Daily Archives: August 2, 2021

At the end of its recent term, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a new decision on the law of takings. The case, Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, was a labor relations dispute disguised as a takings case, but its resolution has important implications for the terms on which New York developers can get access to adjoining property in aid of their construction projects. In Cedar Point Nursery, a divided Court ruled, by a 6-3 vote, that a state regulation authorizing very limited temporary entry by union organizers onto private agricultural property amounted to a physical taking of property that violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.[1] The decision expands the concept of what is a physical taking and raises questions about the further expansions of takings law that may follow.

The last clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights adopted in 1791, provides: nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Although originally applicable only to the federal government, the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, makes the principle equally applicable to the states and their political subdivisions.[2]

The most obvious example of a taking is when the government or a private party authorized by law to do so (such as a utility) exercises the power of eminent domain to acquire actual ownership of private property, or at least a permanent interest in property. In that situation, a public purpose and just compensation are required by the Constitution.[3] Other situations are not so obvious and have spawned a large body of court decisions addressing countless permutations.

Supreme Court precedent distinguishes between physical takings and regulatory takings. Physical takings are unconstitutional per se (i.e., automatically) in the absence of a public purpose and compensation. By contrast, an owners claim that it has been subjected to a regulatory taking in effect, a claim that although there has been no physical invasion of its property, a law, regulation or other governmental action has intruded so far into its property rights as to amount to a taking must be analyzed and evaluated on a fact-specific, case-by-case basis.

What rises to the level of a physical taking, however, isnt always clear either, and the concept has expanded over the years. In 1946, the Supreme Court held that repeated low-altitude overflights by military aircraft approaching and leaving a nearby airport, the effect of which was to destroy the owners ability to operate their chicken farm, constituted a taking.[4] In 1979, the Court held that the governments claim of a navigational servitude over private property, the effect of which was to allow the public to access the property on a continuous basis, effectuated a taking.[5] And in 1982, the Court held that even a de minimis permanent physical occupation of property is a taking; more specifically, the Court struck down as unconstitutional a New York statute requiring owners of apartment buildings to allow cable TV companies to attach their cables to the owners buildings.[6] Which brings us to the Cedar Point Nursery case.

A regulation under Californias Agricultural Labor Relations Act gave labor organizations a limited right of access to private agricultural property. Access was allowed in no more than four 30-day periods in any one calendar year, and only during three hours during any one day one hour before work, one hour during the lunch break and one hour after work. Access was limited to two organizers per work crew, plus one additional organizer for every 15 workers over 30 workers in a crew. The property owner was entitled to prior notice. Disruptive conduct was prohibited, but the union organizers were otherwise free to meet with employees to discuss labor or union issues.

Cedar Point Nursery is a large California strawberry grower. It claims that, one morning in 2015, United Farm Workers organizers entered its property and disturbed its operations, causing some workers to join a protest and others to leave the worksite. Along with a second grower, it sued in federal court, arguing that Californias regulation effected an unconstitutional physical taking of its property. The trial court dismissed the lawsuit, and a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

The Court reversed the Ninth Circuits decision and ruled in favor of the nursery. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the cases origin in a dispute about union activity, the Court split along partisan lines, with the six Republican-appointed justices forming the majority and the three Democrat-appointed justices dissenting.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that the access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers property and therefore constitutes a per se physical taking. The opinion emphasized that the short duration of time during which the regulation allowed entry onto property was irrelevant, and the length of the appropriation bears only on the amount of compensation. The opinion affirmed that physical invasions are takings even if they are intermittent instead of permanent, citing United States v. Causby, the 1946 decision in which the Court held that occasional low-altitude military overflights had effected a taking (although in Causby the overflights had destroyed the owners business).

To reconcile this absolutist definition of a taking with commonly recognized circumstances in which limited entry onto private property has long been allowed, the majority opinion articulated a series of exceptions to this per se rule. First, isolated physical invasions, not undertaken pursuant to a granted right of access, are properly assessed as individual torts rather than appropriations of a property right. Second, access that is consistent with longstanding background restrictions on property rights, including traditional common law privileges to access private property, is another exception. And third, the government may require property owners to cede a right of access as a condition of receiving certain benefits, without causing a taking.

