Mallet Law Offices, PLLC

08/06/2021

It’s official. The defund the police movement has failed. Twenty U.S. cities reduced funding of their police departments since the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. An Austin, TX councilmember, Gregorio Casar, bragged that Austin was “showing the country how reinvestments from the police budget can actually make many people’s lives so much better and safer.” But crime is rising is Austin, as it is across most of America. The presupposition, that police funding is the cause of high incarceration rates, violent crime, and violent contacts between police and citizens, is a political slogan, not the result of valid research. In fact, if you look at the actual numbers in the wake of our dismantling and disempowering our police, murder and other violent crimes have surged in most major U.S. cities and shootings nationwide are 33% higher when compared to the same time period between 2017 and 2020.

The public outcry for stronger police departments has been stunning as citizens have seen their safety and quality of life drastically erode. Take Detroit, for example, who defunded its police as a way to address financial troubles. A recent poll shows 90% of Detroit residents want more cops as they saw a 19% increase in murders and a 53% increase in ono-fatal shootings in 2020, when compared to 2019. With the defund the police experiment backfiring at a rate that is alarming even the most ardent supporters of the movement, cities are responding by scrambling to restore their police departments to pre-cut levels to stem the social decay that is taking place in the wake of their gutting of their police departments.

For example, San Francisco Mayor, London Breed, dealt a $120 million cut to the police and sheriff’s department budgets, and implemented new police policies that limited the ability of police to enforce existing laws and to use force. SFPD is now 400 officers short and experiencing climbing crime and plummeting quality of life. In a desperate move to restore law and order to her city, Mayor Breed has just proposed a budget that increases the police budget to near an all-time high.

The same is occurring in Seattle, a city that cut its police budget and eliminated 100 officers from the force. Seattle’s city council even reduced the annual salary of Police Chief Carmen Best, the city’s first black chief of police, below that of her white predecessor. Now, instead of making these the initial steps to more sweeping reductions and rethinking of law enforcement in Seattle, as Councilwoman Mosqueda initially boasted, the city is moving to increase police staffing as a response to an alarming loss of law and order. In fact, after a recent weekend with six shootings, Seattle’s Democratic mayor, Jenny Durkan, has issued a call for more police officers to protect the citizens of Seattle and she has vetoed attempts to strip funding from law enforcement. No word as to whether Mayor Durkan will try to rehire former Police Chief, Carmen Best, who quit in response to the dismantling of her department.

07/13/2021

Our community owes our gratitude to Deputy Austin and his family who sacrificed his wellbeing so we can stay safe as we and our families live our lives in this wonderful place. Thank you, Deputy Austin. I hope you continue to have a full recovery.

05/18/2021

I’ve been hearing some chatter about the new Supreme Court case, Canglia v. Storm that was released earlier today (May 17, 2021). This decision reversed summary judgment in favor of officers’ warrantless confiscation of fi****ms from a suicidal subject’s home. I am not sure this case means as much as the press would have us believe. I suppose if you are of the belief that Joe Biden, at some point, is coming door to door to seize your weapons without a warrant, I guess this might give you a little comfort. And, if you were worried about the new “Red Flag” laws being misused to provide a blanket firearm confiscation justification, then this case does provide a 4th Amendment challenge to poorly written or enforced Red Flag seizures. Otherwise, it should not really change standard police practices.

Normally, when police take fi****ms from a suicidal subject’s home, they have his/her consent, or consent of a family member with apparent authority to make such consent. Sometimes, if exigent circumstances are present, the officer can keep them for “safekeeping” without a warrant. None of those practices were addressed by the First Circuit and were therefore not addressed on appeal in Canglia.

Here are the facts from Canglia: The cops responded to a welfare check on a suicidal subject. A concerned wife asked them to come help her suicidal husband. The police convinced the subject to check himself into a psych hospital with the promise that they would not confiscate his handguns. This is where it gets interesting. The cops apparently lied to his wife and said the subject wanted police to take his guns. Based on that, she let them enter the home and take 2 handguns.

