Appeals court upholds Mt. Clemens police misconduct convictions

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the convictions of three Mt. Clemens police officers for perjury and obstruction of justice after an incident in which several officers held down and beat a man during a traffic stop and then conspired to cover up the truth about the incident. See full ruling here.

The case involves four Mt. Clemens police officers — Patrick Carson, Robert Hey, Peter and Robert Jacquemain. According to the ruling, the incident occurred on July 27, 2002, when Hey, who was off-duty at the time, got into a road rage situation with another driver as both drivers tailgated and cut each other, braking abruptly. Hey then called into the police station and told them that the other driver, Robert Paxton, had tried to run him off the road.

Five officers responded in three police cars, pulling Paxton over in a residential neighborhood. One of the officers at the scene, Duane Poucher, testified that Robert Jacquemain ran to Paxton’s car, pulled him out and threw him to the ground on his head. Then several officers held Paxton down while others punched and kicked him while yelling profanities at him and saying this would “teach him to go up against a police officer.”. Several people in the neighborhood witnessed the event and testified in the case.

The ruling then describes how the officers conspired to tell the story that Paxton had gotten out of his car and charged at them to justify the assault:

When Poucher returned to the station, he found Robert Jacquemain and Hey in the squad room. Poucher testified that Robert Jacquemain told him that “we’re going to say that he got out of the car, we’re going to say that he came at us.” Poucher
interpreted this to mean that Paxton had been physically injured, and, thus, the officers were going to report that Paxton was the aggressor to avoid “get[ting] in trouble for beating him up.” According to Poucher, the officers had discussions regarding their
reports, and he was given a copy of Carson’s report as a template, so that the reports would coincide with one another. Each officer’s report, with the exception of Hey’s, indicated that Paxton was the aggressor. The reports of Carson, Poucher, Peter
Jacquemain, and Robert Jacquemain all stated that Paxton exited his vehicle, charged at the officers in a threatening manner, and struggled with the officers. Hey’s report only recounted his road rage incident with Paxton and merely noted that he observed Paxton’s vehicle parked near the patrol cars.

After Paxton filed a civil suit over the incident, the U.S. Department of Justice began an investigation and a grand jury indicted the officers, who were convicted in June, 2004. They then appealed their convictions, claiming that the prosecutor had prejudiced the jury by claiming that Poucher’s guilty plea was evidence that the other defendants were guilty, and the appeals court has now rejected their arguments and upheld the convictions.