The dissenting opinion was written by Justice Stephen Breyer. It argued that the California regulation did not effect a per se taking because it did not appropriate anything, but only regulated employers right to exclude others from their property.

The Cedar Point Nursery majority and dissenters disagreed about how to distinguish between the appropriation of property and regulation of the right to exclude. Because the Court held that the California regulation allowing limited access by union organizers to agricultural properties was in fact an appropriation, the decision raises questions about how much further the Court might go and how far property rights advocates will push the Supreme Court and lower courts in expanding the concept of a taking.

To begin with, any law or regulation requiring that union representatives be given access to a workplace or job site is now to say the least constitutionally suspect.

In future cases, moreover, courts are likely to be asked to clarify the exception to the per se rule that Cedar Point Nursery recognized for access that is consistent with longstanding background restrictions on property rights. The opinion provided no further definition of this exception beyond a reference to traditional common law privileges. Prior case law from around the country has recognized multiple situations in which entry onto anothers land without the owners permission is allowable, including, for example, to bypass an impassible section of a public road, to retrieve personal property, to abate a private or public nuisance, to stop a crime or to make a lawful arrest.[7] Are all of these examples still good law after Cedar Point Nursery?

Even if these cases remain good law, is only court-made law still valid? One possible implication of the absolutist interpretation of a taking in Cedar Point Nursery is that, while court-made exceptions to the per se rule remain valid, state and local governments are powerless to enact statutes that recognize limited rights of entry in defined circumstances.

In 1980, for example, a unanimous Supreme Court agreed that Californias Supreme Court could properly interpret its state constitution as protecting the right of peaceful protestors to set up a card table in a shopping malls central courtyard, distribute pamphlets and collect signatures over the objection of the malls owner, which maintained a blanket policy against expressive activity on its premises.[8] In reaching this result, the Courts opinion, written by Justice (later Chief Justice) William Rehnquist, explained that, while property does not lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes, that principle does not limit the authority of the State to exercise its police power or its sovereign right to adopt in its own Constitution individual liberties more expansive than those conferred by the Federal Constitution.[9] In response to the mall owners contention that a right to exclude others underlies the Fifth Amendment guarantee against the taking of property without just compensation, the Supreme Courts opinion explained that it is well established that not every destruction or injury to property by governmental action has been held to be a taking in the constitutional sense, and the determination whether a state law unlawfully infringes a landowners property in violation of the Takings Clause requires an examination of multiple factors.[10]

The only way to reconcile this case-by-case approach with the per se rule of Cedar Point Nursery is to rely on the fact that the shopping mall was open to the public, although not for the purpose that the visitors in that case sought to use it, while in Cedar Point Nursery the owners did not open their land to the general public. But the Court specifically said in the shopping mall case (and in prior cases) that private property does not lose its private character even if it is open to the general public a point that is inconsistent with a distinction based on private propertys status as open to the general public.

Closer to home, New York has a statute, Section 881 of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, that empowers courts to grant licenses allowing property owners to gain temporary access to neighboring property for the purpose of effectuating repairs or improvements to their own property upon such terms as justice requires. The statute often has been used by developers and their contractors to compel recalcitrant neighbors to allow them to enter onto adjoining property to perform surveys and install protective measures. The statute does not require compensation, although it is not unusual for courts, in the exercise of their discretion, to require the payment of a fee if the entry is for more than a de minimis length of time for example, if the purpose of the entry is to install and maintain temporary protective scaffolding. Is this statute unconstitutional due to its failure to expressly require the payment of just compensation in accordance with the Fifth Amendment? Or perhaps due to its creation of a right of access in the service of a private purpose rather than a public one? It seems inevitable that these issues and others of a similar nature will be litigated in a future case. The risk of the issue being raised should motivate developers to avoid litigation if possible and to be prepared, if necessary, to augment the usual protections provided in access agreements (such as indemnification and insurance) with some amount of compensation for the temporary intrusion onto a neighbors property.

