Man was jailed for crude meme of fallen officer’s grave, suit says. Now he gets payout
A man who shared a crude, photoshopped meme of two people urinating on a grave with a fallen Tennessee police officer’s face on it was jailed over the Facebook post, according to a federal lawsuit.
Now, the man’s been awarded a payout after he sued Tennessee law enforcement officials over his arrest, his attorneys announced.
In 2021, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation launched a manhunt to find Joshua Garton, who’s now 29, after he posted the fake photograph — an edited image of a band’s 2009 album cover — under a pseudonym in January of that year, an amended complaint filed in Nashville federal court says.
The meme, which the complaint says was intended to criticize law enforcement, included an image of Dickson County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Daniel Scott Baker, who was killed in May 2018 while on-duty, according to the sheriff’s office.
Garton captioned the image with: “Just showing my respect to Deputy Daniel Baker from the #dicksonpolicedepartment,” the complaint shows.
After District Attorney W. Ray Crouch saw the Facebook meme and took offense to it, he “demanded” a joint task force investigation to find and arrest Garton, the complaint says.
Garton was ultimately arrested on a harassment charge and booked into the Dickson County Jail for nearly two weeks, according to the complaint, which says the charge was later dropped.
He went on to sue Crouch and TBI agents, accusing them of malicious prosecution, false arrest and violations of his First Amendment rights, the complaint shows.
Crouch and two TBI agents have now paid Garton $125,000 to settle the federal lawsuit, according to a news release from Garton’s attorneys provided to McClatchy News on Oct. 31.
“First Amendment retaliation is illegal, and law enforcement officials who arrest people for offending them will pay heavy consequences,” Garton’s lead counsel Daniel A. Horwitz, of Horwitz Law, PLLC, said in a statement.
“Misbehaving government officials apologize with money, and Mr. Garton considers more than $10,000.00 per day that he was illegally incarcerated to be an acceptable apology,” Horwitz added.
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, whose attorneys represented Crouch and the agents in the litigation, declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 31, according to an email from office communications director Amy L. Wilhite.
The lawsuit was officially dismissed on Oct. 30, when Garton’s attorneys filed a stipulation of dismissal, court records show.
“Plaintiff and defendants have agreed to settle the lawsuit without admitting or conceding any liability or damages, but to avoid the burden and expenses of continuing the litigation,” a settlement agreement attached to the news release that was filed Oct. 6 says.
‘He has a right to post. That doesn’t mean there are no consequences’
According to the lawsuit, Garton’s attorneys obtained text messages between Tennessee law enforcement officials through a public records request — arguing the messages show they were aware they violated Garton’s right to freedom of speech by pursuing a criminal case against him.
One message regarding Garton said: “He has a right to post. That doesn’t mean there are no consequences,” according to a screenshot included in the complaint.
In another text message the complaint says was sent by TBI Director David B. Rausch — who was terminated as a defendant in the lawsuit in January 2022 — Rausch appeared to indicate that arresting Garton for the Facebook post of the fallen officer was “appropriate.”
According to a screenshot included in the complaint, Rausch wrote: “Trolls will do what trolls do. It appears that they and the lawyers forget that there are surviving family members who have rights as well” in the text message.
He went on to characterize Garton and his attorneys as “the same folks who called the insurrection at the Capitol free speech.”
The TBI declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 31.
First Amendment protects ‘offensive’ speech
In the lawsuit, Garton’s attorneys acknowledged that while their client’s Facebook post was offensive, his speech is still protected by the First Amendment.
His attorneys cited the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case of Texas v. Johnson in which the court wrote the “bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” according to the complaint.
The criminal case was dismissed against Garton after he was represented by Jake Lockert, a now-retired 23rd Judicial District public defender, the news release said.
“The right to criticize our government is not merely fundamental, it is essential to democracy,” Brice Timmons, another attorney who represented Garton, said in a statement.
Deputy pulls gun on wrong man and books him into SC jail for two nights, lawsuit says
Man acquitted in fiancée’s 1998 death accuses cold-case detective of lying in court
Innocent man accused of murder was jailed — forcing family into homelessness, suit says
Muslim woman forced to take off hijab for police mugshot or stay in jail, lawsuit says
