
After traffic stop, man forced to have x-ray, enema, anal probes and colonoscopy - yapcguy
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3209305.shtml
======
rdl
I was trying to decide if this was appropriate to post to hn. It shocked the
conscience to the extent that people I know who are involved in
government/mil/etc were discussing how they would have responded; it is
basically rape under color of law.

Even more amazingly, it wasn't one officer alone by the side of the road in an
ambiguous circumstance; there was a judge, a DA, multiple officers from
several departments, two medical facilities, etc involved.

A civil suit is inadequate; state or federal criminal investigations should be
forthcoming. It is possible there is a reasonable explanation, but an
investigation is the only way to determine that.

~~~
DannyBee
There are so so many things wrong with this situation i don't even know where
to begin.

The judge granted a warrant, an almost facially invalid one (and it turns out,
completely invalid for other reasons), but will still be immune from anything
here.

The DA will be immune from anything here. The Officers will claim qualified
immunity, and may or may not win.

At least there is supreme court precedent that should have put them on notice:
Winston v. Lee - 470 U.S. 753 (1985)

"(a) A compelled surgical intrusion into an individual's body for evidence
implicates expectations of privacy and security of such magnitude that the
intrusion may be "unreasonable" even if likely to produce evidence"

Here, it wasn't even likely to produce evidence.

The doctor will certainly be sued for, among other things, battery, false
imprisonment, etc.

(Looks close, they threw some other stuff in there. Here is the complaint:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/181747773/Complaint-David-
Eckert-v...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/181747773/Complaint-David-Eckert-v-
City-of-Deming-Hildago-County-Gila-Regional-Medical-Center) )

~~~
zachrose
The professional breaches of ethics are shocking and horrible, but the worst
part of this is that it's bad test case for the legality of more and more
invasive/dangerous bodily searches.

If the warrant was invalid to begin with, my concern is that a court won't be
able to strike down the medical procedures as unconstitutional because the
search itself was unconstitutional on simpler grounds.

I hope Eckert will win a civil suit, but my guess is that the worst part of
this story will be the lack of deep constitutional scrutiny.

I am not a lawyer.

~~~
gte910h
The _best_ outcome in my mind here is that the doctors lose their medical
licenses permanently.

They are the professional that should have laughed the cops out of the
hospital.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The best outcome in my mind here is that the doctors lose their medical
> licenses permanently.

The _best_ outcome, I would think, includes a number of people spending
several years in federal prison for deprivation of rights under color of law
(18 USC Sec. 242) [1], _as well as_ any licensed professionals involved losing
the relevant professional licenses.

[1]
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242)

~~~
DannyBee
Good luck ever finding a federal prosecutor who gives a crap about this rather
than spending time making their bones on drug cases ...

~~~
dragonwriter
Well, yes, "best" and "most likely" are two different things.

Of course, if punishing people for violating people's rights was something
people were willing to actually hold politicians accountable for as much or
more than punishing drug dealers, then US Attorneys -- always political
appointees and usually also politicians -- would be much more concerned about
it.

Accept-and-mutter-darkly just preserves the status quo.

~~~
DannyBee
"Accept-and-mutter-darkly just preserves the status quo."

I don't accept and mutter darkly, i just think the majority of the populace in
the US is happy "as long as it doesn't happen to them", so i'm not sure much
will change?

------
spodek
I don't want to go too far, but according to Wikipedia's article on rape "the
World Health Organization defined it in 2002 as 'physically forced or
otherwise coerced penetration – even if slight – of the vulva or anus, using a
penis, other body parts or an object'".

Is it a mistake to use that definition here? Obviously the local law is
relevant in legal proceedings and I want to respect survivors of sexual
assault, but what else do we call it?

~~~
smokeyj
If you do it, it's rape. If they do it, it's a search.

If you do it, it's theft. If they do it, it's a tax.

If you do it, it's torture. If they do it, it's enhanced interrogation.

If you do it, it's terrorism. If they do it, it's freedom fighting.

If you do it, it's counterfeiting. If they do it, it's quantitative easing.

If you do it, it's a mafia. If they do it, it's a government.

