Sunday column by Ben Rich -- "St Johns County Sheriff's Office oversteps again" -- calls for federal grand jury to investigate constitutional rights violations by Sherirr DAVID BERNARD SHOAR

Guest column: St. Johns County Sheriff's Office oversteps again
Posted: April 27, 2014 - 12:12am By BEN RICH
St. Augustine
Once again our Sheriff’s Office has managed to make the national stage, and once again the people of St. Johns County are forced to hang their heads in shame. We have suffered in the past, suicide/homicide debacles, questionable civilian shootings, racially-motivated police beat-downs and other incidents of notoriety and questionable constitutional violations.
Once again, your Constitution is on the line. It’s the only document that protects your personal freedoms and the piece of paper that millions of American men and women have bled and died defending.
As an instructor/course developer at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, my students, future special agents, were required to memorize the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The reason? For law enforcement officers, it contains the most important rights, requires constant vigilance and is reviewed semi-annually by all departments so that agents can be updated concerning the most recent U.S. court decisions (District, Appellate and Supreme).
The Fourth Amendment begins with these words; “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...” There are numerous judicial findings in case law where it has been violated by overzealous or incompetent law enforcement individuals and departments. And now, due to the affirmation of the U.S. District Court’s findings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 12-13871, D.C. Docket No. 3:09-cv-01208-TMC-MCR (24 pages), St. Johns County residents get to once again wear the hat of shame regarding the conduct of the Sheriff’s Office. However, this time, I expect a federal grand jury to weigh in on the case.
In this case, two detectives of the SJCSO clandestinely, through electronic eavesdropping, monitored audio and video conversations that were subject to attorney/client privilege. That illegal monitoring led to a physical altercation and illegal warrantless seizure of document(s) from a defense attorney by SJCSO deputies.
In its finding to uphold the lower court decision, the U.S. Appeals Court stated that the victim “... must show that the Fourth Amendment was violated and that the conduct of the officers was unconstitutional.” It found both to be clearly true. SJCSO claimed that the officers involved had “qualified immunity” from prosecution due to their appointed law enforcement positions.
The court found that, “Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable, but mistaken, judgments, and protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”
A finding of either incompetence or treachery is an indictment of management and the sheriff himself. In this case the SJCSO may be guilty of both, but only a federal grand jury can ferret out the truth.
It is important to note in its decision, the Appeals Court cited this quote, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Olmstead v. United States (1928) Supreme Court (Justice Brandeis dissenting).
The question that the Justice Department should be asking is, “Was this an isolated incident by incompetent law enforcement officers seeking a misdemeanor conviction a standard practice/unwritten procedure by a law enforcement agency, used over an extended period of time, to obtain convictions of countless other individuals? Or some hybrid mixture of the two?
Rich is a former St. Johns County Commissioner, District 3 (and former federal agent).