[1] Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, 594 U.S. ___ (No. 20-107, June 23, 2021).

[2] Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago, 166 U.S. 226 (1897).

[3] Id.

[4] United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256 (1946).

[5] Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164 (1979).

[6] Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982).

[7] See, generally, Restatement (Second) of Torts 195-211.

[8] PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980). Members of the Court issued multiple separate opinions explaining their reasoning, but all of the justices agreed with the result.

[9] The internal quotation in PruneYard is from the Courts prior opinion in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1972), where the Court upheld the right of a shopping mall owner to prohibit public expression on its premises.

[10] The internal quotation in this excerpt from PruneYard is from Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40 (1960).

The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable contributions to this alert of Aaron Jacobs, a member of the Columbia Law School Class of 2022 and a 2021 Kramer Levin summer associate.

[View source.]

Continued here:
The Supreme Court Further Expands the Definition of a Physical Taking of Property That Violates Fifth Amendment Protections - JD Supra

Judge expected to rule Wednesday whether to charge Mensah in on-duty shooting

Former Wauwatosa police Officer Joseph Mensah shot, killed Jay Anderson in 2016

Updated: 8:48 AM CDT Jul 28, 2021

A judge is expected to rule Wednesday on whether to charge former Wauwatosa police Officer Joseph Mensah in one of his three on-duty shooting deaths. Dash camera video from 2016 shows Mensah shooting and killing Jay Anderson, who was asleep in his car in Madison Park.Milwaukee County's district attorney decided not to charge Mensah, but Anderson's family asked a judge to independently file criminal charges against Mensah.Mensah invoked his Fifth Amendment right and did not testify during the hearing in May.Wauwatosa's now-retired police chief did testify in the ongoing case. Mensah now works as a Waukesha County sheriff's deputy.He also shot and killed Antonio Gonzalez and Alvin Cole while on duty.

A judge is expected to rule Wednesday on whether to charge former Wauwatosa police Officer Joseph Mensah in one of his three on-duty shooting deaths.

Dash camera video from 2016 shows Mensah shooting and killing Jay Anderson, who was asleep in his car in Madison Park.

Milwaukee County's district attorney decided not to charge Mensah, but Anderson's family asked a judge to independently file criminal charges against Mensah.

Mensah invoked his Fifth Amendment right and did not testify during the hearing in May.

Wauwatosa's now-retired police chief did testify in the ongoing case.

Mensah now works as a Waukesha County sheriff's deputy.

He also shot and killed Antonio Gonzalez and Alvin Cole while on duty.

Read more here:
Judge expected to rule Wednesday whether to charge Mensah in on-duty shooting - WISN Milwaukee

At an unnerving press conference last week, a reporter asked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) whether she's has been vaccinated against the coronavirus. The right-wing congresswoman replied, "You see, with HIPAA rights, we don't have to reveal our medical records, and that also involves our vaccine records."

The Republican's tone suggested she saw herself as an expert in matters related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and she was eager to lecture the reporter about the subject.

The problem, of course, was that Greene had no idea what she was talking about.

A week earlier, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) said door-to-door vaccination information outreach might be "illegal" under HIPAA. That didn't make sense, either.

Alas, the Republicans aren't alone. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott spoke at a press conference of his own last week and was also asked about whether he's received a COVID-19 vaccine. "I don't necessarily think that's exactly important," the athlete said, adding, "I think that's HIPAA."

No, it's really not.

In case this isn't obvious, let's take a moment to shine a light on reality. HIPAA, which has been federal law for the last 25 years, relates to health privacy, but as the New York Times explained late last week:

The law applies only to companies and professionals in the health care field, although some people may incorrectly imply otherwise, as Ms. Greene did in suggesting that the measure offered Fifth Amendment-like protection against revealing personal health information.... [N]othing in the law prohibits asking about someone's health, be it vaccination status or proof that such information is accurate.

