Matthew Hardin v. Eric Tollefson, Minnesota Case 34-CV-25-364 - The Bodycam Lawsuit

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Gobermental Supervisor said:
If you can call the current state of his life "winning", I guess so.

But the self-inflicted damage to his reputation is irreparable. All the information he so desperately wanted to hide has come out.
If he believes all this is because someone "defamed" him, a public figure, with actual malice, then I hope Null hires Randazza (or whatever his name is), just for the lulz.
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I do not know if he is a masochist enough to get financially raped a second time, but maybe he could get Randazza on the show again for 10 minutes to get 100 more views...
 
AnOminous said:
I don't really see it going beyond the state Supreme Court. SCOTUS very rarely overrules a state court of last resort on an issue of state law, which this is.
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This could form the basis of a very interesting constitutional question for SCOTUS, but I don't think they'll take it up because the facts are not very good.
 
Dizzyuntildeath said:
Just how many levels of government will go to bat for Nicholas?
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He's hit the point where further judges or courts won't feel like overruling the decisions already made. No outside influence needed, at this point it's the system refusing to second guess itself just because Hardin may or may not have a point.
 
Minnesota has established precedent on hiding court documents from the public and the only instance that could kick out the precedent is SCOTUS, and this case just isn't the case you wanna try that with.

Better to wait for actual journalists, who are treated like a protected class superior to the public, who is denied access to documents that are sealed or hidden from the public, where there is no explanation or made up argument about "misfilings" like White and Rekieta made up here to hide it.

The only longshot chance I see for the bodycam to still get out is if a real journalist, employed by a notable news company, were to take all the clips of Rekieta shitposting about the MN judicial system and accusing various involved parties of misconduct, conspiracy and planting of evidence, and files a requests with the MN state for the release based on a public interest due to the concerns raised by the "victim" (Rekieta).

The MN law about Bodycam footage has a caveat that allows the release in such cases as described above.
The venues for Hardin to go through the judicial system have failed.
 
Gobermental Supervisor said:
The MN law about Bodycam footage has a caveat that allows the release in such cases as described above.
The venues for Hardin to go through the judicial system have failed.
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This case isn't even over yet so can't be appealed. The other case may turn on the rule promulgated by the state supreme court itself, and if so, they're the only ones who could do anything about it, either by "clarifying" it or outright changing it.

So there are two cases still, each of them hinging on entirely different areas of law against different agencies.
 
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Defendants filed an answer.
 

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Interesting how this goes. The court kicks out the bodycam in general, which means since the plaintiff no longer has a claim and suffered no injury, the court can now just summarily dismiss the case.

The Minnesota justice system is fascinating.

I really wonder where they will claim someone would have to go to be granted relief in such a case where public data release is being withheld until the status of the requested material can be changed.
 
Gobermental Supervisor said:
The court kicks out the bodycam in general, which means since the plaintiff no longer has a claim and suffered no injury, the court can now just summarily dismiss the case.
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Except the court hasn't ruled on Mr. Hardin's non-body cam requests. But, hey, why would such a little thing matter.

(I'm not shitting on you, to be clear, but on the defense)
 
Useful_Mistake said:
Except the court hasn't ruled on Mr. Hardin's non-body cam requests. But, hey, why would such a little thing matter.

(I'm not shitting on you, to be clear, but on the defense)
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And that's why the case can't be appealed. Yet. You need a final judgment as to all claims between all relevant parties before there can be an appeal, with very few exceptions.
 
Gobermental Supervisor said:
The court kicks out the bodycam in general, which means since the plaintiff no longer has a claim and suffered no injury, the court can now just summarily dismiss the case.
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Useful_Mistake said:
Except the court hasn't ruled on Mr. Hardin's non-body cam requests. But, hey, why would such a little thing matter.
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AnOminous said:
And that's why the case can't be appealed. Yet. You need a final judgment as to all claims between all relevant parties before there can be an appeal, with very few exceptions.
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Such a little thing always seemed underrated anyway with the bodycams being such a distracting shiny object all along, but in hindsight the ancillary requests are still worth fighting for to the bitter end no matter how long that would happen to delay appeal:

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The dashcam footage could still be a great consolation prize just to see a muted skelly bitching and moaning next to the rustang at the initial stop or maybe even a timeless shot of him and April cuffed on the driveway depending on where the various squad cars parked, and there might even be a decent chance of seeing or hearing the pure kino that was his statement back at the station depending on whether that was captured by a mounted interrogation room camera or microphone as opposed to Pomplun turning on his bodycam for the interview, because the ruling on the bodycam statute is necessarily very narrow about what is taken out of otherwise generally applicable MGDPA treatment:

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Minn. Stat. 13.825, subd. 1(b)(1).

