Federal Judiciary

Suicidal Maniacs and the Fourth Amendment

By Robert Loblaw

Mora v. City of Gaithersburg, 06-2158 (4^th Cir., Mar. 4, 2008)

Today, a panel of the Fourth Circuit issued an interesting decision rejecting the constitutional claims of plaintiff Anthony Mora, who alleges that police violated his rights by searching his home and seizing his weapons following Mora?s call to a suicide hotline. Mora, a local firefighter, had told the hotline operator that he “had weapons in his apartment, could understand shooting people at work, and said, ?I might as well die at work.?” Within minutes, officers were at Mora?s home. Mora was handcuffed, his home was searched without a warrant, and police seized more than forty weapons, five thousand rounds of ammunition, and plenty of “survivalist” literature. Police decided that Mora needed treatment, and he voluntarily committed himself. No charges were ever filed against Mora, but the government kept his cache.

Eventually Mora sued for the return of his property and for damages based on violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district courts dismissed his claims, and the Fourth Circuit largely affirms. Writing for the Court, Judge Wilkinson begins by explaining the high stakes that officers face in this kind of situation:

At Columbine High School in Littleton, in Blacksburg, Omaha, and Oklahoma City, America has had to learn how many victims the violence of just one or two outcasts can claim. These new predators are not terrorists in the ordinary sense; they are not linked to foreign powers or international organizations hostile to the United States. They are often isolated but heavily armed, filled to the brim with rage and anguish, and bent not just on murder, but on indiscriminate slaughter followed, frequently, by suicide. Violent derangement is nothing new, of course, but the atrocities seem to be growing at once more shocking and more commonplace.

Hyperbole, or cogent legal analysis? You be the judge.

Full post as published by Decision of the Day on March 04, 2008 (boomark / email).