If someone called your personal physician asking for details from your medical records, HIPAA would prevent him or her from sharing that information without your approval.

But the law does not create a blanket prohibition on someone being asked about their health. In the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene, HIPAA doesn't create a "right" that makes a reporter's question improper.

Journalists can ask people about whether they've been vaccinated. So can employers. So can store owners make inquiries of customers.

Those who insist that HIPAA shields them from questions they're embarrassed to answer are mistaken.

Go here to read the rest:
Vaccine opponents appear increasingly confused about HIPAA - MSNBC

Regarding Texas Chief Justice Hecht is a champion of judicial reform. Now hes Exhibit A. (July 30: The debate over the election of judges recalls Winston Churchills famous quote that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. When I began my service as a commissioner on the legislatively-created 2020 Commission for Judicial Selection, I was convinced we needed to change our system of electing judges. But, as we researched other methods and heard testimony about the alternatives, I concluded that while our system of electing judges is flawed, no other system is clearly better. And some are much worse. I also came to appreciate more fully the integrity of our Texas judges, regardless of how they are selected.

Also, the article mentions our Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, who has ably led our judiciary with integrity. It is worth noting that he is a proponent of changing our elective system. I respect that point of view which roughly half the members of the commission voted in favor of. Nonetheless, few disagree that determining the best method of selecting Texas judges raises many complex issues.

Lynn Liberato, Houston

Regarding They went to hell and back for us on Jan. 6. The least we can do is listen. (July 27): Listening to the voices of the four Capitol police officers recounting their painful memories of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol should be enough to bring us together, determined to understand how such a challenge to the foundations to our democracy could happen and committed to a united effort to assuring it does not happen again. As a first time guest in Houston, I am grateful to the Houston Chronicle for publishing such a timely and powerful editorial. You gave us access to four police officers who represent real life heroes and voiced a clarion call we should all heed.

Grant Revell, Mechanicsville, Va.

What occurred on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. was awful. However, the riots across America in 2020 and the hostility toward so many of our patriotic people of all races, colors and genders was barbaric and dishonored our patriotic country. This is not just what people do or a myth. Every one of these violent demonstrations did occur and a great deal of harm to America resulted from the actions of those that have no regard for others, their properties and their values. Never again should riots be how we deal with the issues that our amazing nation encounters. Lets all take a breath and eloquently voice a protest in challenge of an issue going forward to illuminate a better and more just solution by we the people in a dignified and respectful manner.

Robert Petty, Houston

Democrats along with carefully selected Republicans who previously voted for Trumps impeachment are staging political theater which theyve labeled hearings. If the hearings were actually seeking answers to serious and lingering questions about exactly what happened and why, then I might support them, but whats actually going on is something else altogether. Were there some Trump supporters who broke the law by forcibly entering the Capitol building, damaging property and threatening people? Of course weve all seen the videos. So wed already established that there are some crazies who showed up at Trumps rally and then broke the law. Theyre being prosecuted for their crimes.

My humble suggestion is that Congress instead should spend its time and energy recognizing and addressing the concerns shared by the half of Americans who have supported Trumps America First agenda. Even if Congress succeeds in keeping Trump off the ballot in 2024, someone will take Trumps place to represent these Americans. The Trump movement is not a cult of personality as some clueless liberals continually chant, but rather its a wakening of a silent majority no longer silent. It will not go away even if Trump does.

Greg Groh, Houston

Despite loud protests and diversionary hype, the facts of the U.S. Capitol siege are under the microscope. Now, we must have the subpoena power of Congress require individuals to appear in person. Position them before the committee, in full view of the public and ask those questions that need answers. Play their videos, display their speeches and writings expressing a consistent viewpoint. Scan the army of attorneys at their side as they invoke their Fifth Amendment rights. Provide us all the opportunity to see and hear these witnesses, weigh what they are saying and when they refuse to speak up. That will speak volumes.

