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Suit against "To Catch a Predator" can proceed

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

A Texas ADA shot himself in the head as a SWAT team surrounded his house for the benefit of "To Catch a Predator" to avoid the humiliation of arrest. Many of the Estate's claims fail, but the case will proceed on a claim that the police acted unreasonably under the Fourth Amendment and precipitated the suicide. Conradt v. NBC Universal, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14112 (S.D. N.Y. February 26, 2008): Although many of plaintiff's claims will be dismissed, the principal claims survive, for if the allegations of the amended complaint are proven, a reasonable jury could find that NBC crossed the line from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion into law enforcement. Rather than merely report on law enforcement's efforts to combat crime, NBC purportedly instigated and then placed itself squarely in the middle of a police operation, pushing the police to engage in tactics that were unnecessary and unwise, solely to generate more dramatic footage for a television show...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).