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Utah nurse arrested for refusing to illegally hand over patients blood to detective
Nobeard
North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
The gist is that during a police car chase, the suspect being chased by cops hits an innocent truck driver. Truck driver goes to the hospital. Police detective Jeff Payne goes to the hospital to collect victims blood. As the victim is unconscious AND Payne does not have a warrant, nurse Alex Wubbles says "Sorry, no, that's illegal." Det. Payne threatens to arrest her. He inexplicably follows through with said threat in fit of anger. While wearing an active bodycam. WaPo article below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/01/this-is-crazy-sobs-utah-hospital-nurse-as-cop-roughs-her-up-arrests-her-for-doing-her-job/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/01/this-is-crazy-sobs-utah-hospital-nurse-as-cop-roughs-her-up-arrests-her-for-doing-her-job/
By all accounts, the head nurse at the University of Utah Hospital's burn unit was professional and restrained when she told a Salt Lake City police detective he wasn't allowed to draw blood from a badly injured patient.
The detective didn't have a warrant, first off. And the patient wasn't conscious, so he couldn't give consent. Without that, the detective was barred from collecting blood samples — not just by hospital policy, but by basic constitutional law.
Still, Detective Jeff Payne insisted that he be let in to take the blood, saying the nurse would be arrested and charged if she refused.
Nurse Alex Wubbels politely stood her ground. She got her supervisor on the phone so Payne could hear the decision loud and clear. "Sir," said the supervisor, "you're making a huge mistake because you're threatening a nurse."
Payne snapped. He seized hold of the nurse, shoved her out of the building and cuffed her hands behind her back. A bewildered Wubbels screamed "help me" and "you're assaulting me" as the detective forced her into an unmarked car and accused her of interfering with an investigation.
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If she herself, another coworker, or any of the other nearby officers had physically defended the nurse, would they be guilty of any criminal charges?
Technically yes but the charges would likely be dropped later.
Resisting arrest and/or interfering with a police officer (basically the same thing most places).
So it is, in fact, illegal to resist what you know to be an illegal arrest, then.
This country is fucked up. I guess I'm not surprised.
It's worth noting, it wasn't just the one officer. There were several, and they all backed up his illegal actions. The article states his lieutenant ordered the arrest.
So keep an eye out, they might try to throw the officer under the bus but there were multiple officers at fault here.
At the very least the department needs to improve its training, as this kind of thing has been clearly illegal for at least ten years.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Ignoring as always the last half of that saying.
IANAL
I'm browsing through Utah state criminal code (Title 76). The specific section that seems like it could be construed to be relevant to this situation (unlawful detention) appears to be written in a way that it doesn't actually apply to arrests by LEOs.
Title 76 Chapter 5 Part 3 Section 304
So it appears that if an actor has the authority of law they are assumed to be acting lawfully/in good faith. Which generally fits with how LEOs are treated in pretty much any state. I also cannot find any law similar to laws passed in some states the last few years that allows for a non LEO civilian to resist an unlawful arrest by a civilian LEO.
Title 76 Chapter 8 Part 3 Section 305
So it looks like there probably isn't any lawful way for any bystander to interfere.
IANAL
Yes. It's SUPPOSED to be solved in the courts later. If the police decide to arrest you, you do not have the right to argue about it at that time. You have the right to be informed WHY you're being arrested, and if it's something spurious or malicious (and you can prove it), then you can seek redress in the courts, but otherwise, pretty much. An officer of the law must be obeyed during the time of the encounter. This is important in volatile situations, especially when there are many people, or there's potential for imminent danger. It's dangerous for everybody to escalate. This particular situation was not anywhere close to that and was a flagrant abuse of authority.
Payne is still on active duty if I recall correctly and I saw a bit with an officer saying "Internal affairs is looking into it and seeing just exactly how this all happened." Which... I get it's a public statement, but it feels really dumb. Like, it's pretty obvious what happened; The officers on scene (and probably off scene) ignored law to illegally harass an innocent who was doing the right thing. The officers did so in a highly aggressive and confrontational manner because they did not feel like getting a warrant and were upset a "civilian" was not respecting their authority. Anyone involved with the decision should receive massive retraining at the least, but should probably be fired since they do not have the attitude nor respect of law required to be officers of the law.
I cpuld understand the guy they were chasing, but not the victim
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It is illegal to resist an illegal arrest. However few prosecutors will pursue the charges, unless its particularly beyond the pale or the arrest is a gray area (in the prosecutor's opinion, which to be fair may not reflect reality).
