Who is John Doe? (Or Jane Roe?)
It is you.
It is me.
It is all of us.
John Doe was one of the plaintiffs in the 1976 lawsuit, which turned into the first ruling of its kind in the U.S. – a consent decree ordered by the court in 1978 after Chan Kendrick, Mike Honey, John Doe, and the ACLU in West Tennessee had sued the City of Memphis for gathering domestic intelligence on non-criminal persons who had been outspoken on political subjects, particularly those critical of the government and entrenched institutions.
You know, the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In the ongoing ACLU lawsuit against City of Memphis, federal Judge Jon McCalla has already ruled that the Memphis Police Department illegally spied on citizens. However, McCalla is presiding over a trial this week – with police witnesses ranging from Director Mike Rallings to Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, AKA Facebook infiltrator “Bob Smith,” he of the creepy profile icon.
THE ISSUES
The purpose of the trial is so that McCalla can determine how to rule on various issues, such as sanctions, whether to appoint a monitor to oversee police – and to determine if the ACLU has “standing” to even bring the lawsuit.
We are not the lawyer, but John Doe is recognized as a legal stand-in for All of Us. So, the ACLU is acting on behalf of citizens including Everyman/Everywoman John Doe/Jane Roe.
If the 1978 consent decree is not a living document, protecting All of Us, what was the point? McCalla previously ruled to dismiss plaintiffs Keedran Franklin, Elaine Blanchard, Paul Garner and Brad Watkins, claiming they did not have “standing” to file a complaint since they were not parties to the 1976 lawsuit. The four of them were among 55 persons who were placed on the city’s “black list” — a list of persons who were required to have an escort after the city had ID’d them as activists — inside City Hall. Among those on the list was Mary Stewart, mother of Darrius Stewart, an unarmed, backseat passenger in a traffic stop who was murdered by Memphis officer Conner Schilling on July 17, 2015. The list included citizens who were seen by the MPD surveillance van buying movie tickets for teens.
Now, lawyers representing the City of Memphis are arguing that the ACLU does not have “standing” to sue. Surely, McCalla already has reconciled this to himself, that ACLU does indeed have standing, or else he would have short-circuited the whole thing by now. McCalla could have dismissed the ACLU last year, when he dismissed the individual plaintiffs, if he believed that the ACLU of Tennessee Inc., which filed the current lawsuit, was not a successor to the ACLU in West Tennessee – which in the 1970s was an affiliate of the national ACLU organization.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
If you and I are not protected by the provisions of this consent decree, this 1978 court order, what was the point? Clearly the consent decree was intended to be an ongoing, living document and requirement upon the Memphis police and city government.
In torturous, sleep-inducing questioning of attorney Bruce Kramer, who was called as a witness by the city and who had filed the 1976 lawsuit, attorney Jennie Silk of Baker Donelson (retained by the City of Memphis) sought to nitpick that the ACLU of Tennessee did not have standing to file this lawsuit. Judge McCalla often chastised Silk in how she labored to beat on Kramer and on this arcane point.
“Knock that off,” McCalla admonished Silk at one point, and later, “Learn from that.”
Silk promised the judge, “I will learn from that.”
‘BOB SMITH’ TAKES THE STAND
In the second day of trial on Tuesday, MPD Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, who had created a fake Facebook account and the persona of “Bob Smith” to befriend and social media-infiltrate local activists, testified as did police director Mike Rallings.
Police and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office – just when you think they might be on their good behavior – on Monday had raided Antonio Blair’s grandmother’s house with a specious warrant dated Aug. 17. Multi-Agency Gang Unit members wore ski masks and bandanas – at least one had his face so covered that it was not possible to determine if he was black or white, according to witnesses.
They disrupted the household, breaking mirrors and other objects, and searched a nearby home of another family member with a warrant looking for “drugs.” Well, they found a marijuana roach, and they wrote up a class C misdemeanor citation.
Blair is an organizer in Fight for $15, and he was on the so-called “black list” compiled by MPD and Mayor Jim Strickland in 2017 after about a dozen citizens live-streamed a “die-in” on Strickland’s front lawn on Dec. 19, 2016.
MONITOR NEEDED
Hopefully, McCalla’s final order will include that he require the city to pay a monitor to make sure the city is in compliance with the ongoing order. Chief Rallings on Tuesday testified that he had a vague awareness of the 1978 Consent Decree. On the contrary, Rallings should have a keen awareness and should be requiring training of officers and directing MPD’s Office of Homeland Security, where much of the paranoia and heightened interest in “protesters” comes from, on where to draw the line.
“John Doe” – you and I who may want to exercise the First Amendment, from social media to public assembly -- needs some relief. Even the unborn John Does and Jane Roes. If the consent decree is not recognized as a living document, what was the point?
Our earlier stories on this subject:
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