Truesee's Daily Wonder

Eyrania Smith is, in the words of Maryland's second-highest court, a "truly innocent and injured" person.

Eyrania Smith, in the words of the same judges of Maryland's Court of Special Appeals, has no basis to sue over her mistreatment. 

That ruling comes even though all sides agree that Smith was mistakenly arrested on a city warrant that should never have existed, taken away by a police officer who left her two children alone in a car in a highway parking lot, and was shackled by her left wrist and ankles to a pole for more than 12 hours in a Baltimore County police precinct. 

Smith had been arrested at 9:08 a.m. on March 26, 2005. She was released from custody at 12:54 a.m. on March 27, 2005. She sued for $2 million in Baltimore County Circuit Court, alleging that her detention amounted to the use of excessive force. A judge threw out the case and on Wednesday the appeals court upheld that ruling. 

It appears from reading the court's 25-page opinion that there are so many people to blame for Smith's predicament that no one person or agency can be held responsible for the entirety of her mistreatment. 

The judges ruled that the booking officer Smith named in the suit, Michael Bortner, only supervised her detention for a little more than four hours and that he and other officers tried to make her stay more comfortable but were hampered by problems beyond their control. 

For example, the three cells in the precinct were filled with men, so there was simply no place to put a woman other than a bench in the hallway outside the fingerprint room. The judicial branch, not the cops, is responsible for determining the legitimacy of a warrant. And officers twice called their city counterparts to pick her up, but they never showed. 

The judges unanimously ruled against Smith, even as they conceded: "We believe appellant's situation was very regrettable." 

Smith, who lives in Pennsylvania, couldn't be reached for comment, and her two attorneys were not available. 

Smith's ordeal began in 2001 when she accepted probation for failing to pay a $215.61 bill to a Rent-A-Center in Baltimore City. She wrote a check the day of her court hearing. But for some reason, authorities couldn't find a record of the payment and requested an arrest warrant. The judge at first issued one, then pulled it back after realizing that Smith had in fact paid. But the recall notice never got into the official record. 

And so the warrant lingered until a Baltimore County police officer stopped Smith for speeding on Interstate 83 on March 26, 2005. He took her away, leaving her two daughters, ages 9 and 17, in the car in a Park-and-Ride, even though the teen didn't have a driver's license. 

Bortner fingerprinted and photographed Smith, then put her on a bench near a wall, cuffing her left wrist to a pole above her seat and shackling her ankles to a pole running parallel to the wall, according to the court's ruling. 

Police then called Baltimore City, where the warrant had originated, and asked someone to come and pick Smith up. At 2:15 p.m., a city officer said the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift would get Smith. At 5 p.m., a city officer said the midnight shift would handle the call. 

At midnight, a county officer finally drove Smith to the city, where they quickly determined that the warrant was an error and released her. She later sued. 

But Baltimore County Circuit Judge Judith Ensor ruled that Smith's claim must "shock the judicial conscience," a legal standard for excessive force, and she decided "that Bortner's conduct did not rise to that level." 

The Court of Special Appeals ruled that Smith "has not shown a due process violation committed by the single person she has sued." The judges thought the cops made great efforts to get Smith through the process. 

"More importantly," they wrote, "numerous actions taken by the county police belie an intention to punish appellant."