PANAMA CITY — Jurors have decided the Bay County Sheriff’s Office violated a confidential informant’s constitutional rights by arresting him during his service.
After deliberating almost four hours Thursday, an all-female jury determined that Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Smith did not have probable cause to arrest Richard Mullinax in June 2011 and that Sheriff Frank McKeithen ratified the unconstitutional arrest.
However, Mullinax, who filed the civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern Florida, was not rewarded damages.
“We’re grateful to the jury we got a verdict on the constitutional violation,” said Marie Maddox, Mullinax’s attorney.
The jury also found McKeithen personally did not violate Mullinax’s rights.
“I am disappointed with some of the verdict, but I accept full responsibility and make no excuses,” McKeithen said after the verdict was announced.
During the trial, Mullinax argued that BCSO deprived him of his rights by arresting him without probable cause. However, BCSO argued that he was arrested because he was not a suitable confidential informant and violated the terms of his release.
Mullinax had been released on a 60-day medical furlough in June 2011 after a plea deal on drug charges was reached between state prosecutors and his public defender. As an unwritten part of the deal, Mullinax was required to be a confidential informant, the attorneys testified.
Prosecutor Megan Ford said the furlough actually was a cover-up for his service as a confidential informant.
“We were trying to hide the fact he was going to be an informant,” she told jurors. “We were concerned about announcing he would be working for the state in front of a courtroom of inmates.”
In exchange for his cooperation, Mullinax was to receive 18 months instead of three years in prison.
“It was like we were killing two birds with one stone,” defense attorney Robert Boyette said. “He’d work for the Sheriff’s Office and get medical treatment.”
However, Mullinax was back in custody two days later.
It was because McKeithen didn’t like the confidential informant agreement, if you asked Mullinax — or because Mullinax was no longer a viable informant, if you asked BCSO.
“They had no animosity against Mullinax,” said Lisa Truckenbrod, BCSO’s attorney. “It had to do with him not being a fit confidential informant.”
While several events that led to his arrest were contested in court, both sides agreed that Mullinax had not committed a crime before he was arrested the second time. He was trying to check himself into a local hospital for a nervous breakdown when Smith arrested him, although officers said they believed he could be a danger to himself or others.
“It was not Mullinax’s fault the confidential informant agreement did not work out, and a judge gave him the benefit of the doubt,” Maddox said.
A Circuit Court judge sided with revoking the medical furlough, and Mullinax was sentenced to serve the 18 months in prison. Although he received the sentence originally agreed upon in his plea, he continued to argue that BCSO overstepped its authority by arresting him without cause.
“To hold someone against their will is wrong,” Maddox said. “It’s illegal.”
However, jurors did not find that Mullinax’s arrest caused him any damage.