Cliff Boden, Humble

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Opinion: Elections are the worst method of picking judges except for all the others - Houston Chronicle

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

(CNN) -- Voice quavering, Rick Wershe Jr., who as a teen in 1980s Detroit was painted as a murderous drug kingpin, dabbed his eyes as he recalled one of the last conversations he had with his father, who he'd always looked up to as a strong man.

Suffering from brain cancer, his dad often moaned in pain over the phone. During this 2014 call, Rick Wershe Sr. told his imprisoned son he was "scheduled to die" that day, which the younger Wershe told him wasn't true. His mind "playing tricks," the ailing father insisted, Wershe Jr. recalled.

"I lost it, and it's hard for me to talk about," he tearily told CNN. "I broke down that day, and I happened to be in my counselor's office. ... I had a lot of pride, and I remember the counselor, he gave me a hug and he wouldn't let me leave his office and I just wanted to get back to my cell to be alone. He said, 'Rick, just stay here,' and I'll never forget that."

Rick Wershe Sr. died about two weeks later, on October 2, 2014. Wershe Jr. wasn't allowed to attend the funeral.

It's one of myriad milestones Wershe Jr. -- who the media and Hollywood christened "White Boy Rick" -- says he missed because the FBI and Detroit police groomed him to be a drug informant at age 14. They taught him the tricks of buying and selling narcotics, while providing him money, drugs and a fake ID -- only to disavow him when he was arrested for cocaine, he says.

Now 52 and having served more than 32 years -- all but a year of adulthood -- in prison, Wershe filed a federal lawsuit July 20, the first anniversary of his prison release. He demands authorities acknowledge they indoctrinated him and broke promises to help him. Wershe served the longest sentence of any nonviolent minor in Michigan history, according to his lawyer, Nabih Ayad, because the information he provided helped take down crooked police.

Wershe wants $100 million for his trouble, a sum Ayad says amounts to about $3 million for each year of incarceration, during which Wershe has suffered anxiety, depression and abdominal pain from an assassination attempt that ripped his colon in half when he was 15.

Despite the ailments, Wershe is striving to forge a new reputation -- an endeavor he began in prison organizing holiday food drives. In the last year, he's worked to improve mental health resources and the foster care and criminal justice systems in Detroit.

Ayad is requesting an extension to the statute of limitations, which case law supports when someone fears retaliation from those imprisoning him, he told CNN. Wershe's previous lawyers advised him not to seek redress until he was released, Ayad said.

"They were hoping he dies in jail. They were hoping someone kills him in jail. They were hoping their story will never get out, never, because they knew what they did was wrong -- morally, ethically, principally," the attorney said at a news conference.

Detroit's city attorney did not respond to a request for comment. In an email signed by Mayor Mike Duggan and Police Chief James White, the city and its police department declined to comment, as did the FBI, through its Detroit field office.

The story of White Boy Rick has long titillated audiences, whether it's told in newspapers, magazines, documentaries, books or an eponymous feature film with Matthew McConaughey. Wershe Jr., unconvinced all his story's tellers have fallen on the side of accuracy, has his own documentary in the works.

While the particulars shift from one account to the next (Wershe hasn't seen the McConaughey movie but refutes the accuracy of certain scenes relayed to him), the narratives stick close to the lawsuit. It's the story of a White teen operating among Black drug dealers in a corrupt and treacherous city during the crack epidemic.

His dad owned a gun store, through which he'd made acquaintance with FBI agents, Wershe Jr. said, explaining his father reached out when he learned his daughter was dating a drug dealer. An agent dropped by the house but told Wershe Sr. he couldn't help him without some quid pro quo, his son said.

Wershe Sr. didn't know much about the streets, according to his son. He later met the agent at a fast food joint and was shown images of people the agent wanted identified, the lawsuit says. Wershe Sr. couldn't help, but his son knew some of the characters from the east side of Detroit and provided names, according to the lawsuit.

Realizing the son was the better source, the agent pulled up to the junior Wershe one day as he walked home from school, telling the 14-year-old, "Get in," the lawsuit says. Another federal agent began asking him to "engage in extremely more dangerous criminal drug-related activity," and the agents introduced him to Detroit Police Department officers on a drug task force targeting gangs and corrupt police, according to the lawsuit. Both would become fearsome enemies, Wershe Jr. said.

