline - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A civil suit filed by a Waskom man against former Harrison County Sheriffs deputy Charles Chase Dotson and two bystander officers in connection with an aggravated assault by a public servant incident has been dismissed after reaching a settlement in the amount of $325,000.

Attorneys for all parties announced that a settlement had been reached, three days after a jury trial kicked off in the matter before U.S. Magistrate Judge Roy Payne.

We picked the jury on March 29. We tried the case for three days and the case was probably going to take about a week, but the morning of day-three all parties were able to find a resolution that everyone could live with, said Waskom-based attorney Josh B. Maness, who represents the reported victim, 64-year-old Charles Edward Collins, in the case.

Mr. Collins is glad this part is over and behind him, and hopes this never happens again, Maness told the News Messenger Tuesday.

This civil case shouldve been resolved a year-and-a-half ago because the evidence was so compelling, he added, but nonetheless were glad its behind us.

Federal law allows a citizen to sue a member of law enforcement when they reportedly violate the persons protective rights. Maness explained before that the lawsuit was all about accountability.

Law enforcement, like everybody else, is not above the law, he said previously.

Per the settlement agreement, the Texas Association of Counties, which provides liability insurance for county jails, will pay a total of $325,000 to resolve the claim against Dotson.

In the case, Collins, an oilfield consultant, alleged that then-Harrison County Sheriffs deputy Dotson unconstitutionally arrested him and used excessive force during the arrest and that Ryan Roop and Caleb Oden, who were among the other officers present at the scene, did not intervene and thus were liable under a theory of bystander liability.

The Waskom resident initially filed an official oppression complaint in November 2018 against Dotson and subsequently followed it up with the civil lawsuit in January 2019 to compensate for his pain and suffering. He later amended the complaint, suing the additional officers individually for allegedly acting as bystanders, watching a restrained Collins get brutally attacked by Dotson for no reasonable cause.

The bystander officers, Roop and Oden have now, however, been granted immunity through the settlement agreement.

Per court documents, Collins and defendants Roop and Oden, through their counsel, jointly filed an agreed take nothing judgment, relieving them from owing anything.

We agreed that they didnt do anything wrong, Maness said of the agreement concerning the bystander officers, Roop and Oden.

Maness thanked his co-counsel, Brendan Roth, for his assistance in the case.

I certainly appreciate his help, said Maness.

He noted that the civil case has not interfered with the criminal case thats currently pending against Dotson in the same matter.

In the criminal matter, Dotson was initially indicted May 2019 on a misdemeanor official oppression charge arising out of the same facts as the civil suit, filed by Collins. During a re-indictment in December 2019, the charges were then upgraded to a felony of aggravated assault by a public servant and a third-degree felony of tampering with physical evidence with intent to impair.

The criminal case against Dotson will still proceed, said Maness.

Regarding the civil suit, Maness said he had the chance to visit with jurors, following the dismissal of the civil case. After viewing the video of the incident, which was made public in 2019, all agreed there needed to be some accountability.

The video evidence has obviously been out for a while and I did speak with half the jurors before they left the courthouse and all of them agreed that what Dotson did was unreasonable and unjustified, Maness told the News Messenger.

According to the lawsuit, under no threat to himself, Dotson violated Collins Fourth and 15th amendment right to be free from excessive force. The lawsuit notes that the alleged misconduct occurred while Dotson was acting in his capacity as a law enforcement officer with the Harrison County Sheriffs Office.

The reported misconduct took place on Nov. 22, 2018, in the wee hours of Thanksgiving Day, after a complainant called authorities and asked for assistance at Collins residence that he shared with his fianc, near Waskom.

On or about November 22, 2018, Charles Collins was at his residence. Mr. Collins had become irritated and broke a rear sliding door and some small belongings in the residence, the lawsuit said.

Collins then went to sleep. Sometime after that, his girlfriends daughter arrived and became alarmed by the damage she saw to the living room area, the lawsuit said.

Unsure of what had occurred, she called law enforcement for assistance, the lawsuit states. She then made contact with her mother, Mr. Collins girlfriend, who told her that law enforcement assistance was not necessary.

Several deputies arrived to the scene. The lawsuit goes on to say that after getting Collins out of bed and interviewing him about what had occurred, Collins told deputies that he would stay at home and handle the damage the next day. Collins girlfriend, who talked with deputies separately, said she would stay with her daughter the remainder of the night and return to the residence the next morning.

The deputies stayed for well over an hour. At no point in time has there ever been any allegation of any type of domestic abuse between Mr. Collins and his girlfriend, the lawsuit said.

Despite that fact, the lawsuit claims that the defendant, Dotson, ultimately told Collins and his girlfriend that he was going to arrest Collins so Collins could sleep it off and that she could bond him out the next day and pay a small fine.