~~~
rosser
Please dispense with the bullshit specious equivocations. This forum warrants
a higher level of discourse than that.

~~~
lwhalen
How is it specious? It seems fairly dead-on accurate to me.

~~~
edias
Governments have different powers than citizens and different roles in
society. Do they abuse those powers often? Yes, they have since this country
was formed, nothing new here.

What does smokeyj's comment add to the discussion? At best it's emotionally
charged and douchy way of saying you don't like the government.

~~~
Jayschwa
> Governments have different powers than citizens

I disagree with this. If an individual does not have the right to do
something, neither does a collective. We all individually have the right to
defend ourselves, for example. As with most things in society, it's more
efficient to "outsource" the task to specialists like police. However, if
individuals do not have the permission bits to do something like administer
non-consensual anal probes, neither should law enforcement.

~~~
mburns
>If an individual citizen does not have the right to do something, neither
does a collective

An individual does not have right to punish another person in response to a
crime after the fact (A.K.A. revenge). Collectively, we do.

~~~
Jayschwa
I believe revenge on an individual level can be morally legit.

~~~
mburns
Well that's fine, but we're not comparing personal opinions. This tangent was
brought to us by smokeyj's ramblings about the injustice of governments doing
bad things with unequal punishment, and edias explaining why he's full of it.

Reality is well established that government plays a different role than
individuals and is explicitly given permissions we refuse to citizens by way
of the Constitution.

People can't own ICBMs or atomic bombs, either, which is their sovereign right
if not for the oppressive government.

------
javajosh
Rage. That is what I feel. I hope the town is bankrupted and the officers,
doctors, and judge who contributed to this are all put behind bars, where,
ideally, they'll get to experience what unwanted anal searching is like.

The police are totally out of control in this country. They are out of control
because they are untouchable. That was the lasting legacy of the Rodney King
acquittals: you can do what you want if you're a cop. You can beat a black man
senseless for nothing. You can beat a homeless man to death with your fists.
You can pepper spray, tackle, and beat peaceful protesters dancing in a public
square. You can smash people's cameras who are trying to document your abuses.
You can send SWAT teams to the home of the mayor of a small town, shoot the
family dog dead, track the blood all over the house, put the family on their
knees for hours with guns to their heads, and then when it turns out it was a
mistake, leave, laughing and saying "you're lucky we didn't arrest you."

Almost certainly it will get much worse before it gets better. Armed with ever
better surveillance, city police are going to get much more powerful. And
power corrupts. I think we'll be hearing about a lot more of these kinds of
abuses.

Eventually, 400M Americans are going wake up, realize that they've had enough,
and effect real, lasting change.

~~~
hga
" _That was the lasting legacy of the Rodney King acquittals: you can do what
you want if you 're a cop._"

To a propagandized society, yes, that the revolutionary truth about the
initial acquittals. The bourgeois truth is that the LAPD police academy
cheaped out on baton training, excluding the normal sections that would have
allowed them to restrain King with a minimum of force.

Given that, they had exactly three choices: shoot him like a dog, beat him
into submission, or I suppose let him free to commit more crimes while
intoxicated.

I guarantee you the message sent by the second prosecution in an area and
situation where conviction was much more likely (2 out of 3) has had a _lot_
of very bad effects, including the police resorting to their firearms a lot
more.

" _Eventually, 400M Americans are going wake up, realize that they 've had
enough, and effect real, lasting change._"

Perhaps all this will help you understand why we're buying guns of military
utility at unprecedented rates? With the exception of last August, for around
40 months NICS tracked guns sales have been higher than those of the preceding
month a year previously (source is the NSSF). Note that the starting point of
this massive surge is well beyond the period of fear that Obama would take
effective gun control steps and way before Newtown.

It's ... amazing. The world's stocks of $150 (in today's prices) standard bolt
action military surplus rifles have been exhausted, that's from more than a
century's production of them.

I'm not sure if we're gearing up for a civil war/general resistance to this
sort of shit, the inevitable consequences of the government running out of
money, or things less dire in the runup to one or both, but we're getting
_thoroughly_ prepared, which should _terrify_ the police-judicial complex. And
may well be doing so.

As I and other keep saying, this will not end well.

