'They ain't explaining': Black man's appeal in Smokies arrest moves to Court of Appeals

Marvin Minor is out of jail and back home, but his legal fight with the National Park Service isn’t over just yet.

“They ain’t explaining how I violated the law,” Minor said when reached by phone Oct. 26 in Mississippi. It has been a rough few months for him, he said.

The Citizen Times first reported in June that Minor, a Black man who was on his way to the Tennessee mountains, was arrested by white National Park Service Ranger James Westin Mullins on July 25, 2020. Minor was riding passenger in his then-girlfriend’s car, en route to see family. Mullins pulled the two over for allegedly crossing the center line.

No citation was written for that alleged offense, but Minor left in the back of the ranger’s car. He was charged with failure to obey a lawful order, having an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle and fighting with an officer.

Video of the arrest shows that things went south when Mullins noticed beer in the car. Minor reached to the back to retrieve open beer and explained that it was his and not the driver’s. But Mullins believed it might be a weapon, he testified. He ordered Minor out of the car for a frisk.

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The stop took a turn for the worst when Minor misunderstood directions that Mullins gave him, he told the Citizen Times.

He kept his hands to the car’s roof, waiting to be frisked. Mullins attempted to place them behind his back, and Minor asked what he was doing. After some apparent frustration, Mullins tackled him to the ground, and the two went rolling down a wet hill. Minor got up, moving his elbow as he did so, and returned to the car. That elbow movement was the main argument for him “fighting,” though a magistrate judge noted that the charge could be “more accurately described” as disorderly conduct.

Sentenced by Magistrate Judge W. Carleton Metcalf on March 29, Minor served four months in a small Kentucky jail. The United States Marshals Service never provided the Citizen Times with a definitive answer as to why he was kept in a jail so far from the incident and the sentencing, but noted that Marshals will “move prisoners around for whatever reasons we need to. It can range from safety to just bed space issues.”

“The only thing … I seen that I done was ask questions,” Minor said of his arrest Oct. 26. “Trying to find out what’s the problem. It’s crazy, but that’s life, man.”

Minor’s most recent attorney – Rick Foster of Asheville – questioned the legality of the stop, frisk and arrest in an appellant’s brief earlier this year. But upon revisiting the case, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Martin Reidinger concluded in an Aug. 16 opinion that the court made no error in finding Minor guilty or sentencing him.

Foster raised familiar challenges in a new brief filed on Oct. 17, this time to the federal Court of Appeals, writing:

• “The ‘fight’ with the officer was not a ‘fight’ at all, as Officer Mullins unilaterally engaged in the physical conflict and Mr. Minor simply returned to his submissive position at the car when it ended.”

• “Mr. Minor did not fail to heed Officer Mullins’s instructions before refusing to allow himself to be incapacitated by handcuffs.”

• “Officer Mullins’s attempt to handcuff Mr. Minor exceeded the officer’s constitutional authority.”

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“Because it was not reasonable to believe Mr. Minor was armed and dangerous, Officer Mullins’s ‘command’ to Mr. Minor to submit to a frisk violated the Fourth Amendment,” Foster wrote in his conclusion. “Thus, any evidence following the unconstitutional seizure of Mr. Minor is inadmissible against him in federal court and this Court must vacate his convictions for disobedience and what the government calls fighting.”

Minor requested that an oral argument be heard “due to the complexity and importance of the issue presented in this case,” Foster wrote.

Foster declined to comment for this story.

The federal Department of Justice, representing the National Park Service, can now submit its own brief to the Court of Appeals.

Ryan Oehrli is the Public Safety Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Send tips to coehrli@citizentimes.com

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Marvin Minor's appeal in Smokies arrest moves to Court of Appeals