The teen "was of a malleable and impressionable mindset and did what the FBI agent and DPD officers demanded he do, that is go into drug houses he did not know, in areas of the city he did not know, and ask to buy drugs from people he did not know," the lawsuit says.

Gregarious and affable, qualities he still exudes today, Wershe Jr. was good at the work -- the details of which he kept from his father. Shortly after turning 15, the lawsuit alleges, he was operating throughout greater Detroit, and his handlers let him keep some of the seized drugs to sell himself. But he'd begun to draw suspicion.

In November 1984, Wershe told CNN, he was called to a house. He declined to divulge who summoned him but said he was in the basement when an "associate" called him up. When he got upstairs, the associate shot him with a .357 Magnum, the bullet ripping through his large intestine, he told CNN.

"No words were said," he recalled. "All I remember is waking up at the bottom of the stairs in this agonizing pain, and I was 15 years old. I thought I was going to die."

The shooter's girlfriend arrived within a minute, Wershe said. Panicked, she called 911. The shooter and his friend put Wershe in a car -- whether to transport him to a hospital or a secluded place to die, he's not sure -- and as they pulled out, an ambulance blocked the car. Wershe remembers a paramedic telling his shooter, "Nuh-uh, we're taking him."

"Thank God his girlfriend showed up. Thank God she called 911, or I wouldn't be talking to you today," Wershe said.

Here might have been a fine time for police to reflect on the pitfalls of employing a teenager as an informant. Instead, they came to the hospital and instructed Wershe to describe the shooting as an accident to boost his street cred, the lawsuit states.

Within six months, they thrust him back into the snitch game, providing him accommodations, money and a fake ID to continue his undercover work in Las Vegas, where several Detroit drug lords were attending a bout between Thomas Hearns -- a favorite son of the Motor City, ironically nicknamed "The Hitman" -- and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Wershe and the lawsuit say.

The media took notice of the splashy Wershe, according to the lawsuit, and the sobriquet "White Boy Rick" began appearing in headlines, spinning the legend of a teen kingpin. Wershe was too naive to fathom the folly of being a familiar White face in a city where seven in 10 residents were African American and locals were demanding answers to the drug scourge, he says.

The feds and police cut off contact by the time he was 16, "likely to save themselves from legal action should they have been caught using a 14/15-year old as a drug dealer-informant," the lawsuit says. Wershe had become a celebrity of the worst kind -- known to reporters, gang members and police who had no idea he was an informant because officers had used his dad's name on the paperwork, according to the lawsuit.

"If that's not child endangerment of the highest level, I don't know what you call it," Wershe told CNN.

There were at least three more attempts on his life, including one in which bullets narrowly missed his father as he watched TV, the lawsuit says. In the 2017 documentary "White Boy," contract killer Nate Boone Craft, who served only 17 years after turning informant himself, recounted his two attempts to kill Wershe.

The orders arrived from a now-deceased city official, the hitman alleged. Wershe had reportedly implicated the official in a coverup involving the drive-by murder of a 13-year-old.

"I was told to kill White Boy Rick. We heard that he was telling, so they said, 'We got to kill that White boy,'" Craft told filmmakers. "We got to make sure that it don't lead back to no one, and I said, 'Well, you know me. All my hits don't lead back to no one.'"

Wershe made a narrow escape from an intersection just north of Interstate 94, the lawsuit says. Craft pulled alongside the youngster's vehicle, and his accomplice opened fire, but "the Mac jammed on us," Craft said, referring to the brand of machine pistol. Craft later tried to kill Wershe using a scoped rifle before a court hearing, but the teen used an underground entrance into the courthouse, the killer said in the documentary.

"Hitmen should not have been Plaintiff's only concern," the lawsuit says. "Thanks to Defendants, Plaintiff had become a target for the drug gangs as well as a target for law enforcement."

