I debated whether to start this post with the porn…or Andy Griffith.
Mayberry won.
I’ve always loved The Andy Griffith Show. There are so many classic episodes!
(Did you know Barney Fife carried a machinegun in an episode? I’m saving that one for a future post.)
One of the best episodes was the “Citizen’s Arrest” one. If you’ve seen it, I know you can hear Gomer Pyle shouting it in your head. If you haven’t, watch the classic scene here.
Even back then, the idea of a “citizen’s arrest“ was quaint and comical. But citizen’s arrest is a real thing. It might seem outdated in an age of modern policing but it can still serve important (if narrow) purposes.
Of course, it can also pose obvious and significant risks. For instance, last week the 11th Circuit upheld the federal convictions of three men for killing Ahmaud Arbery in what the men characterized as an attempted citizen’s arrest.
Or take this crazy case from Nevada.
Charlotte and Lucy Campbell were a married couple that made pornographic movies. Charlotte posted some of the videos to her social media. (I don’t know any more than that about the “content” they produced or where to find it.)
Whatever was in those videos, it disgusted Georgio Mont Ser. He thought they violated federal obscenity laws. He reported his complaints to several law enforcement agencies but when none were interested, he took matters into his own hands. (C’mon now! I mean he tried to arrest them himself.)
He first went to their house disguised as a pizza delivery guy…armed with a taser, handcuffs, duct tape, and pepper spray. When one of the women answered the door, he tried to grab her. She pulled free and locked the door and called the police. They arrested Ser but nothing came of it.
He came back. The second time he didn’t encounter the women.
So he came back again. This time, Charlotte saw him and ran upstairs to grab her gun. Ser entered the home and ran after her, tackling and punching her. She got some rounds off but didn’t hit him. He wrestled the gun from her but not before she unloaded it. She scrambled away to call 911. Police came and arrested Ser (again).
This time he was charged with attempted kidnapping, burglary, assault, and gun charges.
He tried to present a citizen’s arrest defense but the trial court judge (who I knew when I was an ATF supervisor in Vegas and he was a federal prosecutor), denied it. Ser was convicted.
This week the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed Ser’s conviction. It reasoned that although Nevada law provides robust citizen’s arrest provisions (something that alarms the court), the law does not extend to federal felonies not committed in the citizen’s presence. The analogous state obscenity offense is only a misdemeanor, so that didn’t save him either.
Ser is locked up in the prison in Lovelock, NV. Fitting, since it was video of a love lock that led him there.
You can read the opinion here.