Mr. Collins girlfriend pressed one of the other deputies as to what the charges were and he was unable to answer her, the lawsuit states. Rather, he stated he would have to go ask Deputy Dotson.

The lawsuit goes on to say that Collins was cuffed behind his back and placed in to the back of Dotsons patrol vehicle.

Deputy Dotson drove at a high rate of speed, in excess of 100 mph, to the Harrison County jail annex, the lawsuit states.

It was at the jail annex where the alleged excessive force took place.

Upon arrival at the annex, the assisting deputies as well as a jailer were waiting for Collins arrival at the sally port with a wheelchair, the lawsuit states.

Cooperating with their commands, Collins exited the vehicle and sat in the awaiting wheelchair where his legs where strapped to the leg braces.

At this point, Deputy Dotson began to repeatedly and violently strike Mr. Collins about the face and upper body, the lawsuit said. This was done without any threat to the safety or welfare of any of the attending law enforcement personnel.

The lawsuit points out that this was all done with Collins legs strapped to the wheelchair but also with his hands still restrained by handcuffs behind his back.

Blood immediately began to pour down Mr. Collins face, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit goes on to say that once booked into the jail, Collins asked to be transported to the local hospital, as he feared he might succumb to his injuries especially considering the fact he was taking prescription blood thinners.

Finally, after repeated requests, jail staff transported him to Christus GSMC Marshall for evaluation, the lawsuit said.

After receiving medical attention at the hospital, Collins was then taken to the downtown jail facility inside of the Harrison County courthouse, where his girlfriend was able to bond him out the following morning after he pleaded not guilty to all charges during his arraignment, the lawsuit said.

About two weeks later, Deputy Dotson resigned his position from the department amid an investigation that was launched to look into whether Dotson had committed the crime of official oppression against the rights of Collins.

According to the lawsuit, Dotsons exercise of the established policies and customs of the Harrison County Sheriffs Office violated the plaintiffs clearly established constitutional rights, including the right to due process by law; freedom from unreasonable seizure of his person; freedom from the use of unreasonable, unnecessary, and excessive force; and the right to medical care without delay for injuries received while in custody.

Defendant Dotson willfully, deliberately, maliciously, or acted with reckless disregard for Plaintiffs constitutional rights, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit goes on to say that Dotson deprived Collins of his Fourth Amendment rights and those rights, privileges and immunities secured by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution incorporated and applied to the states through the 14th Amendment by the reasons stated before and by using excessive force in the course of attempted custody of the plaintiff.

Plaintiff therefore pleads he was unlawfully beaten and harmed, the lawsuit said. Such actions resulted directly and only from the use of force clearly excessive to the need, and the excessiveness of which was objectively reasonable.

In light of the fact Charles Collins was already restrained prior to being brutally beaten and not resisting arrest by defendant, it is initially absurd the defendant would deem force was warranted and/or required, the lawsuit said.

Furthermore, Mr. Collins was not armed with any kind of weapon, the lawsuit said. For these other reasons, it was objectively unreasonable for Charles Dotson to beat savagely and brutally assault Charles Collins on the occasion described.

The savage beating of a defenseless detainee restrained in handcuffs and confined to a wheelchair is never reasonable, the lawsuit said.

In the civil case, Collins asked for actual and compensatory damages as determined at a trial on the merits; mental anguish damages; punitive damages in an amount to punish and/or deter, and to make an example of the defendant, in order to prevent similar future conduct.

Dotson was represented by David Iglesias and Stephanie Ernst in the case. Robert Davis and Lee Correa represented Roop and Oden.

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Settlement reached in suit against former deputy charged with beating Waskom man; criminal case pending - Marshall News Messenger

If police want to enter your home as part of a criminal investigation, they generally must obtain a search warrant. But on March 24 the Supreme Court was asked to make an exception to that requirement in some situations in which an officer is acting as a community caretaker checking to see if the occupant is all right.

The court should say no to that idea. Sometimes police may have to enter a home without a warrant to prevent a loss of life, but a new exception for some wellness checks would give law enforcement vast discretion and violate the Fourth Amendments ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The case argued before the court last Wednesday originated in a domestic dispute in Cranston, Rhode Island. After an argument over a coffee mug, Edward Caniglia threw an unloaded gun on a table and said to his wife, Kim: Why dont you just shoot me and get me out of my misery? She hid the gun in the couples bedroom and later, after the argument resumed, checked into a hotel.

When she couldnt reach her husband by telephone the next day, Kim Caniglia called the police, and said she was worried that he might have killed himself. Police went to the couples home, where Edward Caniglia said he had no suicidal intentions.

