When the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office began posting weekly mugshots every Monday of all the people who were arrested the previous week, it didn’t take long for “Mugshot Monday” to become a social media sensation.
But this week, Sheriff Brad Pope said the sheriff’s office will no longer post mugshots online, following a ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that posting mugshots on the internet of people who have not been convicted of a crime violates the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling was issued following the appeal of a case from Maricopa County, Arizona. Maricopa County has stated it intends to appeal the 9th Circuit Court’s ruling to the United States Supreme Court.
Pope said he sought a legal opinion from the Lyon County District Attorney’s Office, which recommended the sheriff’s office not post mug shots until the appeal of the ruling is complete.
Shortly after Pope was sworn into office as Lyon County Sheriff, the sheriff’s office began utilizing social media, especially Facebook, extensively to post notifications on events, updates and arrests. Pope posts a Message of the Week each Friday, along with “Warrant Wednesday,” a post that asks for information from the community about a person with an outstanding warrant.
In place of “Mugshot Monday” this week’s post listed the types of arrest during the previous week, with the number of arrests for that category.
Pope said the use of social media was an attempt to reach out to the community and keep the community informed, and at the time, he said he believed posting mugshots helped serve as a deterrent for some crimes.
In July, the sheriff’s office turned off commenting on posts containing mugshots. In his Message of the Week posted July 26, Pope said comments on the posts had become more about insults and crude comments than information sharing.
In its defense of the lawsuit, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office cited transparency as its reason for posting the mugshots online, but in its written ruling, the 9th Circuit Court said transparency does not establish a "legitimate governmental objective" that would give it reason to dismiss the complaint against the Sheriff's Office.
At least one other law enforcement agency in the area, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office, has also released a statement that they will not be posting mugshots online, at least until that Maricopa County case is completed. The Storey County Sheriff’s Office posted a pair of press releases this week regarding incidents where suspects were arrested, and in those press releases did not post mugshots or name the suspects.
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