LEXINGTON, Miss. – Today, the ACLU of Mississippi, JULIAN and Paul Hoffman of UC Irvine School of Law Defending Democracy Clinic and Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman, LLP, filed a complaint against the City of Lexington, two Lexington Police Department officers, Scott Walters and Aaron Agee, and Lexington Police Chief, Charles Henderson. The complaint is a civil rights action seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the false arrest, illegal search, malicious prosecution, retaliation, and excessive use of force against Attorney Jill Collen Jefferson, in violation of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
As laid out in the complaint, Attorney Jefferson is a well-known civil rights attorney who had publicly spoken out about the Lexington Police Department’s misconduct and assisted victims in filing claims against LPD for racial discrimination and unconstitutional policing. The complaint alleges that officers Scott Walters and Aaron Agee planned to retaliate against Attorney Jefferson by arresting her.
On June 10, 2023, Attorney Jefferson was unlawfully stopped while filming the traffic stop of a third party. When Officers Walters and Agee pulled Attorney Jefferson over, they confirmed, “we know who you are,” before asking her for her identification. After pulling Attorney Jefferson out of her car under threat of a taser, the Officers slammed her against the car and then placed her in handcuffs that were so tight they resulted in permanent scarring.
According to the complaint, the officers then proceeded to terrorize Attorney Jefferson. Officer Walters put his hand in the shape of a gun and motioned at Ms. Jefferson’s head as though he was pulling the trigger, while Officer Agee illegally searched her vehicle, including her wallet. Upon arrival at the police station, she sat handcuffed to a bench, while Walters taunted her with assurances that he was sending her to jail that night.
After declining to pay a $35 “processing fee” to be released—an act that the Department of Justice found unconstitutional in a letter sent to Lexington weeks later, Chief Henderson ordered she be taken to the Holmes-Humphreys County/Regional Correctional Facility, where she was booked and jailed for three days. Despite being told she was being charged with Failure to Comply, she was later told at the station she was being charged with Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest. Between June 10, 2023, and January 31, 2024, the Lexington Police Department added the additional charges of Driving While Using a Cellphone and Blocking a Public Roadway to Film a Traffic Stop.
After an initial guilty verdict on all charges, except Driving While Using a Cell Phone, on February 6, 2024 “after a thorough review” of the evidence presented during the trial, Judge Marcus Fisher rescinded all guilty verdicts against Ms. Jefferson and all proceedings against her were terminated in her favor.
"Police are a key piece in ensuring our communities are safe. It is essential that police follow the law when they do their jobs and that they are held accountable when they do not. LPD and its officers violated Ms. Jefferson’s rights, and this lawsuit seeks to vindicate those rights,” said Joshua Tom, Legal Director of the ACLU of Mississippi.
In September 2024, following a comprehensive investigation, the Justice Department released a report finding that “the City of Lexington and Lexington Police Department (LPD) routinely engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal law.” Among other misconduct, the report mentions uses of excessive force; stops, search and arrests without probable cause; violation of the rights of people engaged in free speech and expression; and retaliation against people who criticize the police.
The ACLU of Mississippi’s Police Accountability Project, is an effort to enlist law firms, private attorneys and community organizations to bring lawsuits to stop police violence and harassment.
The ACLU of Mississippi will continue this effort to bring the legal resources of partners across the nation to represent other victims of unconstitutional police misconduct.