Edward Caniglia went to a hospital for evaluation, but only, he says, because police assured him that they wouldnt confiscate two guns he owned. After he was released from the hospital, where it was decided that he wasnt suicidal, he learned that police had confiscated the weapons. (They were eventually returned.)

Caniglia went to court to sue for damages, claiming that the police violated his Fourth Amendment rights by seizing his guns after a warrantless entry into his home and requiring him to undergo a mental health evaluation. A federal judge dismissed his 4th Amendment claims, citing the role of the police in providing community caretaking. An appeals court agreed.

In 1973, the Supreme Court cited the community caring concept in upholding the search of a rental car to determine if it contained a police officers service weapon. But extending that exception to warrantless searches and seizures at someones home would be an unjustified expansion.

Several justices at last Wednesdays oral argument worried about situations in which police might enter a home to check on the occupant. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked Shay Dvoretzky, Caniglias lawyer, about a hypothetical elderly woman who didnt show up for dinner at a neighbors house and cant be reached by phone.

Even in that situation, Dvoretzky said, the officer must obtain a warrant unless there was consent or some objectively reasonable indication of an emergency. He referred to the fact that police are already able to enter a home without a warrant if there are exigent circumstances, which can include a threat to human life.

The court shouldnt create a new exception to the warrant requirement. If states dont want to treat wellness checks the same way they do criminal investigations, they can experiment with requiring administrative warrants, a possibility mentioned by Justice Elena Kagan. But in the absence of a true emergency, police should be required to obtain permission to enter a home from a magistrate or other neutral official.

This case comes against the backdrop of a national debate about whether some functions performed by police should be entrusted to social workers or other personnel.

Its a complicated issue: While police arent the appropriate first responders when people are experiencing psychiatric breakdowns or drug overdoses, in some cases mental health workers understandably want police backup in the case of violence.

Still, police unlike social workers are enforcers of criminal law and they are often armed. Even if a police officer enters a home without a warrant to check on the welfare of its occupant, the officer can make an arrest if he sees evidence of a crime in plain sight. (And because the search itself was lawful, a defendant wouldnt be able to have the evidence suppressed.)

Finally, while in many circumstances a police officer entering a home to make a welfare check might be a welcome sight, in others the officers arrival would provoke anger or perhaps even violence. Exempting welfare checks by police from the warrant requirement wouldnt just undermine the 4th Amendment; it also could make police work even more dangerous.

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Editorial: The Supreme Court shouldnt weaken protection for privacy at home - West Hawaii Today

PITTSBURGH A class-action lawsuit filed against the Transportation Security Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration will move forward federal court after a Pittsburgh judge rejected the governments motion to dismiss.

The lawsuit, filed by the Institute for Justice in January 2020 on behalf of Terry Rolin and his daughter Rebecca Brown, alleges that TSA screeners detained travelers, turned them over to law enforcement, and seize money without any cause for suspicion and without filing any criminal charges, a news release stated.

U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Horan rejected the governments motion to dismiss the plaintiffs three class action claims on Tuesday.

According to the release, TSA and DEA officials seized Rolins life savings of over $82,000 from Brown as she was flying from Pittsburgh to her home outside Boston, where she intended to open a joint bank account to help care for her father. After the lawsuit was filed, the DEA returned the money, but only after holding it for over six months without any accusations of criminality, let alone criminal charges.

Additionally, the DEA seized $43,000 from Stacy Jones at the Wilmington, N.C., airport in May 2020 as she was flying home to Tampa. The agency returned her money after she joined the lawsuit and nine months after it was seized. Once again, criminal charges were never filed, the release states.

TSA and DEA routinely violate Americans Fourth Amendment rights at airports across the country by detaining them for doing something completely legal: flying with cash, said Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Dan Alban. Seizing and forfeiting someones savings should not be done lightly, yet weve documented how easy it is for law enforcement to take money at airports without any evidence of a crime. Now, thanks to our class action lawsuit, we are going to uncover the truth behind how and why the government is targeting innocent flyers, and ultimately put an end to this predatory practice.

According to the release, there are no restrictions on traveling with any amount of money on domestic flights.

TSAs and DEAs unconstitutional conduct across the country suggests that the agencies are more interested in seizing cash than securing safety, said Institute for Justice Attorney Jaba Tsitsuashvili. And these seizures subject people to a confusing bureaucratic process, without an attorney provided, where a single misstep could mean losing their life savings forever. Even those who succeed in getting their money returned are deprived of it for months or years, often upending their lives. No one should lose their money without a criminal conviction.

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Lawsuit against TSA and DEA over seizures moves forward - WPXI Pittsburgh

President Biden has just named 11 nominees to the federal bench, including his nominee for a vacant seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. All told, there are over 100 federal court vacancies right now. President Biden should make filling them a priority, in part because courts are critical institutions in the fight against climate change and for environmental justice.

