Illinois judge rules police entitled to Swat raid over parody Twitter account

[951-Riverside]

Source: The Guardian

The police hadn’t even come for him. When four fully-armed officers of a Swat team burst into Jacob Elliott’s house in Peoria, Illinois in April they were looking for the source of a parody Twitter feed that had upset the town’s mayor by poking fun at him.

It transpired that one of Elliott’s housemates, Jon Daniel, had created the fake Twitter account, @peoriamayor, and so incensed the real-life official, Jim Ardis, with his make-believe account of drug binges and sex orgies that the police were dispatched. Elliott was just a bystander in the affair, but that didn’t stop the Swat team searching his bedroom, looking under his pillow and in a closet where they discovered a bag of marijuana and dope-smoking paraphernalia.

Elliott now faces charges of felony marijuana possession. He has also become the subject of one of the more paradoxical – if not parody – questions in American jurisprudence: can a citizen be prosecuted for dope possession when the police were raiding his home looking for a fake Twitter account?

A Peoria judge this week ruled that the police were entitled to raid the house on North University Street on 15 April under the town’s “false personation” law which makes it illegal to pass yourself off as a public official. Judge Thomas Keith found that police had probable cause to believe they would find materials relevant to the Twitter feed such as computers or flash drives used to create it.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/19/illinois-judge-swat-raid-parody-twitter-peoria-mayor

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[Blue_Tires]

1. Nothing "paradoxical" about it

As long as there was a warrant to search the residence, pretty much anything they find in plain sight (from anyone living there) is fair game...

Remember Michael Vick? His case is an emphatic "yes" to the issue of prosecuting a citizen when cops came searching for evidence of a different crime...

http://articles.dailypress.com/2008-11-21/news/0811200216_1_dogfighting-ring-davon-t-boddie-vick-s-cousin

Yeah, we can talk for days about the SWAT team being overkill, but the roommate with the drugs doesn't have a leg to stand on...That writer seems pretty ignorant of the law (or at least U.S. law)...

[951-Riverside]

4. Agreed

If someone created a parody account of me, I'd want to send heavily armed men to raid that person's home to teach them a lesson. Thank god they were able to use the legal system to send these numb skulls a lesson. I think it was the appropriate thing to do.

Remember 9/11?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

Yeah, we can talk about "civil liberties", "rights", "the first amendment" and the other garbage these ACLU-types spew but imagine if these guys were planning an attack to undermine america and the police did nothing? Would you want to take that chance?

I wouldnt.

[Blue_Tires]

8. I have no idea what any of that has to do with my post, but ok...

The Vick conviction was also murkier than you'd think, too...

[Feral Child]

10. It has to do with a public official

using the police for revenge.

The raid was misuse of law, parodies are protected by the 1st Amendment, which trumps local ordinance.

Are you familiar with the "fruit of a poisonous tree" doctrine? If the reason for a search is invalid then any evidence procured during the unwarranted (and a false warrant is unwarranted) search is tainted.

This guy will walk by appeal, even if the local despot/judge upholds the search.

[tazkcmo]

12. These ACLU types?

"Yeah, we can talk about "civil liberties", "rights", "the first amendment" and the other garbage these ACLU-types spew but imagine if these guys were planning an attack to undermine america and the police did nothing?"

Pretty long leap going from parody to terrorism. Did kid break the law? Apparently. He'll get his day in court. We can also disagree about the use of the SWAT team for this. I just find your choice of language rather disturbing.

[blkmusclmachine]

23. SCARED yet?!?!

[starroute]

6. The situation isn't nearly that simple

If a warrant is obtained under false pretenses, does take make anything it turns up fair game? I don't know, but it's clear that the question is a lot murkier than you want to make out.

http://www.vice.com/read/how-a-power-mad-illinois-mayor-launched-a-police-crusade-against-a-parody-twitter-account

May 10 2014

On the night of April 15, police in Peoria, Illinois, raided the house of my friend Jon Daniel in response to his operating a parody Twitter account mocking Peoria mayor Jim Ardis. The incident sparked a media firestorm, with Peoria all of a sudden being covered by national outlets like Al Jazeera and the Washington Post, and Ardis was condemned for what looked like a clear violation of the First Amendment. (Daniel is not being charged with any crime in connection with the Twitter account because, obviously, it’s not illegal to mock a public official.)

What wasn’t clear at the time was how intimately involved Ardis and Chief of Police Steve Settingsgaard were in ordering the raid, but according to emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, city officials were so eager to nail the author of the parody Twitter account that they had a detective comb through Illinois statutes to find something to charge him with, in the process bungling the legal aspects of the case and drawing the ire of local citizens. . . .

On March 13, Ardis emailed Settingsgaard and told him he wanted to pursue criminal charges against whoever was running the account, @peoriamayor, apparently unaware that no crime had been committed. “I will absolutely prosecute,” the mayor wrote to the chief. “Bring it on.” . . .

Peoria County Judge Kirk Schoenbein agreed, and on March 14 authorized the warrant that allowed police to obtain the IP address linked to the parody account. Judge Lisa Wilson signed off on another warrant on March 29 that gave police the right to obtain a massive store of data from Comcast, the internet service provider at the home of Daniel’s roommate Jake Elliott (who, thanks to the raid, is now dealing with an unrelated drug charge for possession of marijuana). In his search warrant affidavit, detective Stevie Hughes wrote that there was “probable cause to believe” that the seized data would contain “evidence, fruits, contraband, and instrumentalities of the dissemination and possession of child pornography.”

