Federal jury awards $30,000 in ICE case

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A jury has awarded a woman $30,000 for false imprisonment after she was held in the Anoka County jail without access to an attorney, then turned over to federal immigration authorities.

But the federal jury found that Myriam Parada, 24, suffered no actual damages based on her constitutional claim. It granted her a nominal $1 judgment on that claim.

The jury’s verdict in Parada v. Anoka County came down on Jan. 28, after several hours of deliberation.

According to ACLU Minnesota, which filed suit on Parada’s behalf, the jury awarded damages after finding that jailers had slow-walked Parada’s booking process in July 2017, while they arranged to turn her over to the feds.

Those actions were part of Anoka County Sheriff James Stuart’s strict but unwritten policy of referring all foreign-born detainees, irrespective of legal status, to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, plaintiff’s lawyers said.

Minnesota’s U.S. District Court Chief Judge John R. Tunheim last year agreed.

In late July, he ruled that the county’s policy was a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution. It “discriminates on the basis of national origin” and “is not narrowly tailored,” that ruling states. Tunheim also presided over last week’s jury trial.

The county’s ICE-referral policy was immediately discontinued, said Anoka County Attorney Tony Palumbo. He said he was unaware of Stuart’s policy while it was in force.

“The sheriff is an independent, elected official and the sheriff makes his policies,” Palumbo said. “I’m sure there are hundreds of policies over there that I am not aware of and that I don’t oversee — unless for any particular reason it comes to light and we have some question of constitutionality.”

First remote trial

Last week’s three-day jury trial was the first remote civil jury trial held by Minnesota’s U.S. District courts since the peacetime pandemic emergency was declared.

It was held, in part, to determine monetary damages on Parada’s constitutional claim. But it also resolved her state-law claim for false imprisonment, which Tunheim last year decided to put before the jury.

According to ACLU Minnesota attorney Ian Bratlie, who was on Parada’s legal team, Parada is a Mexican native who overstayed her visa, so she is categorized as a “visa overstay.” However, she is married to an American citizen and is currently adjusting her status through her marriage.

“So her status is technically ‘adjustment pending,’” the lawyer said.

Palumbo called it “significant” that jurors awarded Parada no damages for constitutional violations, even though that claim comprised the bulk of her legal case.

The jury instead awarded her about $2,000 for each hour she was falsely imprisoned. The plaintiff had sought $300,000 in damages.

Palumbo said he finds that outcome a little perplexing. “How do you come to that conclusion with someone who was brought to the jail by police and then later transferred to a government agency, when you find that there is no constitutional violation — or at least not a significant amount of damages — for referring to the government agency?” Palumbo said.

“Is that contradictory in logic?” he added. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t sit in and listen to all the testimony.”

Bratlie said he is untroubled by the outcome. A $30,000 award, he said, is in line with false imprisonment verdicts and settlements he has seen in other courts, particularly where immigration status is a factor.

“The $30,000 was definitely in the ballpark and a little on the high end,” he said. “I don’t think anybody on the legal team is going to worry about how the jury calculated that out.”

In a press release after the verdict, Parada said she was pleased with the jury verdict. “I’m so proud of being part of this lawsuit and getting rid of this policy,” she said. “I didn’t want to see this happen to anyone else. I’m so thankful to everyone.”

Bratlie said he doubts the county will appeal. Appellate courts tend to be deferential toward juries’ findings of fact, he said. To overcome jury verdicts, courts usually apply a clearly erroneous standard, which is no easy bar to clear, he said.

“Their witnesses testified that, had the booking process been done earlier, she would have been released earlier,” Bratlie said. “They testified that, on nights when they’re really busy, the people they want to move out of the jail are people like Myriam, people with simple [traffic] tickets.”

Yet Parada was detained for hours without being allowed to speak with her attorney, Bratlie said. Instead, jailers offered her legal advice, to the effect that speaking to an attorney would only delay her release, according to court documents.

Prosecutor Andrew T. Jackola countered that Parada’s jail stay that night was hardly unusual. She was arrested with 43 other people that day and her jail stay was the third-shortest among them, Jackola said.

The jury, however, found the county’s conduct worthy of monetary damages, Bratlie said.

“They believed she should have been released earlier and that the county probably slow-walked her process so she would be released when ICE showed up,” he said. “That is absolutely a believable set of facts.”

There is one point on which both Palumbo and Bratlie agree — that the case has national significance.

“There are 3,000 counties in this country, and I expect that there’s a jail in just about every one of them, and a sheriff in every one of them,” Palumbo said. “The way sheriffs continue to do their business, I think, will be impacted by this case.”

Bratlie said he hopes that’s true. He said Parada’s is the third immigration case he has worked on in Minnesota, in which the ACLU has sued a county sheriff. Two others emerged out of Nobles County.

“I mean, sheriffs, they’re the hardest people to teach,” he said. But he concurs that Parada’s case is nationally significant.

“It’s another case reminding people and reminding jails that our state constitution and our federal Constitution protect the rights of immigrants,” he said. “It’s not just U.S. citizens, it’s all persons. They don’t get to violate the rights of immigrants.”

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