Now, if you are a police officer who has responded to a su***de, you know exactly what these guys were thinking and can see the honest attempt to protect human life at play here - and also the very reasonable wish to avoid the trauma of being called back to the scene of a completed su***de. So, rather than blame the cops, I think the true culprit here is our poorly funded mental health system. We have far too few beds available, forcing them to either refuse to take legitimate patients or spit them back out on the streets at an alarmingly quick pace. This forces our law enforcement officials to step in and try to resolve mental health issues that really are not solvable by the criminal justice system. And it all to often forces these men and women to be the first responders to the horrific scene of a firearm su***de. So I really sympathize with these officers’ plight and what seems like a well-intended undertaking.

Still, the officers apparently did not get consent from the wife, or at least document that consent appropriately, because the officers didn’t argue consent. Neither did they argue exigent circumstances (which probably were not present here). The police only argued that their actions were valid under Cady v. Donmbrowski’s community caretaking exception. Cady is the vehicle impound inventory search case that allows police to search an impounded vehicle for weapons. The SCOTUS declined to extend this rule to residences. That is a pretty narrow holding. Cops can still seize weapons for safekeeping without a warrant if they have consent, or if they can articulate true exigent circumstances.

The court described the narrowness of it’s ruling like this:

“The First Circuit's “community caretaking” rule, however, goes beyond anything this Court has recognized. The decision below assumed that respondents lacked a warrant or consent, and it expressly disclaimed the possibility that they were reacting to a crime. The court also declined to consider whether any recognized exigent circumstances were present because respondents had forfeited the point. Nor did it find that respondents' actions were akin to what a private citizen might have had authority to do if petitioner's wife had approached a neighbor for assistance instead of the police.”

(See Caniglia v. Strom, No. 20-157, 2021 WL 1951784, at *3 (U.S. May 17, 2021)

I’ll leave my friends in law enforcement with two thoughts. 1) The case went up on appeal of a Section 1983 summary judgment dismissal, so the facts were construed in favor of the non-moving party. A jury, sitting as a trier of fact, could still find the police did the correct thing in this instance. This case only pushes it to a jury. 2) No mention is made of whether the property room contacted the family and attempted to get the fi****ms released to a safe person. Or whether they had a reasonable process for the owner to get his fi****ms returned upon his release. This wasn't an involuntary commitment, so If the owner didn’t have any other federal firearm disability, then he could still purchase new fi****ms making the continuing benefit from the impound of the fi****ms non-existent after the initial crisis point.

02/08/2021

PRESS RELEASE: Matthew S. Kelly, 21, of Emmett, was sentenced Friday to serve up to 54 years in prison for shooting and injuring Eagle City Police Officer Brandon Austin. Mr. Kelly was also sentenced for multiple grand thefts and burglaries. Mr. Kelly’s crimes impacted over 20 victims.

In July 2020, Mr. Kelly was arrested after stealing a motorcycle, eluding law enforcement on the motorcycle, and then firing a gun at responding Officer Austin. Two of the multiple rounds Mr. Kelly fired at Officer Austin wounded him.

Mr. Kelly was charged with felony aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, grand theft and eluding a peace officer, in addition to multiple burglary charges in a separate case. He pleaded guilty to aggravated battery upon a law enforcement officer and multiple grand theft and burglary charges.

For all his charges, Ada County District Judge Jonathan Medema sentenced Mr. Kelly to 54 years in prison, with 35 to be served before being eligible for parole.

“For Officer Austin’s courage, valor and sacrifice in the line of duty, you and your family have our deepest gratitude,” said Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts. “Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day to keep our community safe. July 13, 2020 was a somber reminder of that.”

“We are privileged and honored to serve with Sheriff Bartlett and his team as we partner to keep our community safe,” Prosecutor Bennetts added. “Thank you also to the local law enforcement agencies who assisted in this investigation for the thorough investigation conducted into the multiple crimes involved. The hard work and dedication of our law enforcement partners helped us ensure justice was served.”

