Henderson County woman sues sheriff's office, deputies for civil rights violations
ASHEVILLE — A Flat Rock resident has filed a pro se federal lawsuit against the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office and District Court Judge Emily Cowan, citing violations of her First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights as well as the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
Plaintiff Mackenzie Brown also names five members of the sheriff’s office, a Henderson County Detention Facility officer and a magistrate in her lawsuit, which was filed Sept. 14, 2023.
The legal action surrounds a specially wrapped sheriff’s cruiser, unveiled on Oct. 1, 2021, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Over the following week, the public was invited to sign or write notes on the car, which was wrapped partially in pink by Advent Health as a donation to the sheriff’s office.
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What events led to the lawsuit?
Around 12:30 p.m. the day the vehicle was unveiled, Brown claims she went to the Henderson County Magistrate’s Office and filed a criminal complaint of assault against her then-significant other, Dillon Branch, with the magistrate on duty, Susan N. Oats, one of the named defendants in the lawsuit.
Brown was pregnant at the time and claims Branch strangled her, squeezed her torso, came towards her with an axe and made statements about killing her just five days prior to Brown filing the criminal complaint, a copy of which was obtained by the Citizen Times.
On her way out of the magistrate’s office, Brown stopped at the pink patrol car, which had Sharpie markers laid out on the trunk and several markings made by the public along its body, Brown said in the lawsuit’s complaint. Brown filed the complaint without the help of a lawyer.
“There were not any rules, regulations, directions, instructions or clues posted in any way indicating what the public could, could not, should or should not write,” Brown wrote in the lawsuit. “I wrote ’12 SUX’ on the upper midsection of the vehicle. All 5 characters took up space no bigger than the palm of my hand.”
Her markings, as confirmed by court records, stands for "law enforcement sucks."
Brown was arrested later that day and charged with injury to personal property for $200 of damages to the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle, according to her arrest warrant obtained by the Citizen Times. She was given a secured bond of $2,000.
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Oats, who also served Brown her conditions of release from jail, told Brown the reason her bond amount was so high was because she had prior “failure to appears” in court, according to court filings from both the plaintiff and defendants.
During her arrest, Brown claims that named deputies in the lawsuit, Robert Warren and Crystal Landers, verbally abused her by calling her “a piece of s--t” and that Landers forced her into handcuffs with “an unnecessary amount of physical force,” according to court documents.
That same day, the sheriff’s office posted photos on their Facebook of Brown in handcuffs standing in front of the signed pink patrol car and stated Brown had vandalized the car.
“Seeing how Mackenzie is such a supporter of our pink patrol car we decided to allow her to be the first person to ride in the back seat of it and we also gave her a complimentary stay in the ole gray bar hotel,” the post reads.
While at the detention center, Brown contacted a friend to secure a bail bondsman for her, and a detention officer named in the lawsuit, Brittany Maybin, told Brown that one was on the way, according to both the plaintiff and the counsel for the defendants.
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About 30 minutes later, Maybin said Brown might have to stay the entire weekend because “we told (the bondsman) what you wrote, and they respect us, so they don’t want to come get you now,” according to a memorandum submitted by the defendants' counsel, Sean Perrin.
Brown bonded out of jail later in the evening that same day, according to court documents. In 2022, Brown was convicted of injury to person property in Henderson County District Court, which she appealed to superior court, and her charges were dismissed by the District Attorney’s Office.
In April of 2022, Brown went to the magistrate’s office to see if a warrant for assault had been served on her former partner, Branch. She was told by the magistrate on duty that there was no record of her original complaint form, which she had filed with Oats. Branch was later charged with assault on a female but died before the case was arraigned.
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Were Constitutional rights violated?
Brown claims that the defendants used "viewpoint-based discrimination" against her leading to her arrest "as a direct result of her expression that was protected under the First Amendment," according to her complaint. She also claims that the sheriff's deputies violated her Fourth Amendment rights by their "harassing or intimidating conduct" and by arresting her, which she calls an "unreasonable seizure ... without probable cause."
Brown states that her First Amendment rights were violated in the law enforcement's Facebook post, which she says publicized her "in a false light."
She also said that her rights under the 14th Amendment were violated by Maybin when she contacted the bonding company, and her rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act were violated by Oats when she allegedly failed to pursue Brown's "viable domestic violence assault investigation."
However, in a court order for dismissal of the lawsuit, defense attorney Perrin states there was probable cause for Brown's arrest, established by her guilty conviction in district court. He cites case law from courts in the Fourth Circuit, which have held that even when a conviction is overturned on appeal, the original conviction "conclusively establishes probable cause for arrest."
The Citizen Times reached out to Perrin, who said he doesn't comment on pending litigation.
Regarding the social media post, Perrin wrote the "plaintiff fails to allege that (Jonathan) Duncan’s posting of her mugshot 'alter[e]d or extinguishe[d]' her legal rights." Perrin stated that "simply defaming a party by making his or her mugshot public" does not state a claim, and Brown did not make a claim regarding how the social media post resulted in tangible injury to her reputation, such as employment.
He also states that Maybin's alleged act of contacting the bond companies does not carry a claim because any actions she took "did not adversely affect Brown's rights," since she bonded out of jail "less than three hours after being admitted."
Both parties await a ruling from the presiding judge, W. Carleton Metcalf.
Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Henderson County woman sues sheriff's office civil rights violations