Perhaps more importantly, Hardin's complaint already put it front and center that Skelly's impulsive reaction to Mama K's and @Tiki Bar Man 2's bodycam summaries with his cherry-picked photos (allegedly) from the date of the arrest shot himself in the foot by admitting that these records responsive to Hardin's request even exist in the first place. This misstep puts the county in the unenviable position of needing to A) deny that these photos were taken at the time of the arrest (proving Nick to be a liar more of a liar than usual), B) fork them over in full (proving that Nick deceptively cherry-picked the least disgusting ones), or C) come up with some excuse for why they're not eligible for release when the bodycam ruling doesn't apply to take them out of otherwise applicable MGDPA treatment for an investigation that is supposedly no longer active. For now the county's answer has the luxury of denying a whole paragraph of the complaint because its lamentably compound structure referring to a right to release lets them deny the whole thing, but some narrowly tailored requests for admissions requiring response within 30 days and other slower discovery could at least get more clarity on just how much Nick was lying his ass off about those photos.

Looking at it from Ebert's perspective where it all boils down to limiting financial exposure of her client who couldn't give two shits about the Rekietas' privacy interest (all funny Zooluminati memeing notwithstanding), the wording of her answer almost sounds like they don't necessarily have a problem forking over these ancillary materials in principle and she's primarily concerned with taking the position that A) Kohlmann's 2024 refusals were MGDPA-compliant at the time because of the investigation's then-active status and B) Hardin's 2024 requests needed to be reiterated in some more particularized way after the investigation entered an inactive status and then be refused all over again (as if the 2025 follow-up emails and the present lawsuit somehow didn't accomplish that purpose), so that any right to statutory damages, attorney fees, and costs had not yet accrued at the time of the complaint even if some or all of the requested non-bodycam materials are now eligible for release.

If that's what she's getting at, then there could still be a path toward some sort of settlement whereby, after an appropriate protective order and preliminary discovery establishing what responsive materials even are in the county's possession, Hardin then waives any monetary claims they actually care about in exchange for a stipulated order directing the county to release X, Y, and Z non-bodycam materials that they don't care about. That could resolve the outstanding issues swiftly even if they bake into that deal that the bodycam issue alone would be reserved for appeal, if he's inclined to try that out after the smoke signals that the Court of Appeals already wafted about how they'd have decided in the alternative even if the finding of no intervention right hadn't been independently sufficient. If his heart's not in that fight in the first place then throwing in a waiver of appeal could just sweeten the pot in negotiation for release of all this other shit that's good enough as a consolation prize after the bodycam summaries already got pretty much what you'd expect anyway.
 
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Folgers Can said:
If his heart's not in that fight in the first place then throwing in a waiver of appeal could just sweeten the pot in negotiation for release of all this other shit that's good enough as a consolation prize after the bodycam summaries already got pretty much what you'd expect anyway.
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I think this avenue is dead and the castling move by the judge, defense and prosecution will remain unchallenged.
There is no way to disprove the "it was filed by mistake" narrative as long as all parties who participated in it stick to the story.
I highly doubt any of them would suddenly find their conscience and admit to lying in court filings (if they did lie, the "story" might as well be true), effectively ending their career.

I still believe there is a possibility to get the footage if the state can be convinced it is in the public's interest to release it in order to quash rumors about improper behavior by people involved in this case, as well as the wider statement about a county-wide conspiracy against Nick Rekieta.
The shadow of impropriety still hangs over the entire case, and Nick has repeatedly claimed he is pleading guilty against his own wishes to "protect his family", but still maintains the fiction that he should have fought the case and that the charges were fabricated.

The only way this can happen is if Minnesota Media picks up the story about "local lawyer blames county conspiracy and corrupt officials for false criminal charges", but considering the current climate they are all too busy circle jerking over their hatred for ICE to report on the cuck lawyer.
 
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Peanut Butter Trails said:
Oh here we go!! (Why the switch-up of lawyers, what would that allude to?) So April Fools Day is the deadline to have an outline of what the parties will be doing in discovery, and they'll have until September 3 to check for everything in discovery... am I reading all that right?
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They have (if this gets approved) until September 2nd to complete discovery. Trial depositions don't count.
 
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Tldr: The discovery plan approved by the Judge. Pre trial conference for 10th of December. Hearing password
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