Wershe's drug-dealing days ended May 22, 1987. The 17-year-old and a friend were pulled over and Wershe ran. Officers caught him, beat him badly enough to go to the hospital and later informed him they'd received a tip leading them to 18 pounds of cocaine they said he'd stashed in his neighbor's yard, the lawsuit and local news reports say.

Wershe is candid about his drug dealing. When he was pulled over, he was carrying a knot of drug proceeds, he concedes. He believed he was still under police protection, he said, but the box of cocaine -- which contained far more than 650 grams, enough to put a drug dealer away for life -- was a setup, Wershe insists. When the court ordered him to provide fingerprints, he told the judge no order was needed because he hadn't touched the box, he said.

"I was selling drugs. I had money on me," he told CNN. "Still to this day, I'm out of prison, and I'll say the same thing: I never touched that f**king cocaine. I'm adamant about it. I'll tell you, I sold drugs. That box is a goddamned lie, pardon my language."

Prosecutors cast Wershe as one of Detroit's most dangerous dealers, a story many reporters were all too happy to take to editors. The jury declared itself deadlocked for a spell, according to reports, but ultimately found him guilty. Under Michigan's 650-Lifer Law, Wershe was sent to prison forever. No parole.

One of his FBI handlers visited him in 1991 with a federal prosecutor who needed help with a sting targeting dirty policemen and politicians, and he promised to fight for Wershe's release, the lawsuit says. The 20-year-old reluctantly obliged. Operation Backbone was a success, nailing 13 Detroit police officers and public officials, according to the lawsuit.

Wershe wasn't released. He was sent to Florida to serve his time in witness protection, largely cutting him off from his family for 15 years, the lawsuit says.

Another federal prosecutor visited the following year, promising to advocate for a commutation if the young man testified against a drug gang, the lawsuit says. Again, Wershe delivered, with an assurance his grand jury testimony would never be turned against him, according to the lawsuit.

In 1998, Michigan revised its 650-Lifer Law. Wershe could seek parole beginning in 2002. Before a 2003 hearing, the lawsuit says, he called in his chips but was informed the federal prosecutors who promised to help were barred from doing so.

"Plaintiff's nightmare turned surreal as Detroit Police Officers that he had never met before testified at his hearing, quoting directly from Plaintiff's sealed grand jury testimony," linking him to the drug gang he helped take down, the suit says.

The testimony "absolutely materially was the dispositive factor in the Board's decision to not allow Plaintiff parole," the lawsuit says, demanding prosecutors acknowledge they violated his Fifth Amendment rights.

Wershe's attorney at the time told him that, for his safety, he shouldn't level accusations over the grand jury testimony until he got out, the lawsuit says. He felt helpless, it says, and a "deep depression" set in.

Gina Balaya, spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, did not return a message seeking comment.

While serving time in Florida, Wershe was implicated in a stolen car ring, the details of which he disputes. He pleaded guilty to racketeering, he says, after prosecutors threatened to arrest his mother and sister.

Wershe -- a father of three 30-something children, all born in the three years before he went to prison -- was in solitary confinement in Florida in 2005 when a jailer told him his oldest daughter had delivered his first grandchild, a boy, he said.

"I said, 'Oh, you must have misunderstood. My daughter was having a girl,' and she said, 'No, you had a grandson.' She said sometimes those things are wrong, and today he's a 16-and-a-half-year-old kid, an honor roll student and going to graduate school a year early and get a jump on college," the proud grandfather said.

Wershe would miss the births of all six of his grandchildren, one of whom he will meet for the first time on a road trip to Indiana next month. The youngest is 7.

He was sent back to Michigan after his racketeering plea. Upon winning parole, he walked out of prison in August 2017 -- and into the transport van of US Marshals, who took him back to Florida, where he would serve three more years.

Pivotal to his release was the testimony of two ex-FBI agents, one of whom is named in Wershe's lawsuit. The other is Gregg Schwarz, who confirmed in a 2012 letter to Michigan's parole board that Wershe had worked undercover and assisted with investigations into the 13-year-old's murder, the Detroit drug gang and Operation Backbone.