~~~
javajosh
_> As I and other keep saying, this will not end well._

I hope not. My hope is that we can outsmart violent revolution, and do
something much better. In the end, we are a functioning democracy, and in 6
years theoretically we could replace every elected official in the land, the
President, every governor, every congress person, and every local sheriff and
police chief and judge. It would require an almost unimaginable level of
cooperation, and it wouldn't address the bureaucracy problem, but literally in
6 years all of the elected decision-makers could be new. We could eliminate
parties, hold a new constitutional convention, and adopt policies aimed at
capping the complexity of our legal code. And all it takes is 6 years of
cooperation.

To me, that's a _great_ outcome. And I suppose if you got the majority of
Americans in most places to agree with you, then you'd actually have a chance
to get it done.

~~~
hga
That's a rather amazing posited jump for a nation in a cold civil war that's
getting ever hotter, one that's been in effect ever since the Progressives
became a major political force, e.g. no later than Teddy Roosevelt.

What can possibly make you think more than a century of division, which I rate
as reaching civil war status in Woodrow Wilson's 2nd term almost a century
ago, will magically change. Rodney King expressed the hope pretty well, " _Why
can 't we all just get along?_" but that's not happened.

I have my own ideas as to why, going back to the antebellum period, but
they're irrelevant to the observation that this is clearly getting worse, and
arguably at an accelerating rate. Add to that the inevitable Federal
government bankruptcy within, say, a generation---are you proposing you could
get a majority of Americans to become Tea Party types, refusing ever more
"free" money from the state and after cutting enough of the government's
expenses to start paying down the accumulated 17 trillion in debt???---while
none of us can predict the time or shape of things to come, there's no way it
will end well.

As Kipling noted in "The Gods of the Copybook Headings". Or I could say you're
pushing hope over experience---and I think we've had enough Hope and Change to
last a generation or three....

* Well, there's one possibility, nanotech resulting in a post scarcity society fixing the fiscal problem, but it wouldn't fix the divisions, and its development has been ruthlessly suppressed by the existing science establishment who want that money for themselves.

------
cwilson
A number of people have commented that they are not surprised by the police
actions in this case, because they are likely corrupt. I'm right there with
you in most cases, but I simply can't wrap my head around what kind of outcome
here would have made it worth all the trouble for the police involved?

After the SECOND probe (there were six total probes, two x-rays) I'd think
most people would be convinced the guy wasn't hiding anything. Even if he was,
we're not talking pounds of drugs here.

The police involved, and anyone that went along with SIX probes and two
x-rays, and still were not sure this guy was innocent, are far beyond
"corrupt", they are simply insane. Corruption generally comes with some kind
of substantial payoff. What could that have been in this case? I'm really
baffled by this, and scared. Only truly crazy people could allow this to
happen, much less support it.

~~~
spin
Over the past several years, this has been bothering me more and more, too.

If it's "we did this horrible thing, but made some money" or "we did this
horrible thing, and locked up some terrible bad guy", then at least there's
some kind of logic to it. But we keep hearing these stories of: someone in
power does some whacked-out stupid mean shit to someone who's in no position
to resist. And it goes unchecked and unpunished?...