“The utterly senseless shooting and wounding of Brandon Austin this past summer represents one of the darkest days in the over 150 years this agency has been protecting our community,” said Ada County Sheriff Steve Bartlett. “Today is a better day. While there is nothing that can ever totally even the scales of justice for Brandon, I am relieved the violent and dangerous person responsible will no longer be a threat to our community for at least the next 35 years.”

“I want to thank Ada County prosecutors for their hard work and dedication in their pursuit of justice for Brandon. We appreciate it more than you can ever know. I want to thank Judge Medema for his thorough, thoughtful, and fair application of justice in this case,” said Sheriff Bartlett. “I also want to thank every member of our community who supports Brandon and the rest of our agency. We are humbled to be allowed to serve such excellent people. You all have my deepest gratitude.”

07/13/2020

We have just lived through months of a national and local villainization and dehumanization our men and women of law enforcement. We have suffered a constant assault from our national press who have taken the despicable acts of a tiny fraction of police officers and dishonestly attributed their evil to all of our brother and sisters in blue. Without fair counterpoint or mention of actual statistics that made this comment absurd, our local press shared the anti-police invective by Lisa Sanchez, a Boise City Councilwoman, who signed her letter with, "Love, Lisa Sánchez. Brown woman who chose not to have children for fear of their abuse and murder by white people."

After all of this, it should surprise nobody that we had a local officer shot in the line of duty this morning. We have sown the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind. To the injured Ada County Deputy and his family: We do not deserve your selfless sacrifice, but we humbly thank you for it nonetheless. Our prayers are with you.

The shooting suspect was found in a cornfield and taken into custody after an hours-long search.

04/10/2020

https://www.stlukesonline.org/blogs/st-lukes/news-and-community/2020/apr/join-forces-to-help?fbclid=IwAR2xTo15f04yESgw4oiddAWQkO_384XyrQOAcLNrTaZ_zSWKb6MLKaGyVHc

That’s certainly been the case as the St. Luke’s Health System tries to stay out in front of its needs as it battles the coronavirus.

03/30/2020

This is exactly the type of selfless, do it yourself initiative that makes America great - and the national media could care less. One stupid kid in Tennessee horded 1700 bottles of hand sanitizer in his garage and that story was carried by the national news media for a week. Then, our local Koenig Distillary, and several others, shut down their business to make hand sanitizer for their local hospitals at cost and it barely hits the local media. Please join me in buying a bottle of Seven Devils Bourbon to toast Koenig Distillery for showing us the best side of ourselves.

“This is a time of innovation and doing things differently.”

02/13/2020

For some reason, it warms the cockles of my heart when criminals travel to little ole' Boise for a crime spree, expecting our law enforcement to be easy to fool, and end up with an arrest and a long stay at our state funded resort in the desert south of town. These thieves apparently have had success with their scheme in New York, New Jersey, California, and Florida. Then they tried Boise. How did that work out for you, ladies? You should have stuck to the blue states….

Boise police say the suspects, both from Philadelphia, flew to Boise on Tuesday with the intent to commit these crimes.

12/20/2019

08/27/2019

On August 24th Gregg Davis suffered a spinal cord injury with a fracture of the spine at thoracic level T3-T4 which was operated on Sunday the 25th to stabilize it. He also sustained a 1st rib fracture, a sternal fracture as well as a cervical neck fracture, at the C2 level. He is currently...

07/26/2019

You like to discover new, local, hard to find, out-of-the-way places to eat? Places where the owner cooks and serves your food and, when he tells you about the ingredients he uses, his eyes light up? If so, I just found a place for you. Warning: its really hard to find, tucked into a warehouse on the SW side of Rhodes Skatepark. But it’s worth the hunt. Go see Max and get a slice of his NY style pizza. I promise you will be glad you did:

Call now for pick up, delivery or come in for a slice!