Immunity Rejected For Tennessee Deputy Who Turned A Traffic Stop Into An Impromptu Baptism

Legal Issues

from the no-longer-fit-to-serve-as-a-human-being dept

The saga of former Hamilton County Deputy Daniel Wilkey is incredible, in all the worst senses of that word. A law enforcement officer simply doesn’t start doing these sorts of things at the beginning of their careers. The stuff detailed in multiple lawsuits (and 44 criminal charges!) against Deputy Wilkey shows someone who just kept pushing the envelope and never encountered even the most minimal of resistance.

This decision [PDF] by the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court runs only four pages, but that’s only because it’s limited to telling the former deputy that he hasn’t appealed the denial of immunity correctly. However, it opens with a paragraph that indicates things aren’t going to go much better for Wilkey, even if he manages to do this the right way the second time around.

This case arises from a traffic stop that ended like no other of which we are aware. Deputy Daniel Wilkey stopped Shandle Marie Riley, suspecting that the window tint on her car was too dark. By the end of their encounter, Wilkey and Riley were discussing religion, which led to the deputy’s baptizing the suspect in a lake.

Yeah, that’s a thing that actually happened. After being stopped for violating Deputy Wilkey’s favorite pretext (alleged window tint violations were used to initiate the stops that generated the other lawsuits) and being ordered to take off her bra and “shake it out” to prove she wasn’t hiding any contraband, Shandle Riley admitted to having a marijuana roach stashed in a pack of cigarettes.

After some more verbal and physical abuse, Wilkey began asking if Riley was “saved” and if she would be willing to get back on the right path by being dunked underwater in a nearby lake.

Wilkey then lead Plaintiff into the near waist deep and frigid water, placed one hand on Plaintiff’s back, and his other hand on Plaintiff’s breasts, and completely submerged Plaintiff under the water.

Wilkey held Plaintiff under water for several moments, then with his hands still positioned on her back and breasts, raised Plaintiff from the cold water.

This incident was captured for posterity by Deputy Jacob Goforth, who has already been dismissed from this lawsuit.

The lower court denied immunity to Wilkey, who apparently decided the best way to appeal this decision was to start breaking some rules about what can and can’t be done at this stage of litigation.

Wilkey purports to concede White’s version of the facts. But the arguments made in his appeal demonstrate that his concession is “a concession in name only.” A few examples suffice. For White’s Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure claim, the district court—citing Riley’s deposition testimony—concluded that a genuine fact dispute existed as to whether a reasonable person in Riley’s position would have felt free to leave her interaction with Wilkey, enabling a jury to find that Wilkey seized her for purposes of the baptism. Rather than truly conceding White’s version of the facts, however, Wilkey offers more testimony from Riley to show “the full context . . . [of] just how voluntary Riley thought this interaction was.” Further, Wilkey summarily refers to the facts to explain why, in his view, he “was justified in thinking that” he “was engaging in a wholly private affair” with Riley. This argument makes either a competing inference or a credibility determination, neither of which grants us jurisdiction over his interlocutory appeal.

Yep. You can’t do that. You can appeal a denial of a motion to dismiss but you have to accept the facts as stated by the non-moving party and then argue that, even if what’s said is true, you still deserve immunity. The lower court’s decision still stands. The arguments shoe-horned into this appeal need to wait until he’s in front of a jury.

Believe it or not, that’s not only appellate loss for Deputy Wilkey this week. The Sixth Circuit handed down another decision [PDF] four days earlier. This one also involves Wilkey’s partner in constitutional crime, Deputy Bobby Brewer, who engaged in another window tint violation stop that swiftly devolved into a host of rights violations.

These are the allegations as they appeared in the lawsuit filed by the driver and passenger of the vehicle, James Mitchell and Latisha Menifee.

Wilkey handcuffed James, and the individual Defendants took James to the front of one of their police vehicles.

Wilkey then began to grab James’ genitals. When James told Wilkey that James had an untreated and large hernia and that Wilkey’s actions were causing James pain, Brewer and Wilkey jerked James’ arms high above his back, and slammed James face-down onto the hot engine hood, causing injury to James.

Wilkey and Brewer then beat James with fists, knees, and feet, slammed James to the ground, and continued their brutalization of James.

