A few hours ago, a decision by U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim issued an order granting summary judgment this morning, April 1, 2016 in the Minnesota Drug Recognition Evaluator case that has been pending in US District Court since 2013. I am one of the attorneys for the Plaintiffs in this case. This case involves law enforcement officers who picked up Occupy Protestors and vulnerable people, drove them to the airport, and gave them drugs. After giving them drugs, the officers ran clinical tests on the Plaintiffs to learn about the effects of the drugs that they had given to them.
This matter was referred late last year by US District Court Judge Tunheim to US Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel for a Report & Recommendation. After briefing and oral argument, Magistrate Judge Noel recommended that only Plaintiff Wia Day remain in the case. The Plaintiffs objected to the other Plaintiffs not remaining in the case and the Defendant remaining in the case as to Wia Day objected to her remaining in the case. Judge Tunheim adopted all of the arguments of the Defendants and ruled that they were entitled to immunity. In other words, picking people up and giving them Schedule 1 drugs and running tests on them and then releasing them on the streets of a major metropolitan area falls perfectly within protected immune conduct of the police. The police were also assisted by the systematic filing of false police reports with fake names and fake birthdays of their test subjects, thus destroying any paper trail of their activities. This is spoliation of evidence.
Some of the the relevant documents relating to this decision are as follows:
Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Franklin Noel
Plaintiffs' Objection to Report and Recommendation
City and County Defendants' Objection to Report and Recommendation
Dakota County's Response to Plaintiffs' Objection to Report and Recommendation
City and County Defendants' Response to Plaintiffs' Objection to Report and Recommendation
Plaintiffs' Omnibus Response to Defendants' Objections to Report and Recommendation
Order of US District Judge John R. Tunheim Granting Summary Judgment for Defendants
No decision has been made at this time as to whether this matter will be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, but it is certainly something that will be considered.
Nathan Hansen
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