Legal News

Backfired! Rove-ing Iowa Cops Convicted of Trespass

By Ashby Jones

It’s a dilemma that hits every time we bust out our sheriff badge and try to make a citizen’s arrest (it happens a lot on the subway and at Starbucks): Is the arrest hunky-dory or will we, well-intentioned though we might be, be ourselves arrested for trying such a maneuver (ah, the injustice!)?

But since July, when this how-to was published on Huffington Post, things have gone a lot smoother for us (Yes, in most states, citizen’s arrests are legal.) Some things we try to keep in mind: It’s always good to call the police too (just in case), and say “stop!” loudly and forcefully before making the arrest.

We wonder this morning if an Iowa foursome who tried to arrest Karl Rove back in July is wishing they’d had a tutorial on the topic. The four were cited for trespassing after attempting a citizen’s arrest of Rove at the Wakonda County Club in Des Moines, where he spoke at a Republican fundraiser. They were stopped at the country club’s entry gate. On Friday, a jury returned guilty verdict against all four. Here’s the story, from the AP.

In the citizens arrest complaint, the defendants accused Rove of felony murder, election fraud, conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States leading to the war in Iraq, as well as treason, sedition and subversive activities.

One of the arrestees, Mona Shaw, said she was disappointed by the verdict, especially since the judge instructed the jury that a citizen’s arrest was justification for being on the grounds if jurors thought the defendants had reasonable cause to believe that there was someone there who had committed a felony.

Said Shaw to the AP after the verdict: “I’m surprised that there are six people in the United States who don’t believe Karl Rove should be suspected of committing felonies.”

Photo: Getty Images

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on November 24, 2008 (boomark / email).