Federal Court Allows Civil Rights Case Against Baltimore Cop Who Inspired a Character on The Wire

At the Maryland Appellate Blog, Jonathan Biran reports on a
recent federal court ruling that centers on two subjects near and
dear to the hearts of libertarians: alleged police misconduct and
David Simon’s acclaimed HBO series The Wire. Biran
writes:

On September 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit issued an opinion in Owens v.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office et
al., largely vacating a lower court’s dismissal of a
[federal civil rights] action brought by James Owens seeking
damages for wrongful conduct by Baltimore City police officers and
an assistant state’s attorney that, Owens alleges, resulted in his
spending more than two decades in prison for a rape and murder he
didn’t commit. If Owens can prove his allegations of intentional
suppression of exculpatory evidence by police, it will be a
tremendous black eye for the Baltimore City Police Department and
perhaps in particular for Jay Landsman, a former BCPD
detective sergeant who lent his name to a character in
HBO’s The Wire and who also acted in that series.

Read the rest here.

(Thanks to How
Appealing for the link.)

Click below to see why Reason TV recently named The
Wire one of the “5 best libertarian TV shows ever.”