Mathews: California should hold masked federal agents accountable under this 1970s court ruling

Might the answer to Los Angeles present urgency how to stop masked federal agents from seizing its people lie in a half-century-old story from Humboldt County On April a young hippie couple Dirk Dickenson and Judy Arnold were in their remote cabin near unincorporated Garberville when federal drug agents and county sheriff s personnel assisted by a U S Army helicopter launched a raid The sheriff promised reporters who came along that this would be biggest bust in California history Lloyd Clifton an agent of the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs now the DEA broke down the cabin door without knocking or announcing himself as law enforcement He and other agents wore jeans and tie-dyed shirts instead of uniforms and kept their hair long Arnold and Dickenson thought they were being robbed Related Articles Mother of migrant killed during California Dividing line Patrol chase files wrongful death suit Who s in ICE detention in California According to ICE less than are criminals Democrat-led states have rolled back Medicaid access for people lacking permanent legal status Venezuela frees detained Americans in three-country deal that also has El Salvador release settlers deported by US Tears and frustration at California immigration court where a lawyer fears for his clients safety Dickenson unarmed ran out the back door Clifton gave chase and shot him in the back Dickenson died on the way to a Eureka hospital What happened next caused a shame The agents couldn t find the PCP lab or any evidence of a drug enterprise on the property or inside a cabin without electricity or running water The U S Department of Justice defended the federal agent expeditiously declaring Dickenson s execution a justifiable homicide But Humboldt County district attorney William Ferroggiaro nothing that federal agents must obey state and local laws investigated and took his development to a grand jury which charged Clifton with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter Clifton s indictment spurred a court fight which ended up establishing a legal path for holding federal agents accountable for abuses The existence of such a path may surprise currently s Californians That s because our police insist that they are powerless to challenge unlawful actions or abuses by federal agents Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell advised officers that when called to a scene where citizens allege federal abuses all they can do is verify the identities of federal agents In this position McDonnell and police are not just wrong they are violating their oaths to enforce state and local laws The Clifton scenario makes this plain In agent Clifton first demanded state courts to drop the prosecution but multiple judges refused With the trial about to start Clifton appealed to the federal courts arguing that as a federal agent he was beyond the reach of state law The federal courts did not accept Clifton s argument But in Clifton succeeded in convincing the U S Ninth Circuit to free him on the argument that he reasonably and honestly presumed Dickenson was dangerous In his Clifton v Cox ruling U S Judge Stanley Conti wrote that federal law enforcements personnel could be prosecuted for state and local crimes when the official employs means which he cannot honestly consider reasonable in discharging his duties or otherwise acts out of malice or with several criminal intent Establishing malice and criminal intent is a high bar but Californians eager to pursue ICE personnel are revisiting the Clifton standard New federal abuses captured on video would seem to meet the Clifton test for prosecution The Clifton standard should open the door for local police to investigate and document every single ICE raid Given the scale of the federal assault police departments should create a joint task force Little has changed since the s In those Northern California drug raids as with the present day s immigration raids federal agents seized people on little evidence failed to identify themselves received military assistance that helicopter and dressed like criminals rather than law enforcement The Nixon administration like the Trump regime justified its own lawlessness by claiming that the targets of raids were radicals After the episode Clifton continued his federal career He died in Dickenson was buried outside Sacramento His precedent-setting matter remains very much alive Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Z calo General Square