Lawyer ejected from courthouse for standing up for his Constitutional rights

In the lead up to World War II, the Nazis ran a youth group known as the Brown Shirts. They wore brown uniforms, went to fire up meetings and said "Heil Hitler" a lot. One of their more noxious duties was to reveal to their handlers their own parents and relatives for speaking ill of Hitler and his craziness. They turned into the soldiers who, at the end of the war, when on trial for their crimes against humans and humanity said, "We were just following orders." Warren County Ohio's sheriff department wears brown uniforms and they seem as blind to the evils of their adherence to foolish policies (orders) as the kids in 1930s Germany. I make this comparison because I was recently blocked from entering a courthouse in Warren County, Ohio. Why? Because I would not remove my shoes. The security circus is in full swing in Warren County. It's a fact of life that entering a courthouse these days is much like entering an airport, i.e., put your coins, phones, keys, laptops, etc., into bins and put them through the X ray machine, then step through a doorway scanner. Federal Courts in Dayton and Cincinnati, and most civilized county courts, employ sheriff deputies or security personnel to watch the X-ray device and pass wands over the people who cause the doorway scanner to sound an alarm. Lawyers work in courthouses. They usually show up in a sort of uniform. They wear suits, ties, hard soled shoes, and carry briefcases and roller bags. They look like lawyers. And they almost never pose a physical threat to anyone in the building. Lawyers in Ohio have ID cards issued by the Ohio Supreme Court. Not just anyone gets these cards. The cards show the lawyer's name and signature. Matched with a driver's license, they advise conscientious security people of their holder's bona fides. Not good enough in Warren County. That may be because the Sheriff, Larry Sims, who is probably a fine, fearful politician, has declined to enter the 21st Century by equipping his security detail with either the discretion or the authority to use their heads, or hand held wand detectors. Worse, he allows them to bully their civilian court supervisors. Even worse than that, he apparently condones a daily violation of the Constitutional rights of Americans entering the courthouse. Now, back to my blocked entrance. I entered the Courthouse. I know the drill, so my keys were in my briefcase. My phone went into the scanner bowl container. I was carrying nothing else. As my gear went through the x-ray, I walked through the doorway scanner and set it off. I guessed why. My hard soled black dress shoes have a steel shank in their sole. They have set off detectors in the past. A deputy with a wand in evolved courthouses will ask me to lift my pant leg while he runs the wand over my shoes. That's always enough. Not in Warren County. No way. Instead, when the doorway scanner sounded, I was told to walk through it again. Then again, and yet again. I think the deputy was enjoying his power. I told him that it was my shoes. He made no effort to employ a detecting wand. Instead this deputy, who was probably just learning to ride a bike when I began practicing law in this courthouse, and was likely being bullied in grade school for his inability to ride a bike, told me to remove my shoes. I said no. I was not going to remove my shoes. He was shocked, but again he told me to remove my shoes. Again I declined. I pointed out to him that I was not a terrorist or a shoe bomber, but that I was a lawyer scheduled to attend a hearing. He told me I could not go in without removing my shoes. I told him to get the judge. He said no. I asked him again. Judge Kirby and I had a conversation about me being told to remove my shoes on a previous occasion. He said that should not happen, and that the deputies should use some common sense. Based on that conversation I asked this deputy to look at me to see I was no threat. He told me to go outside. I did and he came with me. When outside he said I was causing a disturbance and could not do that. I told him I was not going to remove my shoes, that I was no threat. He told me I could not go in. I said fine, I'll call the judge from my mobile, which I did. I was then told by the court administrator, over the phone, to come back in and be escorted through. The court administrator came from the courtroom and told the deputies that I could come through. Oh! The juvenile wailing and gnashing of teeth by the deputies was immediate and pathetic. "No, no, we can't let him in now. We just made another attorney take her shoes off. It wouldn't be right." It was not my fault that she let you force her to remove her very dangerous slingback open top heels, I thought to myself. I argued my case to Mr. B, the court administrator, a little further. I asked him to use reason to temper a foolish policy. One of the big brown shirts told me all would be fine if I just removed my shoes. I said "What next? Cavity searches? No. It stops here. I did not do anything, I am not a threat and I am not taking off my shoes to come into the courthouse." Poor Mr. B, a smallish, bespectacled man, was dwarfed by the two large, armed and intimidating cops. They were at each of his elbows, glowering down between him and me, telling him how wrong it would be to let me, a harmless, unarmed lawyer, into the courthouse to which I had been summoned, without removing my black cap toed oxfords. Mr. B, like most people faced with intimidating uniforms, simply relented. He would try to speak directly to the judge and come back. In the meantime I was to wait inside the door. Now you must understand how foolish this scene is, how much of a farce is the "security" of any building, airport, or whatever. If I were actually at the courthouse to cause a problem, I sure as heck could have done so by then. I could have shot both deputies with a handgun pulled from my pocket and proceeded to cause pure mayhem. I could have used as a weapon a small bomb, a grenade, a pop bottle of poison gas material, a slingshot, a cup of hot coffee, a sharp pencil, a ballpoint pen, a knife, whatever. But I didn't. I was clearly there to do the business of a lawyer, in a court, where I had been many times in the past fifteen years. So, instead of causing a disturbance, I just stood there, in limbo between the outside and the doorway scanner. At least I was still wearing my shoes. I was even able to speak with my client and another attorney with whom I was to be working. I just motioned them over to me. They were in, true, but I was not quite out. Mr. B came back out from the courtroom and with some relief told me that the judge was on the bench so he could not confirm with the judge what I had heard. So, in light of the judge's unavailability and the intimidation by the two brown shirts at the door, he had to refuse my entry unless I removed my shoes. I have to laugh out loud that this whole event hinged on my shoes. Even despite the obvious fact that neither I nor my shoes were a threat. Isn't this stupid? My shoes. At that very moment, a bailiff called my case. My duty to my client superseded my effort to protect my Constitutional rights. I removed my shoes but did all that I could by telling the gate keepers that I was not waiving my 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches but was instead serving my fiduciary duty to my client. It hurts me to reveal my weakness here now. I should have gone through with my shoes on, been manhandled, probably tasered (it is Warren County) and escorted out in cuffs. While it would have made for entertaining news, it would have done nothing for my client. If we do not stand up for our rights, then they will be weakened and taken by our apparent waiver. Lawyers, of all people, should be relentlessly unwilling to cede to overreaching government authority. The police no longer feel like our friends. Many times their willingness to exercise force and to be blind to the Constitutional rights of the people they are supposed to be serving is frightening. But we must be courageous. We have to say no to authority when it makes no sense. We have to say no when the orders are wrong. Sometimes, for the greater good and for our own good, we have to just say no.