Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 16, 2011

Miriam Leverington, a cardiac nurse, wasn?t happy to be stopped in a speed trap outside Colorado Springs in December 2008. The condescending attitude of the officer who had ambushed her, Duaine Peters, did nothing to improve her mood.

After being handed the little extortion note called a ?traffic ticket,? Leverington told Peters: ?I hope you are not ever my patient.? Peters smugly replied that this probably wouldn?t happen, because he was going to contact Leverington?s supervisor to have her fired for threatening a police officer.

Whatever one thinks of the wisdom displayed in Leverington?s exasperated remark, no honest person would describe it as a ?threat.? As the nurse pointed out at the time, her point was not that she intended to do Peters harm, but that she never wanted to see him again. Yet the petty little uniformed functionary succeeded in getting the nurse fired from her job.

That act of craven retaliation has now been upheld by the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Leverington?s supposed threat was not protected free speech, and that Officer Peters enjoys ?qualified immunity? from the lawsuit filed by his victim.