"At the time, his age was a factor and would have been an embarrassment to the federal government," Schwarz wrote. "Several agencies promised intervention but it never occurred. Richard continued to cooperate."

In the "White Boy" documentary, Schwarz joined other sources, including a gang leader and convicted drug trafficker, in telling filmmakers Wershe had no henchmen, no territory. Tales of him being a ruthless kingpin are overblown, they said.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the legend of White Boy Rick is just not true," Schwarz said.

Released on July 20, 2020, Wershe has been working to cement that message. His Instagram feed contains no glorification of his days as a baller. Rather, it shows him golfing, fishing and hanging out with fiance Michelle MacDonald. The two met in middle school and cultivated a romantic relationship about five years ago.

They've adopted two feral cats -- Bonnie and Clyde, he says, smirking, sipping from a water bottle -- and a pair of rescue Shih Tzu-Pomeranians, Sophie and Rosie, who are heavily featured in his timeline. Alongside the pups are images of Wershe chumming about with business owners and celebrities, including "Hitman" Hearns and Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders, another of Detroit's favorite sons, although adopted.

"The circle that I'm around is amazing," Wershe said. "The love and support that I'm getting is amazing."

It hasn't been all celebration. In an affidavit, MacDonald said her fianc suffers trauma stemming from his experiences with Detroit's underground and the broken promises from authorities.

"Rick frequently wakes us both up from sleep by having nightmares, which jar him awake and which he has told me are about his being shot when he was 15, and then later his being left in prison," she wrote.

Wershe gets anxious passing prisons, remembering the horrors he's seen, including inmates stabbed in the neck and sliced from mouth to ear, he said. One of his neighbors hanged himself in his cell, he said.

After his release, he was pulled over for speeding, and "I truly felt like I was going to have a heart attack because of the fear," he said, growing emotional again. The officer gave him a warning and told him to slow down.

Detroit school board member and former state lawmaker Sherry Gay-Dagnogo met Wershe in January. At last week's news conference, she lauded the work he's done to improve the criminal justice and foster care systems, while feeding and clothing the less fortunate and helping build a ramp for a paraplegic friend.

"He's trying to find a way to make his life -- the pain and suffering that he endured -- a pathway and a light to guide those so they will never ever have to deal with situations like that," she said.

Speaking to CNN, she praised his involvement with the Team Wellness Center, a local mental health services provider, and said so much of Wershe's work is aimed at combating inequity and creating alternatives for those headed toward incarceration. He also speaks with ex-convicts who "don't understand the path forward," she said.

"Rick has continued to mushroom in this space, growing in this space of being a voice, being an advocate, giving back," she said. "He's a connector."

Wershe enjoys helping others, but he prefers being a role model, he said: "If I set an example and get other people to follow me, I think I'm doing more than just feeding somebody for a day."

Gay-Dagnogo doesn't believe he has revenge in his heart, she said. He vacillated for months on whether to file his lawsuit, ultimately deciding he wanted his story on the record to ensure no more youngsters faced his travails, she said.

The White Boy Rick persona wasn't Wershe's idea, he told reporters this month, addressing many of them by name. But if he can use it as a platform to draw attention to important initiatives, he's fine with the moniker.

Asked where he finds inspiration after 32 years and seven months in a cage, Wershe said he read loads of books in prison, but he brought only one home: Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning," sent to him by screenwriter Scott Silver of "Joker" and "8 Mile" fame. The book chronicles Frankl's and fellow prisoners' experiences in Nazi concentration camps.

"When I read it, it just gave me meaning. It showed me that what I was going through is nothing compared to what this man went through, so it made me stronger, and I needed that push at the end (of my time in prison)," he said.

He can't let anger consume him, he said. It will eat away at him. It won't touch another soul, he said.

"People say, 'It's amazing to me you're not bitter,'" he said. "I'm not bitter because if I'm bitter, they're still winning."

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FBI and Detroit police taught 'White Boy Rick' the drug game then double-crossed him, he says. Now, he wants $100 million - WDJT