I have read that a few versions of this law make an exception if the arrest is illegal and the suspect has good reason to believe the arrest is a threat on their life. Protip: if it really is, resisting will get you killed.
Law enforcement does this all the time. My wife as a nurse has encountered it, Child Protective Services are particularly bad she says. It's not unheard-of for hospitals to have a full time lawyer JUST for law enforcement or government agency oversteps on HIPPA matters.
Arresting hospital staff, though? I have never heard of that, but this officer just wrote that nurse and that hospital a very nice check, I think.
Possibly hoping he was impaired or just an overzealous police response? Maybe the police chase was handled improperly and they wanted somehow to blame someone else for the accident.
These are just possible conjectures, it was most likely hotheaded alpha ramping up from an illegal request being refused.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
That's not fucked up, it's the only sensible way to handle the situation. Because determining whether the arrest is, in fact, illegal is not something you can do at the scene 100% of the time.
That would be an incredible claim, considering the suspect is dead.
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You're right that it can't be determined 100% of the time. But if it is illegal, then what the officer is doing is assault, and you are legally not allowed to protect yourself from it. It should always be legal to defend yourself from assault. And if the arrest wasn't illegal and you defended yourself? Then, hey, an extra charge of resisting a lawful arrest for you.
If the officer is overstepping, and you know it for certain, you shouldn't be under any obligation to humor him to even the slightest degree. I'm not sure what it means to live in a free society, otherwise.
I'm pretty sure I've seen cases where resisting-arrest charges were thrown out because the underlying arrest was illegal
But I don't think this is a uniform or clearly settled rule in America
Edit - And I point this out because sometimes police departments like to argue about immediacy of threat / danger, etc.
That depends on what they wanted his blood for.
The video is horrifying. Dude just straight jackboots her for following the law. And clearly thinks he's in the right for doing so.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Because by default the police get the benefit of the doubt. Just because YOU know that you had nothing to do with the bar fight/riot/incident that started ten feet away from you doesn't mean that you should be "defending yourself" from what you know is a completely wrong arrest. You do not want people believing it's okay to fight against police because they know/believe they shouldn't be detained. That's only going to escalate things and make EVERY situation worse. It generally works pretty well so long as there aren't bad actors. This situation had a flagrantly bad actor.
Especially since she's on speakerphone with her supervisor who is instructing her not to take the patient's blood. You can hear him say to the officer that he's making a mistake here just before the guy arrests her.
My Backloggery
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I agree with the technicality of the issue but we also live in a horrible fucked up society that commoditimizes mug shots. To the extent that getting arrested and booked on a phony charge can be life altering, it's understandable why people might resist.
The only time I have ever heard of this is when for whatever reason the officer did not properly identify themselves as a police officer or there was reasonable confusion as to whether an actual law enforcement officer was making an arrest (plain clothes officer or midnight swat raids that didn't properly identify themselves, etc). Other that that, if you know it is a lawful law enforcement officer you are absolutely expected to go along with the arrest, and not going along with it can lead to resisting arrest or potentially assault on a police officer charges.
Edit: and in this case where the nurse was clearly in the right resisting would have hurt her chances at an otherwise clearcut lawsuit which she will inevitably win or get a settlement from.
I'm about 95% sure that I've read something like the following in a few published opinions dismissing resisting-arrest charges: Surely you cannot be guilty of resisting arrest when there was no underlying probable cause to justify the arrest attempt.
Yeah but then you wake up a judge and get a warrant
And they specifically say in the recording that they have no probable cause to obtain a warrant, which means they have no reason to suspect the driver was intoxicated in any way.
Yeah. I completely agree. I swear John Oliver had a segment recently (but can't find it... maybe Sam Bee?) about how just being arrested at all will fuck up your life, and plenty of cops know it and will use that to vindictively punish people, and most are too poor or disenfranchised to be able to seek proper redress. The problem is bad police though, not a bad process.
Guys, this is a completely irrational thing on the officers part we all agree. I am not defending it. I was explaining why there was a possible time critical component.
All I'm saying is maybe it isn't irrational and we're dealing with a den of corrupt vampire cops
No part of this is a pliers and a phone book scenario. This cop is either lazy, overly authoritarian or ignorant of the law. Or mix the three however you like.
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Chain of custody means that doesn't work. But they had no reason to draw this guy's blood at all, so they wouldn't have been able to get that either.