Judge Guts Trump-Era Case Against Rocker Raided For Photo Shoot Promoting His Band

A senior federal decide has gutted a felony case championed by a Trump-appointed high federal prosecutor in opposition to a rock musician who posted promotional photographs for his band on Fb and had his dwelling raided because of this.

Justin Coffman, a member of an anarcho-punk band known as The Gunpowder Plot, was the goal of a June 2020 dwelling raid in Jackson, Tennessee, after he posted three professionally shot photos on his band’s Fb web page. The photographs confirmed him standing in entrance of a police car and posing with a pretend Molotov cocktail behind his again.

Months after the raid, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Western District of Tennessee charged Coffman below a not often used statute that makes it illegal to own weapons as a person of an unlawful drug. The cost has generally been used in opposition to white supremacists who espouse violence, however it was used right here to focus on a member of a rock band with an antifascist theatrical motif.

Coffman was a authorized gun proprietor, however regulation enforcement discovered a small quantity of marijuana at his dwelling through the raid. This, mixed with Coffman’s admission that he used marijuana, gave authorities the idea for a federal cost.

Former U.S. Lawyer Mike Dunavant, a Donald Trump appointee who has repeatedly demonstrated his dedication to the previous president, held a press convention months after the raid to tout what he described because the “excellent investigative work” within the case.

However Chief U.S. District Choose S. Thomas Anderson, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, didn’t assume a lot of the investigative work.

In a outstanding ruling on Friday, Anderson ordered the proof collected within the raid to be suppressed, discovering that the search of Coffman’s residence was unconstitutional and that no cheap officer appearing in good religion may have believed the search warrant was proof of possible trigger to look the house.

Based mostly on the totality of the affidavit, Anderson wrote, “a fairly prudent individual wouldn’t be warranted in believing that Coffman was in possession of a hoax system or improvised explosive incendiary system.”

Anderson wrote that the affidavit “obviously” omitted the truth that The Gunpowder Plot is Coffman’s band, “though that info was doubtlessly simply accessible and recognized by the affiant and would have been extremely related” to the native decide who discovered possible trigger to execute the search warrant.

“On this occasion, cheap officers appearing on the search warrant couldn’t have harbored an objectively cheap perception within the existence of possible trigger, given the ‘naked bones’ nature of the affidavit,” Anderson wrote.

The federal government, Anderson wrote, “asks the Courtroom to make a sequence of inferences from disparate occasions or information with out establishing the relationships between these inferences and the idea of data underpinning stated inferences.”

Anderson’s order tears aside the affidavit, written by Jackson Police Maj. Phillip Kemper, that fashioned the idea for the search of Coffman’s home. Anderson wrote that Kemper, in addition to others like Jackson Police Lt. Chris Chestnut, ought to have had the widespread sense to comprehend that Coffman’s extremely curated and First Modification-protected photos to advertise his band didn’t supply an affordable foundation to look his dwelling.

Shortly after Lieutenant Chestnut knowledgeable his acquaintance that the police wished to talk with him, Coffman known as the Lieutenant and knowledgeable him that the obvious Molotov cocktail was not, actually, a Molotov cocktail. Quite, it was a prop stuffed with apple juice that Coffman was utilizing in photos to help or promote his musical band. Coffman acknowledged that the photographs have been taken “beforehand,” presumably not across the date they have been posted. The affidavit doesn’t set up a foundation for questioning Coffman’s credibility. Certainly, the extremely dramatic and evidently fastidiously curated look of the photographs and accompanying quote appears to lend credence to the speculation that they’re promotional photos for a Rock band.

Coffman’s lawyer Alex Camp stated the decide’s order ought to successfully finish the federal case, however that the state case continues to be ongoing ― despite the fact that the related “hoax system” Tennessee regulation gives a particular exception for dramatic performances. (“Arguably, Coffman’s acknowledged causes of making the photographs as promotional, inventive, photos for his musical band” fall below the “dramatic performances” exception to the regulation, the federal decide wrote.)

Officers, Camp wrote in his profitable movement to suppress the proof in opposition to Coffman, “have been conscious that the Defendant was a musician in a band. Moreover, officers have been conscious of the band’s identify, the Defendant’s stage identify, and the aim of his Fb publish supporting his album,” however “nonetheless confronted the Defendant.”

Even after Trump left workplace, federal prosectors defended the search warrant and the case. Joseph Murphy, the appearing U.S. Lawyer for the Western District of Tennessee, and Assistant U.S. Lawyer Hillary Lawler Parham requested the court docket in early July to think about “the state of civil unrest and protest” in America following the loss of life of George Floyd final 12 months, saying it helped put the affidavit in opposition to Coffman in context.

Coffman, in an announcement to HuffPost, stated the case was “an amazing instance of an overreach executed by authority figures to silence somebody with whom they disagree with or opposes their establishment,” and that it went in opposition to “the very rights within the structure they made an oath to uphold.”

“Circumstances like this are one motive we want main reformation of regulation enforcement businesses throughout the nation,” Coffman stated. “Going via this has triggered me hell and a number of hassle, however I cannot be deterred. I cannot be silenced by intimidation.”

Coffman additionally thanked his girlfriend, Leah, in addition to a HuffPost reader who paid his bail bond on the state cost and allowed Coffman to get out of jail after a month behind bars.

Dunavant, the previous U.S. legal professional ― who has posted “Blissful Birthday” messages to Trump, as properly a photo of himself holding a “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN” signal at a Trump rally ― didn’t reply to a message looking for remark.

Dunavant now works as chief investigative counsel for Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Jason Mumpower, who has described Dunavant as a “extensively revered public servant and a talented legal professional” with “expertise and knowledge.”