9th Circuit Oral Argument Scheduled For February 7, 2023

[The Sandra Day O’Conner Courthouse in Phoenix, AZ]

Update: Oral argument took place as scheduled. Links to the archived video are available here and here. Additionally, the video has been embedded below – 07 February 2023:


Oral argument in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for my ongoing civil rights lawsuit is scheduled for February 7, 2023 at the Sandra Day O’Conner Courthouse in Phoenix, AZ. The court session starts at 0900 but several other cases are being heard the same day so it’s unclear exactly what time the hearing in my case will begin. Most likely it will be sometime around 1000 or so. For those who would like to watch the hearing live, it will be available here.

Each side has been allocated approximately 10 minutes to respond to questions from the court and otherwise make their case. The briefs & documentation that make up the record before the court can be found here. It consists of our opening brief along with approximately 900 pages of supporting documentation, the federal defendant’s answering brief, the county defendant’s answering brief and our reply to the defendant’s answering briefs.

A previous update regarding this case that discusses it’s genesis in greater detail is available here & here. Links to additional posts related to the lawsuit appear below:

CBP Agent Rams Vehicle Into Videographer

I began following the story of Paulo Remes, the Tohono O’odham man who was intentionally struck by an agent driving a Border Patrol vehicle, shortly after the story broke in June 2018:

I held off posting anything about it however while waiting for more information to be released.

Continue reading “CBP Agent Rams Vehicle Into Videographer”

Undermining Criminal Justice Reform With Faux Border Security


With a prison population of over 2 million people at any given time, the United States incarcerates more individuals per capita than any other country on the face of the planet. This incarceration rate has resulted in over 70 million adults having a criminal record in the United States today.

Let those numbers sink in for a minute. Approximately one in every three adults is saddled with a criminal record in this country.  A country that houses more than 20% of the total number of incarcerated people around the world despite having only  ~4% of the world’s population.

Continue reading “Undermining Criminal Justice Reform With Faux Border Security”

Checkpoint USA Responds to Sheriff Napier’s Stonegarden Op-Ed

Tucson Sector CBP Chief Rodolfo Karisch & Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier

On September 4, 2018, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted for the second, and hopefully last, time to reject any further Operation Stonegarden grant funds from the Department of Homeland Security.  I originally blogged about the Board of Supervisors Stonegarden controversy earlier this year.

The first time the Board voted to drop the program was in early February of this year. The Board reversed it’s vote several weeks later however after push-back from the Sheriff’s Department but premised acceptance and participation in the $1.2 million dollar federal directive on several factors. Factors the Sheriff initially agreed to but later ignored when his department began conducting Stonegarden deployments on behalf of the Border Patrol while spending money from the grant before the Board of Supervisors voted to allow expenditures to resume.

Continue reading “Checkpoint USA Responds to Sheriff Napier’s Stonegarden Op-Ed”

Stonegarden Checkpoint Lawsuit Update – 18 July 2018

[Left to right: CBP Agent T. Frye, PCSD deputy Ryan Roher. Federal and local law enforcement working together at a federal Stonegarden roadblock along SR-86 in Southern Arizona]

On July 2, 2018, the first amended complaint in CPUSA’s ongoing civil rights lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. The biggest changes between the initial complaint and the first amended complaint include a refinement of the factual allegations, a refinement of the law violation counts and the dropping of the Bivens Claim against the individual federal agents. While I was reluctant to do this, it was deemed necessary due to recent court rulings limiting the scope of the Bivens Claim and making a successful Bivens claim in this case unlikely. A federal tort claim is still in the works however and we anticipate rolling such a claim into this complaint at a later date.

Continue reading “Stonegarden Checkpoint Lawsuit Update – 18 July 2018”

‘Just Security’ weighs in on Checkpoint USA Lawsuit

[PCSD deputy Ryan Roher]

On May 25th, 2018, Patrick Eddington with Just Security posted an article regarding Checkpoint USA’s recently filed civil rights lawsuit & federal tort claim. For those who aren’t already familiar with the legal action, the lawsuit was filed against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department & various Customs & Border Protection agents in their individual capacities while the tort claim was filed against Customs & Border Protection. Just Security is an online forum for the rigorous analysis of U.S. national security law and policy and is maintained by the New York University School of Law.

The article summarizes some of the sixteen year history leading up to the present lawsuit, discusses how the Operation Stonegarden federal grant program is playing a role in the legal action and links the underlying issues with similar legal action taking place in areas like Arivaca, AZ.

As such, I recommend the article for the broader context it provides regarding these issues. It can be found online at:

A Cosmic Legal Collision: The Engineer vs. The Border Patrol

More information about CPUSA’s ongoing lawsuit and the issues leading up to it can be found at:

Between a Stonegarden & a Hard Place

Cato Institute Rolls Out “Checkpoint: America” Project

Understanding that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance and that internal checkpoints represent more of a threat to our country than the problem(s) they profess to solve, the Cato Institute recently launched an initiative to help identify and track the Border Patrol roadblocks currently being operated along public highways inside the United States of America. This initiative, aptly named:

Checkpoint America: Monitoring the Constitution Free Zone

is just beginning and has positively identified 39 of approximately 140 interior roadblocks currently in existence in the Southern border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas).

Continue reading “Cato Institute Rolls Out “Checkpoint: America” Project”

NH Judge Rules CBP Roadblocks Unconstitutional

In August of 2017, the U.S. Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector  conspired with the Woodstock, NH Police Department to operate a drug roadblock in New Hampshire under color of federal immigration law. The roadblock was setup along Interstate 93, approximately 90 miles south of the international border with Canada at a location well past the point where the majority of traffic would have been border-related:

Continue reading “NH Judge Rules CBP Roadblocks Unconstitutional”

KOLD Covers Checkpoint USA Lawsuit

[Left to right: CBP Agent Edmundo Lopez, CBP Field Supervisor E. Fuentes, PCSD Deputy Ryan Roher & PCSD Sgt. Brian Kunze]

I was recently interviewed by KOLD’s Craig Reck in Tucson, AZ regarding a civil rights lawsuit that was recently filed in U.S. District Court that I’m involved in:

COMPLAINT: Tucson Engineer challenges checkpoint

The lawsuit is the result of ongoing harassment I’ve been the subject of for years by Pima County Sheriff Deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents at the SR-86 CBP roadblock located near milepost 146.5:

                             

The last straw leading up to the lawsuit was an incident that took place at the roadblock on April 10, 2017 involving, amongst others,  Pima County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Roher and  U.S Border Patrol Agent T. Frye.

By the time everything was said and done, Deputy Roher had arrested me on a state charge of highway obstruction. This despite the fact that I was being detained against my will in front of two stops signs in the lane of traffic at a federal roadblock by an armed federal agent who had refused to let me leave while investigating me possible violations of federal law he had no reasonable basis to believe I had violated. I fought the charge in court for eleven months before it was finally dropped by the prosecutor based in part on testimony given by Deputy Roher in a deposition from earlier this year.

While defending against the charge, I filed a Notice of Claim with Pima County in October of 2017. After the charge was finally dropped, I filed a Federal Tort Claim with Customs & Border Protection in March followed by the legal complaint in April of this year.

Updated information regarding this incident and the ongoing lawsuit will be made available on this blog and the following page(s):

Between a Stonegarden & a Hard Place