A professor who represented a Louisiana family in a civil lawsuit against the Baton Rouge Police Department has filed a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging that it retaliated against him for releasing police body-camera footage to the media.
University of Virginia law professor Thomas Frampton filed the complaint in the Middle District of Louisiana last month. The complaint noted the city petitioned a Baton Rouge juvenile court to hold Frampton in contempt for releasing video depicting how officers strip-searched 23-year-old Clarence Green and his under-age brother after a traffic stop.
Police officers also conducted a warrantless search of the Green family’s home after Clarence Green’s arrest.
The city’s action amounts to retaliation against Frampton, who won a $35,000 settlement for the Green family, according to the complaint. And the released video had already been entered as a public exhibit in a court record, the lawsuit states.
In its petition to the Parish of East Baton Rouge juvenile court, the city said it has received a substantial number of negative responses from the public over the airing of “edited body camera footage” in a story about the strip search on the CBS Nightly News.
A court order allowing the city to release the unedited video will explain all the events that led to the arrest, the petition states.
"This case is highly significant because it is part of a disturbing trend of Louisiana law enforcement agencies responding to criticism with arrests and threats of jail time,” New Orleans attorney William Most, who represents Frampton, said in an email to the Louisiana Record. “It cannot be allowed to continue."
Frampton has also filed a motion in state court citing a Louisiana law that bars SLAPP actions (strategic lawsuits against public participation). The state’s anti-SLAPP law is typically used by those who feel they have been attacked for exercising their free-speech rights.
The city contends that Frampton violated a state law that mandates reports relating to proceedings before a juvenile court be kept confidential.
But this description of events is flawed because none of the events in the traffic stop and subsequent strip search involved a juvenile court proceeding, according to Most. Clarence Green’s underage brother was never charged with a crime, Frampton’s federal lawsuit states.