I don't mean to be hand-wringing and preaching to the choir here,... but yeah
-- I'm baffled and scared, too. I think there's a streak of American culture
that enjoys hurting people just for the sake of hurting people.

~~~
spin
(replying to my own post...)

I'm remembering back to the L.A. riots, after the Rodney King beating. I'm a
white guy, and I was watching the riots on TV in high school. I wasn't sure
what to make of it at the time. Maybe things haven't changed much?...
(sadly...)

------
laichzeit0
Oh, America.

I don't know what else to say really. This kind of reaction defies any form of
rational discourse. As an outsider I'm kind of numb to it though. America, in
my mind, has gone from a "cool" place that I learned about on television (Home
Alone, Mickey Mouse Club, Terminator, NASA etc.) to this giant nanny state
that has MASSIVE knee-jerk reactions to anything, e.g. putting warning labels
on coffee, searching peoples assholes for drugs cause they clenched their
buttcheeks, making air travel a ridiculously painful experience, etc.

~~~
maxerickson
I find it bizarre that you equate this to nanny state stuff.

If true, it is simply criminal abuse of power by a small set of individuals.
Nothing in the 'normal' war on drugs encourages anything like this.

------
moocowduckquack
Words fail. The doctors are even trying to bill him for the procedure.

~~~
runevault
In some ways that is the most staggering thing of all. They assaulted the man
and did horrible things against his will, and now they're attempting to charge
him money for the privilege?

~~~
philwelch
This reminds me of the old horror story they used to tell about China, that
when they'd execute a prisoner they'd send a bill to his family for the cost
of the bullet.

~~~
nichtich
The story is sadly true, and in some places it's the only information the
family gets on when the execution is/was performed.

------
whyenot
This reminds me of the women in Texas who had their vaginas and anuses
searched after being stopped for littering.

[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-
prob...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-probe-
genitals-women-traffic-stops-article-1.1414668)

at least one officer was charged with sexual assault.

------
patrickg_zill
Suing is not enough. This sort of egregious behavior won't stop until people
go to jail. The cops involved should be fired for cause - which means, they
will never be hired by any other force in the USA.

~~~
NoPiece
He'd be justified to go get a gun and kill the people involved.

~~~
evanmoran
No he wouldn't. What happened was horrible beyond words, but that does not
justify murder.

~~~
hga
Justified or not, "If This Goes On..." eventually the moral calculus is going
to shift to where that's an acceptable response, and one sufficiently
supported by the population that solving many such crimes will become very,
very difficult.

There are many consequences to excesses by the state like this case, and this
is probably one of the more minor ones.

------
downandout
The scary part about this is that this wasn't just a single rogue cop. Several
physicians, nurses, a judge, a radiologist, and at least one police officer -
any of whom could have put a stop to it - participated in a state-sanctioned
rape and found nothing wrong with it.

" _All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing_." \- Edmund Burke

------
bobbles
""We follow the law in every aspect and we follow policies and protocols that
we have in place," Chief Gigante replied.

"Do you think those officers in this particular case did that?" Ramirez asked.

Gigante didn't answer, instead he referred Ramirez to his attorney."

~~~
aktiur
And that's the only sensible reaction when you are asked about an ongoing
litigation by the press. Hard to blame him for that second answer.

~~~
hga
Why should the police department fight the lawsuit tooth and nail, assuming
they're sufficiently sure of the facts? Do they think this will make it
significantly less likely they'll lose? If not, they ought to think about
damage mitigation, both to their public image and in what they'll have to pay
out, i.e. a jury will presumably award smaller damages against a department
that shows contrition.

This sort of non-response just screams "We're guilty and top to bottom
corrupt" ... not the sort of thing that will end well.

------
memracom
This kind of behavior on the part of law enforcement will lead to destruction
of public trust in the police. And that is a major step on the way to
destruction of the American Empire because when Americans no longer trust
their security forces, then nobody else in the world will trust Americans at
all.

The medical clinic and the doctors who performed the procedures should all sue
the police officers involved personally as well as the police department since
they lied and they solicited the doctors to commit crimes. This kind of rogue
police behavior needs to be severely punished in a very public way to send the
message that "peace officers" are there to keep the peace, not to disturb it.

------
GhotiFish
Why so many times?