Wilkey and Brewer then removed James’ pants and shoes, while still beating James.

Wilkey and Brewer then forced James’ face back onto the hot hood of the same police vehicle and continued to jerk his arms high above his back, and beat James.

While Brewer continued to force James’ face back onto the hot hood of the same police vehicle and jerk his arms high above his back Wilkey donned a set of gloves, pulled down James’ underwear, and conducted an anal cavity search of James.

The appeals court decision recounts many of these facts, as well as a few more, like the fact that James admitted to smoking weed in the car earlier, as well as the very eventual discovery of an empty plastic baggie with drug residue in it. That discovery ended the cycle of abuse, which included Wilkey’s half-dozen “pain compliance strikes” he delivered to a person who wasn’t resisting, was already handcuffed, and posed no actual threat.

In this case, nearly any amount of force used by the deputies would have been excessive, as the appeals court explains:

Here, for one thing, the offense that provided probable cause to arrest Mitchell—possession of about a gram of marijuana—was not particularly severe: in Tennessee, simple possession is a Class A misdemeanor. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-418(c)(1). Nor was the tinted-window violation that justified the stop in the first place. For another thing, the video confirms that Mitchell got out of the car as instructed, did not object to Brewer’s pat down, and submitted to the deputies’ authority without resisting being handcuffed. Mitchell denied having anything else on him; but he was generally compliant, submitted to Wilkey’s thorough frisking, and displayed no aggressive behavior toward the deputies (or anyone else).

Immunity is denied to both deputies.

When the facts are construed in Mitchell’s favor, a reasonable officer in Wilkey or Brewer’s shoes would have understood that tackling and punching (Wilkey) or hitting and kneeing (Brewer) a handcuffed arrestee who posed no immediate threat to safety, was generally compliant, and was not actively resisting, would violate the Fourth Amendment.

Both deputies are also denied immunity on the failure to intervene claims, with the court pointing out the facts that might let either of these officers off the hook are still disputed and must be explored in more detail at the district level.

So, that’s still at least two ongoing lawsuits the former deputy (and his partners) must continue to face. And a third lawsuit — one involving Deputy Wilkey and another deputy deciding a driver’s muscular dystrophy symptoms were probable cause to search his car for drugs — was denied cert by the Supreme Court last spring, meaning the denial of immunity in that lawsuit still stands. Like the two cases above, this one started with a pretextual stop for a window tint violation. And it ended with a drug dog being deployed and supposedly “alerting.” The resulting search of the car by the deputies failed to turn up any drugs.

Unfortunately, Daniel Wilkey is no longer facing 44 criminal charges (25 of which were felonies). All 44 charges were dismissed last May — something that appears to stem from an incoming prosecutor’s disinterest in following through with the prosecution. Somehow, the case files mysteriously went missing just after a new prosecutor was appointed to the case.

Allen, a prosecutor with the Nashville-based Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, was appointed to represent the state in August because the newly-elected Hamilton County district attorney, Coty Wamp, had worked as an attorney in the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office during litigation over Wilkey’s actions.

Allen said he asked Neal Pinkston, the former district attorney ousted by Wamp in the 2022 Republican primary, to send him the case files during the final days of Pinkston’s term. At that time, the motion states, Pinkston said the file was not in the District Attorney’s Office but that he planned to send one at some point.

“None would ever be provided,” Allen said in the dismissal motion. “As of the date of this pleading, no file has been located.”

Pinkston said in a phone interview Friday the file should have been in his office when Allen requested it, but he does not remember receiving that request while still in office. He told reporters in a Friday news conference he does not know where the file is or was and didn’t know why the District Attorney’s Office could not find it after he left. He was never called to testify in court about the missing file, Pinkston said in an email Friday.

“There’s some 50,000 cases a year that roll through the judicial system,” Pinkston said at the conference. “Why is that the only case that can’t be located?”

Fishy as fuck. At least the lawsuits are still alive and Daniel Wilkey is still an ex-deputy. But someone should have caught onto his dirty deeds long before they turned into five concurrent lawsuits and 44 criminal charges.

Filed Under: 6th circuit, baptism, civil rights, daniel wilkey, qualified immunity, shandle marie riley