Posted on 03/28/2010 3:04:30 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
A Houston woman who was wrongly arrested in 2008 at the Walmart in Meyer Park has won a $9 million jury verdict.
Nitra Gipson, 24, filed a civil lawsuit against the retailer after store employees accused her of trying to exchange counterfeit Walmart money orders for cash. She was arrested and spent two days in jail. The Harris County District Attorney's Office declined to pursue charges after it was determined that the money orders were genuine.
That meant Gipson had been falsely accused and falsely arrested.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Why don’t you do an experiment? Buy a Walmart money order and deposit it in your checking account to see how long it will clear. Do the same thing with a postal money order as a control.
He knows that because he plays as the finance expert on the Internet.
That’s hilarious! I would have been laughing, too!
Here’s the SBC Packers skit.
shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O2coJq7ztU
if I was the arresting officer I would want to know who made the determination AND I would want them to point out the flaws in the document as compared to a genuine document. Simple questions could have avoided this mistake.
The arresting officer was at fault just as much here. The bar should be set much higher for such things. Hell Police will spend weeks before they arrest someone for murder. Why the rush for justice here? She sold her car and got the documents in question as payment. A simple check of the car title would have verified that story.
I've dealt with bogus money orders before and tried to cash one it was sent to me through the mail for over $600.00 for an online purchase, under this scenario I should have been arrested. Seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Yes if a company wants to swear out a complaint for what they believe to be a $4000 theft, an officer must arrest. Mistakes were made, but at the time of arrest, Walmart reasonably believed she was stealing and the officer had probable cause.
Wally World accused her of bearing counterfeit — not stolen — money orders. It would have been simple enough to have traced the money orders to their origin had there been a question.
The huge verdict seems predicated upon the non expungement of a felony charge and its calculated effect upon Nitra’s projected career. If Wally World does the right thing and retracts the complaint, that may end up reduced. So far they have not done the right thing. Appeals are unlikely to put much of a dent in it if Wally World remains obdurate.
The student was stupid, only deal in cash, certified checks or gold bullion with strangers. Honestly, anyone stupid enough to take money orders from a complete stranger as payment does not deserve a large settlement.
If she had received money, it would have been grand larceny. But yes she was probably charged with possession of fraudulent documents and attempted grand larceny. I don’t know about the case as a whole, I’m just saying the initial arrest was in good faith.
In fact, when you pay by check at WalMart, they just make a copy of the check and give you the check back.
At my company, when our cash department receives payment on invoices, the checks are scanned and the scanned file is sent to the bank at the end of the day. The physical checks are destroyed in two weeks.
I saw some cases like this on TV a few years ago - totally bankrupted the victim for life - like one woman who now 'owed' the IRS $100,000 after the lawyers and the IRS took their cut.
And you can''t declare bankruptcy on money owed the IRS.
She somehow pays or loses everything she owns - and pays for the rest of her life.
Why do you think the politicians/in bed with the lawyers, don't want tort reform. THEY are ones who keep the money.
Her risk is quite irrelevant to the lawsuit.
A police officer may arrest a person: If the officer sees a person violating a law, whether city ordinance, or a state or federal law. The law may be a serious crime (felony) or a lesser offense (a misdemeanor). The important thing is that the police officer sees the violation. If the officer has good reason to believe a crime has been committed and that the person arrested committed it. If the officer has a warrant for the arrest of certain person. A warrant is a legal document issued by a judge or a clerk of courts directing a law enforcement officer to make an arrest. If someone swears that you have committed a crime--felony or misdemeanor --and files the proper papers, a warrant may be issued for your arrest. (However, this is a serious matter. A person making a false claim for your arrest can be arrested and charged with a violation of the law, as well as become liable for a false arrest suit filed by you.) If a warrant has not been issued, a police officer cannot legally arrest you for certain misdemeanors, such as trespassing, unless a violation was committed in the officer's presence.
When Can a person Be Arrested?
If there was a warrant then whomever issued it needs to be hammered! And the cop is off the hook if not the cop is at fault period!
And the final bit the dots the "i" so to speak:
"KHOU says that they contacted Wal-Mart and were told that the decision to press charges was up to the law enforcement officer at the scene."From a news story posted in 2008 about the incident from the Consumerist:
It might be legally, but hopefully she learned a life lesson. I am also sure any cop, lawyer (defense or prosecution), or judge will admit that the legal system is broken. It is strange, but I think that a lot of things that are considered irrelevant to a trail, shouldn’t be. Previous rape and murder convictions, etc...
Courtrooms are no longer about what is right or wrong, just battles by lawyers to win at all costs. This case is an excellent example of stupidly of the justice system.
Around 5% (shocking) of criminal cases go to trail, the rest are pleaded out. I suspect that 10%-20% of these trails have innocent victims who can’t afford decent lawyers and are scared into pleading guilty by the prosecution dangling a lengthy sentence. While the vast majority of remaining who are guilty get to plead to lesser crimes and are paroled too early.
It might be legally, but hopefully she learned a life lesson. I am also sure any cop, lawyer (defense or prosecution), or judge will admit that the legal system is broken. It is strange, but I think that a lot of things that are considered irrelevant to a trail, shouldn’t be. Previous rape and murder convictions, etc...
Courtrooms are no longer about what is right or wrong, just battles by lawyers to win at all costs. This case is an excellent example of stupidly of the justice system.
Around 5% (shocking) of criminal cases go to trail, the rest are pleaded out. I suspect that 10%-20% of these trails have innocent victims who can’t afford decent lawyers and are scared into pleading guilty by the prosecution dangling a lengthy sentence. While the vast majority of remaining who are guilty get to plead to lesser crimes and are paroled too early.
That’s what I’m wondering. It’s like someone saying “they are literally catching fire” when they mean figuratively.
Damages will be reduced. Probably on a motion before the trial judge. If not then, certainly by the appeals court.
She will probably get $250,000 plus reasonable attorney’s fees.
No reason for everyone to get so excited.
Every second, of every hour of every day someone is arrested for something that happened away for visual surveillance of a peace officer. Take domestic violence, as an example. A woman calls 911 and says her husband pushed her down. It MOST jurisdictions, not only may an officer arrest the person he believes to be the aggressor, he may actually be obligated by statute to make an arrest and to remove the aggressor from the scene, even though the police officer may not have personally witnessed any crime at all. Again, the threshold that must be met in every state in the country is reasonable suspicion. If they police have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed (and here, that would be easily met with Wal-Mart as the complaining witness), then they may - and will- effect arrest.
""KHOU says that they contacted Wal-Mart and were told that the decision to press charges was up to the law enforcement officer at the scene."
Someone's lying, and I'd wager it's Wal-Mart. Police don't "press charges" against anyone. A witness complains, and police will effect arrest based on suspicion of "x" (in this case, it was forgery).
This is a non-violent crime. IOW, the police aren't obligated to arrest anyone - in fact probably can't arrest anyone - unless there is a complaining witness.
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