The official Ron Settles autopsy said likewise. They even listed suicide on the death certificate. However, when a private ME looked at it, he found evidence that changed the COD to homicide. Just wait until all the facts are in.
I missed your earlier post about this case. What a horrible decision. So do we really live in a police state now - or am I reading it incorrectly?
Does Rodriguez impact this at all? And if not, then what is the point of it?
You probably think that Bland autopsy was conducted by some podunk facility. It wasn’t. It was done by Harris County Medical Examiner, in Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, in Houston.
I very much doubt a private ME will find anything different.
Hasn’t Atwater been limited by Gant?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._Gant
Doesn’t Gant require “law enforcement officers to demonstrate an actual and continuing threat to their safety posed by an arrestee, or a need to preserve evidence related to the crime of arrest from tampering by the arrestee” none of which seems to be met in this case?
or have I misunderstood it?
BTW, not meant as a gotcha, but a genuine question since your a lawyer, I’m not, and you’ve always struck me as scrupulously fair when it comes to legal questions.
Someone (possibly you) keeps repeating these assertions about the Ron Settles case. I looked around a bit, and it doesn’t seem to be correct. Signicificant differences are that:
[ol]
[li]There was always evidence for both suicide and murder in the Settles case, and it was just a question of which injuries caused the death. That’s not the same as here, where the initial inquiry found no evidence of other serious injuries.[/li][li]Contrary to what you say here, it does not seem like there was ever a final consensus that Settles was killed. Different coroners reached different conclusions, and there it remains to this day.[/li][/ol]
Can you link to a source which supports your claims?
You have misunderstood it. Gant is related to warrantless vehicle searches. Atwater is related to arrest powers related to traffic violations.
Looks like two bouts of depression. March of 2015 and sometime in 2014.
…*But at a news conference on Thursday, a prosecutor said that the video from March suggests Bland “may have been suffering from some sort of mental illness.”
“That self-diagnosis is certainly something that we are going to look at and consider with a motive for a suicide,” Elton Mathis, the Waller County district attorney, said.
In the video, which was uploaded to Facebook and confirmed by her family, Bland says: “I want you guys to know that I am a human, and so if there are any of you that are dealing with those same things, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder — it’s OK.”*
*The Illinois woman who died of apparent “self-inflicted asphyxiation” in her Texas jail cell three days after her arrest during a routine traffic stop last week allegedly told jailers she’d tried to commit suicide last year, according to jail records.
…Jail intake forms released by the Waller County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday appear to show “yes” boxes checked on a questionnaire that asked “have you ever attempted suicide” and “have you thought about killing yourself in the last year?”
…According to the form, the suicide attempt was in 2014 — it appears as though “2015” was first entered, and “4” was then written over the final digit. The reason listed was “lost baby” and the method was “pills.” The form also asks, “are you thinking about killing yourself today,” and Bland apparently marked “no.”*
Now, John-Boy, do I make fun of your relentlessly Broderistic centrism? Oh, wait, yes, I do, don’t I? Well, OK, then, knock yourself out!
*A coroner’s jury found that he had died at the hands of another, and a subsequent second autopsy by the Suffolk County New York medical examiner’s office concluded that he’d probably been killed by a chokehold.
*
http://iowalawenforcementreporter.blogspot.com/2011/03/lonesome-death-of-ron-settles.html
Last September, a Los Angeles County coroner’s inquest ruled Settles died “at the hands of another.”
So, if I understand correctly, in Texas you can be arrested at the whim of an officer, whether or not it’s justified in any way, shape or form.
In this case, it certainly appears he ordered her out of the car for no real infraction whatsoever. Just because he could.
I’d especially like to hear from Bricker, because while if I was in her situation, I’d like to know exactly when and what and why I was being arrested. I chalk up her first refusal to comply to out-&-out incredulousness for his order.
Why not create a law that requires a cop to announce when/what/why they are putting the civilian under arrest? That might have saved everybody a lot of grief.
Does Miranda come in anywhere? Maybe there ought to be a law that he should state your Mirandas before he tears your door down, grabs you, or threatens to tase.
It would give him a chance to reflect on the cause of his arrest.
Yes, after you are arrested and before you are questioned by the police.
As far as I understood the Miranda Rights, it’s to ensure the suspect being arrested/incarcerated that they should seriously consider the 5th amendment and remain silent. I’m not sure it has to be vocalized before the arrest, but certainly at some point during.
The duty to warn only arises when police officers conduct custodial interrogations. The Constitution does not require that a defendant be advised of the Miranda rights as part of the arrest procedure, or once officer has probable cause to arrest, or if the defendant has become a suspect of the focus of an investigation. Custody and interrogation are the events that trigger the duty to warn.
If the police interrogate you without reading you your Miranda rights, they are forbidden from using anything you say during that interrogation in court. If they don’t interrogate you, or if they interrogate you only to find actionable intelligence and not to use what you say in court, they don’t need to read you your Miranda rights.
Custody & interrogation. Got it, thanks.
Sure enough, can’t trust any of them! One of them, real famous, seems like all he ever did was get thrown in jail and write letters about it! What he expected to accomplish doing that, Lord knows!
I blame television and social media.
I wonder how many people are dead or in prison because they watched too many Law & Order episodes and thought they were accurate?
Or read a legal opinion on the internet and accepted it without sourcing it.
One of the memes for Sandra Bland on social media is #She Knew Her Rights!
And she didn’t. 
It’s a common mistake to think that “Miranda Rights” apply at the time of arrest. You don’t actually have any “Miranda Rights”, though. That ruling just states that if the police do NOT inform of you of your right to remain silent, then they risk not being able to use what you say in court against you. Your right in this instance pre-dates Miranda, and is in the 5th amendment to the US Constitution. You always had that right, but Miranda made it necessary for cops to inform you of that right if they expect to be able to use your statements against you in court. That is not to say that they automatically won’t be able to, but that there is a good chance they won’t.
Please forgive me if it’s been mentioned, but it’s such a long thread.
Do we know when she was supposed to start her new job? I just imagined her trying to explain to her new employer that she was in jail. How stressful that must have been.
It must have weighed on her. Dreading that phone call, not sure what to say that wouldn’t cost her the brand new job.