Among the items that Alamance County’s commissioners discussed behind closed doors on Monday was the recent resolution of a lawsuit that a local member of the Black Lives Matter movement had filed against Alamance County’s sheriff in 2023.
This lawsuit, which was summarily tossed out of federal court last Wednesday, was originally filed in state court by Maurice Wells, Jr. over his arrest at a demonstration that occurred in downtown Graham in the summer of 2020.
During the event, Wells was reportedly enmeshed in a feud between rival demonstrators over the ringing of a bell that had once stood in Graham’s Sesquicentennial Park. Sheriff Terry Johnson, who was on hand that afternoon, ordered the demonstrators to clear the scene at the conclusion of the permitted event. Wells reportedly defied this order, which led to his arrest and subsequent conviction in district court on the charges of disorderly conduct and failure to disperse.
In April of 2023, Wells sued Johnson in state court for allegedly orchestrating his arrest in retaliation for the legitimate expression of his First Amendment right to free speech. This case was later bumped up to the federal level, where it came under the jurisdiction of Chief District Judge Catherine Eagles.
An Obama appointee who has served on the district court bench since 2010, Eagles went on to preside over a year-long procedural squabble that saw dozens of court filings pingponging to and fro. This back-and-fourth culminated last month when Eagles reviewed two competing motions to dismiss the case ahead of a tentative trial date on August 12.
Last week, Eagles issued a 10-page order that dealt with both of these motions – and ultimately resolved the entire dispute in the sheriff’s favor. In her order, Eagles declared that Wells had failed to present anything that would suggest his 2020 arrest was anything other than by-the-book.
“Mr. Wells offers no evidence that his conviction was obtained by fraud or unfair means,” she asserts. “And he does not cite to any evidence calling into question the fairness of the [state] district court process.”
The judge added that the plaintiff had presented nothing to show that his arrest might’ve been both retaliatory and based on probable cause. She observed that the legal precedent for this paradoxical state of affairs requires an officer to make an arrest under circumstances when the alleged offense would ordinarily be shrugged off.
In the final analysis, Eagles concluded that the flimsiness of the plaintiff’s case makes it pointless for her to allow the trial to take place as scheduled.
“Mr. Wells cannot pursue his First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim based on lack of probable cause,” her order goes on to elaborate. “[H]is district court conviction establishes probable cause, and he has n\made no showing that the conviction was obtained fraudulently. Nor has he offered the kind of objective evidence that allows him [to proceed with the retaliation claim even in the presence of probable cause].”
Eagles went on to deny the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, accepted a corresponding motion from the Sheriff, and dismissed the case with prejudice.