[Blue_Tires]

7. ok...thanks for this...

The OP's story didn't have this background...

I'm more surprised that the mayor, city manager and police chief at no time had anyone try to talk any sense into them -- How did NOBODY ever consult the city's legal office before pulling this stunt??

And under what legal standing did two judges sign off on warrants?

Yeah, it is murkier, and I'm not an attorney -- If the warrant was obtained under false pretenses, I'd think any reefer evidence could be thrown out; but if the police can show they were serving the warrant in good faith, well that gets murky, too

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. But it looks like the warrant should never have been issued

From The Guardian article:

Daniel was never charged as the local prosecutor decided that “false personation” could only be committed in the flesh rather than through cyberspace.

And, from the Vice link in #6:

In his search warrant affidavit, detective Stevie Hughes wrote that there was “probable cause to believe” that the seized data would contain “evidence, fruits, contraband, and instrumentalities of the dissemination and possession of child pornography.”

Which just looks like a straight lie. This was nothing to do with 'child pornography', and even if they thought a satirical account did count as "false personification", there was no indication the account holder had anything - that's the point of it being 'false'. And, again, this was another false claim:

The warrant was approved by Peoria County Judge Kim Kelley, and called for the seizure of numerous electronic devices as well as “heroin, cocaine, and drug paraphernalia.”

There was no reason to believe there was any 'paraphernalia' there; the whole point was this was someone pretending. On the internet.

I think a warrant issued (ironically) under false pretences means that anything found during the search should not be usable as evidence, doesn't it?

[jtuck004]

15. They expected to find "child pornography" and "“heroin, cocaine, and drug paraphernalia". Why, was

the mayor supposed to be there?

[billhicks76]

21. So Talk About It For Days

Supporting the drug war in any form now is reprehensible. You can excuse this crap all you like and even the nazis laws were legal so who cares? These thugs are enemies of ordinary citizens at this point. It's disgusting what our country had devolved into.

[negoldie]

25. Read it again

the pot and smoking items were found in his closet. Hardly found "in plain sight" as you say in your post. Keep your facts straight.

[dbackjon]

2. WTF?

[Gothmog]

3. This ruling should not stand

The search was bogus and that law is in violation of the First Amendment

[Cartoonist]

5. After reading reply one and four,

I thought I was on Free Republic. That King had no right to send in a SWAT team. That judge should be kicked off the bench.

[Feral Child]

11. Post #1 was not aware

of all the facts. He recanted when fully advised.

#4 was being sarcastic, re-read it, please.

[Cartoonist]

14. My recant

Replier #1 recanted after my post.
As for reply #4, I've been there. I've started using that sarcasm logo ever since. I did reread #4 a couple of times before posting. I kind of thought it might be sarcasm, but coming on the heels of #1 which was not sarcasm, I couldn't tell them apart.

[Feral Child]

19. Yep, it happens.

Wasn't insulting anyone, just wanted to correct an honest mistake. We're cool?

[Demit]

17. Yeah, #4's reply doesn't contain anything that would tip you off.

If it was irony, it was a fail. The only way you would suspect is b/c of the post count.

[Feral Child]

18. I caught it

but I've screwed up several posts in another thread, so I'm not slamming you.

The "sarcasm" smiley is needed, just because we read so many posts so quickly it's easy to make a mistake.


So, wasn't trying to insult you, just wanted to correct a misunderstanding.

[Brigid]

13. "One measure of its success . . ."

"Is that there is no longer one parody feed on Twitter ridiculing Ardis. There are 15."

[Strelnikov_]

16. At least there is a partial happy ending n/t

[eggplant]

20. They just don't learn.

[xocet]

22. I'm not sure that he isn't a parody of himself (in which case he had better label himself as such)..

In the press conference, he seems to claim that the comments might be construed by an observer to be reasonably close to something he might say:

The "Jim Ardis" Press Conference: June 12, 2014

(at 0:53 in the video)

...

Ardis: "First and foremost, it is important for people to know that...this chair doesn't work...First and foremost, it is important for people to know that the media has distorted the facts of this situation from day one. When originally created, the information posted on the internet made no mention of “parody”. The person used my official picture, the City logo in the background, my address and my contact information. There is no way for someone to know that what was being said under my name, picture and contact information was not coming from me. My identity as Mayor was stolen. Anyone reading the content would assume they were reading my comments as the Mayor.

...

The transcript of the press conference (including some of the "comments&quot are here:

http://blogs.pjstar.com/wordonweb/2014/06/12/statement-peoria-mayor-jim-ardis-explicit-language/

Naturally, a scene from "The Blues Brothers" comes to mind:

[damnedifIknow]

24. A swat team for this???

People like this don't belong in government at any level. If the mayor abuses his authority I'm wondering about the police. Sounds like corruption exists and should be investigated.

[surrealAmerican]

26. ... because satire is best fought with guns?

You wouldn't want police officers to risk their safety against biting wit.