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This is an amazing story that the US Supreme Court must decide. In 2008, Washington police intervened to end a debauchery in a normally unoccupied house, and arrested partygoers. Problem: Sixteen of them filed a complaint for unlawful arrest, arguing that they did not know that there was property violation. An initial ruling proved them right, and the police were ordered to pay them $ 680,000 in damages!
Everything starts in a wealthy house in Washington, with women in thongs and bra, music to the bottom, marijuana scents ... When they arrive at 1:00 am in front of this Washington house, police officers Andre Parker and Anthony Campanale are far from imagining the incredible judicial sequel to this (almost) banal night-time noise.
The two officers in uniform respond to the call of a neighbor who is overwhelmed by what looks like a happy night of debauchery in a normally quiet neighborhood. The house in question is usually unoccupied, said the honest resident on the phone to the troubled sleep.
Cache cache part
Parker and Campanale first do what all police officers do in such a situation: they try to identify the organizer of the party.
The thing is not easy. On their arrival, the revelers disappeared in the floors. So the policemen are forced into a game of night-time hide-and-seek, and it's they who stick to it!
The two men advance in the building in great disorder, push the doors of the rooms and bathrooms, hunting party-goers.
"Peaches"
They eventually manage to gather 21 people, including a refugee man in a closet and a few strippers with banknotes still slipped into the garter.
But none of the guests seems to be at the origin of the rave. Some say they have been invited to a birthday party, others to a bachelor party. Guests by whom? "Peaches," they reply.
Problem, "Peaches" is not there. She is called on her laptop, evasive, refuses to come, ends up hanging up after letting the police know that the evening was launched without the permission of the owner of the house.
Violation of property ...
The two officers of the Metropolitan Police Department are joined by their leader, Sergeant Andre Suber. The latter decides to order the arrest of all the participants for violation of property, an offense that is not taken lightly in America.
But in the United States we must not laugh about the Constitution either, and in particular the fourth amendment that protects citizens from unlawful seizures and arrests.
On this basis, sixteen of the 21 arrested persons are seised of federal justice. The complainants allege that they did not know that they had illegally entered private property. And they challenge the police to prove the opposite.
Fourth Amendment
The 16 revelers are right in court. "Nothing that the police learned on the spot suggests that (the guests) knew or ought to have known that they had entered without the owner's notice," the judge said in his decision.
The police find themselves sentenced to pay $ 680,000 to "guests who were not", $ 1 million with lawyers' fees.
The decision is later confirmed by the Washington Court of Appeal, much to the dismay of the Washington authorities. This story threatens to have "a deterrent effect on police officers, adversely affecting the ability of local and federal agents to fulfill their daily mission and difficult to protect the population, "reacts Karl Racine, Attorney General of the Federal Capital.
As the Court of Appeal refused to re-examine the case in plenary, Washington decided to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case must be heard on Wednesday. Between the memorable evening of March 2008 and the solemn audience before the nine wise men of the US law temple, more than nine years passed.