Why wouldn't you just stop at the X-ray? Is there some method of hiding drugs
that wouldn't be very obvious in an X-ray? Ignoring the morality entirely, did
they actually gain anything from that? Was there someone who could of hid
narcotics past the first 7 steps?

What's so powerful about this story is it doesn't seem to make sense. I want
to know why. What on earth motivated anything beyond step 1? Step 1 was bad
enough!

~~~
Zikes
Every step is just more evidence that the people involved were riding high on
a power trip, which is why they absolutely need that power removed from them.

------
hobs
Holy fuck. Sue them for everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

~~~
thex86
Unless the people involved are SUSPENDED, there is no justice.

~~~
rhizome
Uh no: every officer should lose their cert, and every medical person lose
their license.

~~~
mrab
In this circumstance, I hate to defend those that did what they did. The
comment above about authoritarian followers is a good explanation as to why
the officers/medical staff would comply. But I could see how one would comply,
not to serve or aid, but out of fear or simply the with the perception that
they _had_ to comply.

~~~
Zikes
Doctors command an astounding level of respect and trust, and both are
necessary for their profession to even exist. If I cannot trust a doctor while
I am unconscious or otherwise vulnerable, then I would be putting myself at
risk by avoiding seeking medical help if it became necessary. That level of
trust is so high, I don't think it would be a stretch to think many people
would expect a doctor to put a patient's needs and wellbeing above their own.

These doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing
to comply, but they knew full well the actual harm they would do if they did
comply. They should be held accountable.

~~~
rhizome
_These doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing
to comply_

Yeah, no. The first doctor is home right now, sleeping well, knowing s/he did
the right thing by refusing to comply. The cops didn't have shit, the second
hospital doctors completely abdicated their responsibilities absent any
compelling interest and they went along with it because they wanted to,
because they found a good enough reason. How do I know? Because the existence
of the first doctor(s) proves they could have said "no."

~~~
Zikes
When the cops haul a man in for "standing funny", _anything_ you do to oppose
their will is painting a target on your back.

The first doctor got away with it because the other doctors went along with
the officers' demands. If everyone had refused they would have been ethically
in the right, but you can be assured the authorities would have reacted far
less favorably.

~~~
rhizome
They went to _a different hospital_. That's not just turning to the next guy.
The doctor at the first hospital explicitly refused on ethical grounds and did
not get any unfavorable repercussions from the authorities, which completely
refutes your point.

~~~
Zikes
Except that the first hospital had no guarantee that there would be no
consequences, which completely refutes your point.

~~~
rhizome
There are no guarantees, ever, so I'm not sure what you're saying here.

------
molecule
prior post and discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6677664](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6677664)

------
jstalin
All involved will likely be promoted and cited for their courageous pursuit of
justice.

------
zequel

        EVEN IF he did had drugs in there, this would still be not right to me. Aren't there more effective ways than this to combat drugs? Let it go. 
        IMO, everyone related to this case (besides the victim) should be fired, divorced and ostracized. Sounds like a DOJ case.

------
yetanotherphd
We put people in jail for violating drug laws and it does seem to have some
effect.

To bad it never occurs to prosecutors that we could encourage police and
doctors to obey the law using the same means.

If this man was found with drugs he wouldn't have been offered better training
or face a civil lawsuit. If we are willing to be tough on drug users, we
should be as tough on people in authority when they break the law.

------
ck2
Don't forget the part where they are making him pay for the hospital exam.

------
justanother
So this man had nothing to hide?

~~~
justinmk
He resisted, so clearly he had something to hide.

~~~
moocowduckquack
No, resisting means you don't want to be subject to force. You are possibly
confused with being evasive.

~~~
kansface
He is not confused. That was satire.

~~~
igravious
Stupid internet. Breaking satire.

------
alexeisadeski3
Thank god we live in a free country, where things like this can't happen!

------
fetbaffe
This is the definition of a police state.

~~~
hga
Not quite, our trial by jury system is far from being corrupted. In a real
police state like e.g. Japan the police don't worry too much about how they
close a case, for they know whoever they charge will get convicted.

