Pa.: Gun rights violation costs city

The taxpayers of Allentown just got stuck with an unnecessary $23,500 tab. That may not be much in a city that treats tax money like the water flowing over the Hamilton Street Dam (proposed new budget: $88.5 million), but it might have been avoided if people paid to enforce the law could be persuaded to obey it themselves.

On Oct. 6, 2008, Jerry Corliss, a law-abiding citizen who then lived in Allentown, was carrying a Glock handgun in a holster when he visited the Home Depot store just off Lehigh Street. It appears that somebody there became hysterical over the idea that anyone not in government might exercise his or her right to bear arms.

Soon, according to court documents, Dale Stokes, an Allentown police officer, stormed into the store, detained Corliss for doing absolutely nothing illegal, searched him without a warrant and seized his pistol.

Corliss was not charged and the weapon was returned, but those actions clashed with both the Bill of Rights and the Pennsylvania Constitution, which will cost the city, or its insurance carrier, $23,500 to settle a federal lawsuit brought by Corliss, who now lives in Lebanon.

City officials do not seem eager to publicize the case and I learned about its resolution last month only when Corliss called me — because, he said, somebody told him I support the Bill of Rights, as if that's something unusual these days.

Even if people can distort the meaning of the Bill of Rights to justify gun control, there is no mistaking the "Declaration of Rights" at the start of the Pennsylvania Constitution. "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned," it says.

Corliss has a license to carry a concealed gun, but on this occasion he had it in a holster in plain view. That is called "open carry," and nobody gets hot and bothered if police officers do it — even though it is only in the world's most depraved tyrannies that government authorities are the only people with unquestioned rights.

(Mexico has rigid gun control and only authorities are legally armed. It has a firearm homicide rate of 9.88 per 100,000 people, compared to 7.07 in the United States, where cities with tough gun controls wind up with shoot-em-ups rivaling those in Ciudad Juarez. In Switzerland, virtually every family is armed and the rate is 0.58. Thugs think twice about trying to murder folks in Switzerland.)

Following his Home Depot rousting, Corliss retained Robert Magee, an Allentown lawyer. "Although the plaintiff was not doing anything improper, illegal or even suspicious," Magee wrote in the complaint, "[Stokes] nonetheless accosted the plaintiff and thereafter illegally harassed, detained and/or arrested him."

Fast-forward to Oct. 15, when Allentown officials decided to wave a white flag and fork over the $23,500 without the need to explain themselves in open court. "It involved him openly carrying the firearm inside the store," Magee told me. "When you are open carrying, you do not need a permit." He said all police officers are supposed to have training to that effect.

That, I offered, means all cops know it is none of their business if somebody is exercising the right to bear arms. "None of the cop's business," Magee confirmed.

He's not the only lawyer who confirmed it. Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin said essentially the same thing. "The permit permits you to carry a concealed weapon," Martin said. "You don't need a permit to carry a gun openly."

I also called Allentown Police Chief Roger MacLean and city solicitor Jerry Snyder to get their take on all of this, but they did not get back to me.

I realize there are people who don't care about rights. They just want a paternalistic society where authorities take care of everything, and they are horrified by the thought of individuals being self-reliant, especially when it comes to self-defense. I think they should spend some time in Juarez to see if that changes their minds.

So I applaud Magee for his role in this case. Magee, however, has not always been happy with the way I have bashed some lawyers. Among other things, I've said Pennsylvania's lack of tort reform is not designed to protect victims of wrongdoing; it's designed to let lawyers file blizzards of lawsuits, justified or not, so they can take the lion's share of awards or settlements.

"About once a week," he said in a 2005 letter to the editor attacking tort reform, "Morning Call columnist Paul Carpenter goes off on a rant about lawyers." I am duty-bound to report that in the $23,500 Corliss settlement, Corliss got $2,500 and Magee's law firm got the rest.

Original report here




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