Unlike some other areas of law, there is no easy litmus test to tell if someone will be the kind of judge who is good for the environment, no one decision (like Roe v. Wade) or one law (like the Sherman Act) or even one constitutional provision (like the Fourth Amendment) to grill a nominee about. But that doesnt mean we dont know what kind of person we want to have deciding cases about the future of our planet and our health. Here are three questions that I think the Biden administration should be asking itself as it looks for judges who will support its environmental and climate agenda, along with one bonus question about the X factor to separate potentially good judges from potentially extraordinary ones.

Does the candidate recognize that the government has a responsibility to protect the environment, public health, and public lands for all people?

One of the most important areas where we need government to regulate private conduct is in the environmental arena. What you do with your patch of land affects what I can do with mine, what you discharge into the air and the water affects my health, and your energy generation and ecosystem impacts all affect my future. We need the federal government to make consistent national rules to regulate these things and to enforce those rules evenhandedly across the country.

Polluting industries like Big Ag, Big Oil, and Big Coal hate these kinds of rules because they limit short-term profits. A good judge doesnt need to be hostile to the industry perspective, but they do need to believe that the Constitution gives Congress broad and deep authority to regulate industries in the public interest. They also need to believe that Congress can delegate to the executive branch the complex and technical task of issuing enabling regulations. And when they try to understand what Congress was trying to achieve, a judge should be willing to consider any evidence, instead of ignoring evidence that contradicts the judges own preferences.

These arent revolutionary beliefs. To the contrary they represent the foundational philosophies of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, which presided over fifty years of sustained economic growth and environmental progress. Right now, though, these philosophies are under attack by a growing cabal of far-right activist judges (and Justices) who want to erode the foundations of government to serve an anti-environment and pro-industry agenda. We need judges who will strengthen those foundations instead.

Can the candidate tell the difference between science and politics?

Good science and careful factfinding begets good environmental policy. If you need proof, consider the fact that one of our most effective environmental laws the National Environmental Policy Act (signed by Richard Nixon) doesnt actually require the government to protect the environment. It just requires the government to consider the environmental impacts of decisions before making them, and to do so based on facts, science, and public input. Not politics.

This is why so many of our environmental laws require federal regulators to build a record of the work they did in reaching at their decisions. What factors did the government consider? Did it involve local communities? Why did it reject alternative options? This record gives judges the ability to make sure that the agency acted based on facts and science, not politics. A proper administrative record can be lengthy, technical, and blisteringly complex. A good judge has to be willing and able to roll up their sleeves, dig in, and review the record carefully for factual and legal integrity without yielding to the temptation to replace the agencys policy judgments with their own. More generally, a good judge should respect not just the scientific expertise of agencies, but the consensus of science itself.

Does the candidate understand that individuals need access to courts to hold government and industry accountable?

If theres one thing the Trump administration proved, its that strong environmental laws arent enough on their own. People need to be able to hold government accountable for upholding and following those laws, and, when necessary, sue industry itself to comply with them. Thats why most of our environmental laws explicitly authorize citizen suits.

You will not be surprised to hear that polluting industries and their politician friends generally hate citizen suits. And one way to escape accountability is by making it impossible to bring those suits in the first place among other things, by twisting doctrines like standing, ripeness, and finality into locks on the courthouse doors. That far-right activist cabal I described earlier? Its trying to do just that.

We need judges who recognize that access to the courts is a basic right no different than access to the ballot box. In particular, we need judges who recognize that poor communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected by environmental harms and that the legal rights those communities have wont mean much if they cant use the courts to enforce them and provide a check on corporate interests and power.

Does the candidate have the X Factor?

While these three things are critical features of a good judge, history shows us that the best judges have one more characteristic: they influence the law beyond the scope of their own individual decisions. Appellate judges who sit on panels should be able to persuade colleagues through thoughtful behind-the-scenes reasoning and by building relationships across philosophical divides. District court judges should be able to write opinions that persuade appellate judges, even ones who do not generally share their point of view. And even if these judges dont win in the short term, they should know how to play the long game by writing eloquent opinions that shift legal doctrine and provide a roadmap to a better future.

Love him or hate him, Justice Scalia had this X Factor, as did Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (who you can thank whenever you mention the idea of yelling fire! in a crowded theater). They both knew how to write to the future, and they had the intellect, interpersonal skills, and a way with words that gave them an outsized role in the present.

If youre reading this blog post, you know that the earth needs a good lawyer. It needs a good judge, too lots of them. Ones who arent afraid to grapple with the science and follow where it leads, who believe that the courthouse doors should be open to all, who believe we have the power to come together as a country and solve big problems. And, if were very lucky, ones who our great-grandchildren will quote when were long gone.

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The Earth Needs Good Judges. Here's What That Means. - Earthjustice