Current Events > Man arrested for a meme gets $125k payout

(+) Yeah! (+)

District Attorney W. Ray Crouch and two TBI agents have paid $125,000 to Rutherford County resident Joshua Garton to settle a First Amendment case after Garton' was arrested back in 2021's arrest over a photoshopped meme.
The settlement of claims for malicious prosecution, false arrest, and violations of his First Amendment rights came after almost three years after Garton was charged with harassment and held in jail for 12 days.
The charge was later dismissed for lack of probable cause.
First Amendment retaliation is illegal, and law enforcement officials who arrest people for offending them will pay heavy consequences, said attorney Daniel Horwitz, Gartons co-lead lawyer. Misbehaving government officials apologize with money, and Mr. Garton considers more than $10,000.00 per day that he was illegally incarcerated to be an acceptable apology.
In January 2021, Garton posted an edited photo of The Rites 2009 album cover Pissing On Your Grave, showing two men urinating on a headstone, with a crudely integrated headshot of former Dickson Police Sgt. Daniel Baker superimposed on the headstone.
Text messages included in the court filings reveal that defendants in the case including Crouch, Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation David Rausch and a number of TBI employees as well as the Dickson Police Department knew Garton had not committed a crime, with some even directly stating that the public would be mad at them because We violated (Gartons) First Amendment rights.
He has a right to post, one unnamed defendant said in the text messages. That doesnt mean there are no consequences.
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed in cases such as Texas. v. Johnson (1989) that the bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable, and that giving offense is a viewpoint, according to Matal v. Tam (2017).
The right to criticize our government is not merely fundamental, it is essential to democracy, said Brice Timmons, Mr. Gartons co-lead counsel. We are proud to have protected that right for Tennesseans here.

The Meme:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3b46b67d.jpg

DA Who knows what the 1st amendment is but doesn't care:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a7f2d301.jpg

https://tinyurl.com/mryxmmkr

Is that taxpayers money being awarded or is Crouch and his goons on the hook?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Most likely. Those tbi agents and the DA should spend some time in jail over violating that man's first amendment rights.

__starsnostars posted...

Is that taxpayers money being awarded or is Crouch and his goons on the hook?

Thats how the system is designed.

Victim of police brutality? Your taxes paid for the privilege. Sue the city? Your taxes went toward your payout. Charges brought against you? Your taxes are helping fund your prosecution, never mind your own defence.

Its a system of oppression. To call police and state prosecutors public servants is laughable.

Dark_Arbron posted...

Its a system of oppression. To call police and state prosecutors public servants is laughable.

Public should probably be the word youre putting in quotes.

Kami_no_Kami posted...

Public should probably be the word youre putting in quotes.

Ah, thats true. They are servants, its just not the public they serve.

__starsnostars posted...

Is that taxpayers money being awarded or is Crouch and his goons on the hook?

The money coming from the city's schools, libraries, orphanage, and three-legged kittens animal shelter fund.

Revamp the system, so all future payouts come from the officers collectively and not from the tax payers.

This would stop immediately if everyone had to shoulder the burden of these payouts, instead of just tax payers who have no say in the matter.

Misbehaving government officials apologize with money, and Mr. Garton considers more than $10,000.00 per day that he was illegally incarcerated to be an acceptable apology.

so CE's "would you stay in jail for $X per day?" topics aren't too far off