Appeals court reinstates civil rights lawsuits of dozens of bikers arrested in 2015 Twin Peaks shootout
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the lawsuits – at least temporarily – of about 90 bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout whose civil rights cases were thrown out last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright.
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court reversed Albright’s previous ruling that a grand jury’s indictment of the 90 bikers “served to break the chain of causation” for their false arrest claims and sent the cases back to Albright for further consideration in light of the court’s ruling.
The panel’s complex, 17-page opinion puts the civil rights cases of about 90 bikers back in play and instructs Albright to determine if each defendant has alleged adequate claims that they were falsely arrested after the melee that left nine dead and 20 injured.
By dismissing the suits of the indicted bikers, Albright did so through “a legal erroneous application” of the independent intermediary doctrine, the panel ruled. The doctrine, as interpreted by the 5th Circuit, states that even if an officer makes a false arrest and violates the detainee’s Fourth Amendment rights, the officer will not be liable if the facts supporting the arrest are put before an impartial intermediary, such as a magistrate or a grand jury, and the intermediary finds probable cause.
“Because the district court concluded that the independent intermediary doctrine applied, it did not discuss the merits of the plaintiffs’ false arrest claims,” the opinion states. “But the nature of the plaintiffs’ false arrest claims is relevant to our inquiry here because they argue, in essence, that the independent intermediary doctrine should not apply to the grand jury’s indictment because the grand jury was misled in the very same way as the magistrate who issued the arrest warrants.”
More at: https://www.kwtx.com/2022/04/29/appeals-court-reinstates-civil-rights-lawsuits-dozens-bikers-arrested-2015-twin-peaks-shootout/