JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – A popular Madison attorney who took his own life after being arrested in connection with a 2014 political scandal could soon have his case heard in the nation’s highest court.
This week, attorneys for Mark Mayfield filed a petition seeking a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, months after the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for a rehearing in the case.
Attorneys for Mayfield say the petition should be granted, in part, because the Fifth didn’t follow its own precedent in handing down a ruling in the matter.
In July, the Fifth upheld a lower court’s ruling throwing out the case against the city of Madison and Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler. In August, the same court denied a motion for a rehearing.
Mayfield was arrested in 2014 for his alleged involvement in a scheme by supporters of State Sen. Chris McDaniel to photograph his opponent’s bedridden wife for political purposes.
The photo was supposed to be used to support claims of Sen. Thad Cochran’s alleged infidelity.
At the time, McDaniel was running for U.S. Senate against Cochran, a longtime incumbent, in what was one of the most competitive races in years.
Cochran’s wife, Rose, meanwhile, was living at St. Catherine’s Village, suffering from dementia. Court records indicate Mayfield was able to advise alleged co-conspirators on how to find Cochran’s room, in part, because a relative also lived there.
After the photo was published by local blogger Clayton Kelly, Kelly was arrested and charged.
Mayfield was later taken into custody and charged based on evidence obtained from Kelly’s social media accounts.
Court records indicate that after his arrest, Mayfield lost clients, was subject to media scrutiny, and was forced to stop his political activities in support of McDaniel and the Tea Party.
Three days after McDaniel lost the Republican runoff, Mayfield committed suicide.
Kelly was sentenced to five years in prison in 2015, with about half of that to serve. McDaniel was never implicated in the scandal and said he had no knowledge of it.
Mayfield’s family later filed suit against the city of Madison, Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, Police Chief Gene Waldrop, and others, alleging he was arrested for his support of McDaniel, in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights.
Warrants for Mayfield’s arrest showed he violated Mississippi Code 43-47-19(3), which prohibits “the posting of messages through electronic media for the purpose of causing injury to any persons with lewd intent.”
However, Mayfield did not take or post the photo, nor did he believe that it would be used for “lewd intent,” court records say.
Mayfield’s case was rejected in U.S. District Court, a ruling upheld by the Fifth.
For its part, the Court of Appeals ruled the arrest was not retaliatory because Mayfield’s family could not provide “comparator evidence,” or proof that others were not arrested despite being involved in similar activities.
In a dissenting opinion, Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho questioned how Mayfield’s family could track down that kind of evidence.
“This case is not just the latest example of officials abusing our criminal justice system to punish political adversaries. It’s also the most tragic,” he wrote.
The Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case could hinge on the fact that other circuit courts have different interpretations of what evidence could be used to show a retaliatory arrest.
Attorneys for Mayfield argue the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, for instance, allow statements made by arresting officers to be used.
“The question is whether the Fourth Amendment requires the government to have evidence supporting probable cause for the crime stated in the arrest search warrant, rather than some other crime not charged,” the briefing states.
Mayfield’s representatives also argue the case should be taken up because the Fifth departed from the precedent it set in previous cases.
That precedent held that “the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause to support the crime stated in the warrant.”
However, in Mayfield, the court’s decision ruled a warrant-based arrest could be supported by probable cause that a person committed a crime other than the one expressed in the warrant.
According to attorneys, it’s an error that the Supreme Court shouldn’t overlook.
“The court must view the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and questions of fact, and any ambiguities in the controlling substantive law must be resolved in the plaintiff’s favor.”
Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please click here to report it and include the headline of the story in your email.
Copyright 2023 WLBT. All rights reserved.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