~~~
fetbaffe
Same in the US

[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353322/dagger-heart-
ju...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353322/dagger-heart-justice-mark-
steyn)

The defining characteristic of English law is its distribution of power
between prosecutor, judge, and jury. This delicate balance has been utterly
corrupted in the United States to the point where today at the federal level
there is a conviction rate of over 90 percent — which would impress Mubarak
and the House of Saud, if not quite, yet, Kim Jong Un. American prosecutors
have an unhealthy and disreputable addiction to what I called, at the
conclusion of the trial of my old boss Conrad Black six years ago, “countless
counts.” In Conrad’s case, he was charged originally with 17 crimes, three of
which were dropped by the opening of the trial and another halfway through,
leaving 13 for the jury, nine of which they found the defendant not guilty of,
bringing it down to four, one of which the Supreme Court ruled
unconstitutional and the remaining three of which they vacated, only to have
two of them reinstated by the lower appeals court. In other words, the
prosecution lost 88 percent of the case, but the 12 percent they won was
enough to destroy Conrad Black’s life.

Multiple charges tend, through sheer weight of numbers, to favor a result in
which the jury convict on some and acquit on others and then tell themselves
that they’ve reached a “moderate” “compromise” as befits the reasonable
persons they assuredly are. It is, of course, not reasonable. Indeed, the
notion of a “compromise” between conviction and acquittal is a dagger at the
heart of justice.

~~~
hga
Well, I was talking more about state courts; at the Federal level they
situation is obviously worse. E.g. see my Rodney King comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6682482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6682482)
where the state court came to the correct conclusion, and the Feds took no
chances the 2nd time around ... but, still, they only managed to convict 2 out
of 4 defendants.

I believe to say it's "utterly corrupted" goes beyond the observable facts.

~~~
fetbaffe
That depends on state

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate)

Also, police in the US today looks more of an military unit. And on top of
that police in some states makes lots of money on doing seizures.

~~~
hga
Yeah, and the fact that the paper author had to include a big state with only
a 59% conviction rate is telling (Florida).

Prosecutors _should_ have high conviction rates, they shouldn't be prosecuting
innocents, or at least people they can't easily convince a jury are criminals.
That they fail so often in states tells us a lot.

I'm also unconvinced the innocent are as frequently convicted in state courts
as in Federal.

Now, separate from this we could discuss the plea bargain and its abuses, but
we've got some strong evidence that a lot of people who refuse them and then
go to trial are found not guilty.

------
sethbannon
It's times like this that make me ever so thankful for a robust and free
press.

~~~
sbank
Hah.

------
pcvarmint
Volokh Conspiracy's preliminary analysis:

[http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/07/thoughts-eckert-v-city-
demi...](http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/07/thoughts-eckert-v-city-deming/)

------
Glyptodon
Just imagine how this would be going if they'd planted some drugs. (That might
even be what these police learn from this affair: sneak some narcotics in
after taking the vehicle to impound.)

------
wissler
It is not just about these cops, these doctors, or this judge. It is about
institutional rot, a rot so wide and deep that to point it out will get you
scorn and ridicule in most quarters.

~~~
moocowduckquack
Well, I know that the words "police state.." should be followed by something
the police stated when discussing things like this, unless I want the
discussion to end up with countless people pointing out that it is nothing
like as bad as Russia was under Stalin, etc.

~~~
caf
Surely _" Well, it's not as bad as Stalin"_ is the very epitome of damning
with faint praise?

------
zmonkeyz
reddit is that way ->

------
rcfox
I realize that it's human nature to want to discuss disturbing things like
this, and that hackers fall under the category of humans, but this is really
off-topic for Hacker News.

There's no intellectual discourse to be had here; it's just the dissemination
of fear.

~~~
vacri
_Please don 't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to
its page and clicking on the "flag" link._

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
GhotiFish
i keep forgeting about that little feature. Will do.

    
    
       If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

