A Colorado woman who sued officers for unlawful arrest should not have had her own “cop watch” videos played at trial, the 10th Circuit Court ruled.
Sasha Cronick sued the City of Colorado Springs and its safety personnel after an incident that took place in the parking lot of the motel where she lived.
Judge Gregory Phillips summarized the case as follows: “The issue was meant to be, ‘Did the officers illegally arrest and search Cronick?’ It became, ‘Is Sasha Cronick a bad person?’
Ironically, the story begins with Cronick and the Colorado Springs safety forces working together. She called 911 to report an overdose, and she relayed the operator’s instructions to coach a neighbor’s efforts to revive the victim through CPR.
After the victim started breathing again, the operator said, “Sasha, you did a great job today. Thank you.”
Cronick talked to the responding police officers, who told her to stop filming and to leave the area. After an officer touched her, she screamed and called for her husband.
Officers handcuffed her and placed Cronick in their car, but they let her go with a court summons and a complaint for failure to desist or disperse. She was acquitted.
Cronick then sued the police department for unlawful search and arrest. She then posted videos about other police activity on social media, which she called “cop watching.”
The police presented 20 of these video clips at trial, showing Cronick berating officers and threatening lawsuits in situations not relating to the motel incident.
In one incident, Cronick called 911 to report domestic violence. When the responding officer asked if she was okay, Cronick responded, “I’m sure you beat your f—ing wife.”
In addition to allowing these videos, the court instructed the jury to presume that Cronick “regularly records police officers, and those recordings demonstrate (she) engages in behavior that is disruptive to police business.”
The jury ruled in favor of the officers, but the 10th Circuit reversed the decision and remanded the case for a new trial.
Phillips wrote that trial court’s admission of the video clips was an abuse of discretion.
“Cronick’s later police encounters had little probative value to her emotional damages underlying her … claims,” he wrote. “The videos risked tremendous unfair prejudice.
“They distract from the jury’s actual assignment: whether the officers violated Cronick’s rights by unlawfully arresting and searching her at the Sun Springs Motel.”
Philipps added that the jury instruction was also erroneous because it “invites forbidden propensity reasoning: Cronick disrupts the police at other times, so she did it this time, too.”
