Lawyer sues over her police detention after refusing to speak during in traffic stop
A lawyer who was handcuffed in a holding cell for refusing to speak to a police officer during a traffic stop, though otherwise cooperating, is suing New Jersey state police, that trooper and others for violating her constitutional rights, NJ.com reports.
Rebecca Musarra alleges in the complaint (PDF), filed in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, that once a police supervisor looked into the matter, including the video from the trooper’s dashcam, she received an apology and was let go.
But she had been detained for approximately two hours, forced to remove her blazer and shoes, patted down twice and handcuffed to a bench in a holding cell, the complaint says. After she had been there for 30 minutes, the supervisor entered the holding cell and asked what happened, she claims. She explained that when the trooper told her during the traffic stop she would be charged with obstruction of justice for not speaking, she did speak, telling him that she is a lawyer and knows that she has the right not to speak and that it was not obstruction.
The supervisor left the holding cell and later returned to tell her that the trooper was a “rookie” and that “we’ll mark it up to training,” the suit claims. The trooper and another who later helped in the matter both joined the force in 2014. Musarra says the supervisor offered to get her car, which had been towed.
Musarra told NJ Advance Media, which is in a content sharing agreement with NJ.com, that her father is a former prosecutor for Warren County, New Jersey, where she was stopped by police, and her mother is a former probation officer, so she understands that “cops have a difficult job to do,” but “there has to be some accountability.”
State Police spokesman Capt. Stephen Jones said in an email to NJ.com that allegations of misconduct by officers are investigated by internal affairs and that “in the event that problems are identified, training and/or disciplinary measures are implemented where appropriate.”
Musarra lives in Philadelphia and is an associate in the Wilmington, Deleware office of Grant & Eisenhofer.
In October she was stopped by police not far from the Pennsylvania border on suspicion of speeding. Trooper Matthew Stazzone asked for her driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance. She handed him the first two and went searching for the insurance information on her cellphone. While she was doing that, the trooper asked her, according to the dashcam recording:“While you’re looking for that, do you know why you’re being pulled over tonight?”
Musarra did not reply. After several attempts to get her to say something, Stazzone went to the other side of her car and tapped on the window, saying: “You’re going to be placed under arrest if you don’t answer my questions.” The lawsuit says the flashlight chipped her car window.
NJ Advance Media obtained the video through an open records request filed in April.
Stazzone told her to get out of the car and put the keys on its roof. He and other troopers then put her in the back of the police car and read her Miranda rights, including “you have the right to remain silent.”
