O.C. jury sides with trucker in lawsuit over 2019 arrest by San Bernardino deputies
County supervisors voted Tuesday to settle the case for $500,000 after a jury found against the deputy on nearly everything.
A federal jury in Santa Ana, California, recently returned an unusual verdict: They sided with the plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit brought against law enforcement officers.
It’s happened in Orange County before, but the jury pool in the so-called Orange Curtain has a reputation as an unfriendly place for lawyers challenging police actions, which makes the recent decision by jurors to award trucker Tommy Franks, Jr., of Mesa, Arizona, $375,000 for his unlawful arrest, overnight jailing and malicious prosecution all the more remarkable.
It also underscores what the man’s lawyer described as particularly egregious facts arising from deputies stopping Franks as he walked behind a Winco grocery store while trying to deliver produce.
“This is what happens when the morons get into a rah rah we didn't do anything wrong session, and get themselves all jacked-up and tell each other that the deputy didn't do anything wrong,” Jerry Steering told me in an email. Steering has been suing police for decades, and he told me he’s never seen a more seemingly cop-friendly jury than the jury seated in U.S. District Judge John Holcomb’s courtroom for the 2 1/2 day trial on Jan. 30, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
“This was the most conservative jury I’ve ever seen,” Steering said. “Everybody had a cop connection.”
Jurors were to return March 3 to consider punitive damages, but the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to settle the case for $500,000.
Laurel Hoehn, who tried the case for the San Bernardino County Counsel’s Office, could not be reached for comment.
The jury’s Feb. 1 verdict was, for Steering, unheard of: Jurors determined Deputy Tyler Loup had reason to suspect Franks was engaged in criminal activity, but they said the length and scope of how he detained Franks was unreasonable. They also said he’d arrested Franks without probable cause.
“When the cops have a right to detain someone, I’ve never been able to convince a jury that the manner in which they were detained was unreasonable,” Steering said.
The jurors didn’t stop there. They also determined Loup caused Franks to be prosecuted for resisting police, and that his handcuffing of Franks constitutes excessive force. They also said Franks’ exercise of his right to free speech was “a substantial or motivating factor” in Loup “taking adverse actions” against him, according to the verdict form, and they concluded Loup did so “maliciously or in reckless disregard” for Franks’ First or Fourth Amendment rights.
It all began on Feb. 6, 2019, as Franks was walking back to his truck after notifying the manager of the Winco Foods in Apple Valley that he’d arrived with a delivery.
Steering’s written complaint lays out the details: With his clipboard and newly purchased muffins in hand, Franks was stopped by Loup and told he was loitering. Franks asked how he could be loitering if he was walking, and Loup ended up arresting him for refusing to identify himself. He was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car, then called an “idiot” by a sheriff’s supervisor when he complained about being wrongly arrested. Prosecutors never charged him with a crime.
Franks spent the night and jail in a cell with seven other men “who were all drunks and criminals” before being released on his own recognizance, Steering said. Steering said Loup admitted in testimony that he had no information about any intent by Franks to commit a crime, which is a key element of loitering.
Jurors deliberated about two hours before reaching their verdict on Feb. 1, Steering said. Franks and Loup were the only two witnesses two testify during the 2 1/2 day trial.
Steering described Franks as “a country guy who goes out and shoots bobcats in the desert” and charmed the jury with his Burl Ives-like persona.
“The smartest thing he did is he wore blue jeans and not a suit,” Steering said. “That wasn’t calculated. That’s just who he is.”
The case was originally going to be tried in the Central District of California’s Riverside courthouse, but it moved to Orange County when Judge Holcomb moved his chambers from Riverside to Santa Ana.