Monday, March 9, 2009

Resisting Arrest - Serious (or not?)

When you get arrested for "Resisting a Peace Officer" (resisting arrest), that's pretty serious business. Right? Often the newspapers report only the first side of the story - all the gory details about how Person A resisted Officer B but was finally taken into custody and jailed.

Whatever happened after that? Who cares? It's "old" news. Besides, the cops are always right, aren't they? I mean, why would they arrest someone, if that someone hadn't broken the law?

On April 17, 2008, McHenry County Sheriff's Sgt. Anthony Penna showed up at a Crystal Lake residence to arrest Thomas Haas. Some interaction apparently occurred between Susan O'Grady and Sgt. Penna, and Susan O'Grady was arrested and charged with two counts of resisting a peace officer.

Count One (from the Complaint filed by Deputy Penna was that O'Grady "...knowingly obstructed the performance of Sgt. Anthony Penna..., knowing Sgt. Anthony Penna to be a peace officer engaged in the executive of his official duties, in that he (sic) pushed, shoved and refused to move to clear the way for Sgt. Anthony Penna, thereby blocking the officer's entry into the residence... where Thomas Haas currently resides."

Count Two was "...that she pulled away, pushed, and resisted being handcuffed by Sgt. Anthony Penna..."

Well, that ought to be easy in court. Just stand up and testify as to what happened, and then expect the judge to find the Defendant guilty.

What happened in this case?

Aside from the error in using a male pronoun to describe O'Grady, after several court dates and Motions, matters came to a head on December 1, 2008. Well, not quite. Read the Motion that was entered on December 1st.

"On State's Motion - State representing that Officers Pena (sic) and Miller having been noticed to appear, the State moving to Nolle Prosse (spelling unclear in handwritten Order) over the Defendant's objection - IT IS ORDERED the above captioned matter is dismissed."

What does all this mean?

After Susan O'Grady was arrested and jailed in April, gave a $1,000 bond and paid $100 bail plus $33 costs to pass Go and get out of Jail, two of McHenry County's sheriff's deputies refused to show up in court on December 1 and give truthful testimony about what really had happened back in April.

They were given Notice to Appear. That's pretty formal. You really shouldn't snub the Court and the State's Attorney and just not show up. Is this merely dereliction of duty? Or is it worse?

You cause a lot of grief, expense and embarrassment to a member of the community, and then you just don't show up?

Ms. O'Grady's attorney would have objected. The judge should not have given the deputies a pass on this one. The Judge should have issued a Court Order right then for the bailiff to call the Sheriff and tell him to find his two deputies, get them out of bed and get them over to the courthouse in one hour for the trial. Or maybe they were really just sitting in the Sheriff's Department already, enjoying a second or third cup of coffee and laughing at the ordeal and expense they had just put O'Grady through.

The two Resisting Arrest charges were dropped, but they are still listed in the computer at the courthouse. Any prospective employer running a background check will see those charges, become concerned, and pick the next candidate for a job. Will an HR person really understand what Nolle Processed means?

Or bother to find out?

The story is not over... See the next article about a civil rights lawsuit against the McHenry County Sheriff's Department.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually the correct term is "Nolle prosequi", not Nolle Processed. Nice try, though.

Gus said...

Thanks for the correction. What I meant to write was Nolle Prossed, but even that would have been in error. The last Latin class I had was in 1957.