According to a lawsuit, Corey King, a police captain in Washington County, Georgia, conspired with his friends magistrate Ralph O. Todd and Sheriff’s Investigator Trey Burgamy to arrest King’s ex-wife, Anne King, and her friend, Susan Hines, for a Facebook exchange in which they commiserated over Captain King’s refusal to pick up medicine for his sick children.
Both women were jailed (Ms King was handcuffed!) and then released by a real judge (as opposed to a dipshit, small-town magistrate) who blasted all three for the two women’s arrest (“I don’t even know why we’re here”) and the state’s attorney dropped the charge. Captain King has threatened to re-arrest his ex-wife, saying, “don’t make the mistake of going to Facebook with your little shit you found to fuss about” and suggesting she could face “willful contempt” if she does so.
Ann King is suing Captain King, Investigator Burgamy, and Washington County, but can’t sue Magistrate Todd because he has judicial immunity.
Anne King’s story is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a rare one. Particularly with the rise of social media, law enforcement officers across the country have been abusing the legal system to retaliate against insults: from the police supporting Jim Ardis’ petty and petulant revenge in Peoria, the Renton PD investigated satirical videos, and the Parma PD prosecuted a man through trial for a satirical account.
Anne King has First Amendment rights, in theory. Their nature and extent are well defined by the courts. It’s straightforward to respect them. But what does it mean to say she has those rights? In Washington County, Georgia — population approximately 21,000 — with a hostile ex-husband a Captain of the Sheriff’s Department, and with Ralph Todd as a magistrate, does she really have them in any meaningful way? What is a right, when the state defies it?
Rights And Reality: Georgia Cop Jails Ex-Wife For Facebook Gripe
[Ken White/Popehat]