Jury rules in favor of former officer accused of wrongful arrest

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    Mobile (WALA) — A federal jury Thursday rejected claims by a Silverhill man that a police officer wrongfully arrested him five years ago.

The lawsuit arose over an arrest that law enforcement officers made against Daniel Wade Hails on June 9, 2015. Hails alleged that Silverhill Officer Timothy Dennis unlawfully initiated the arrest and lied about the circumstances.

But the jury sided with Dennis, who now is retired and living out of the area.

“I’m very pleased,” defense attorney Andrew Rutens told FOX10 News. “Officer Dennis has retired, and he is very pleased with the verdict.”

The trial, which began Monday, continued through the week despite the ongoing threat of the novel coronavirus.

“I think we were the only trial in federal court in the whole country,” said Henry Brewster, of Hails’ lawyers.

The 2015 incident stemmed from a pair of 911 calls about random gunfire coming from Bohemian Hall Road.

Rutens said Dennis could not find anyone when he responded to the first call and after the second call stood on his squad car bumper to peer over a fence to see Hails holding a rifle on his porch. The officer reported that Hails fired a shot at him.

The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team arrived and during the ensuing arrest, law enforcement officers fond more than a dozen firearms, scopes and thousands of bullets, according to court records.

Hails contended that Dennis fabricated the allegation about the gunshot and lied to a magistrate judge in order to get a warrant. He argued that there was no way the officer could have seen him on the porch.

Although Hails initially faced an attempted-murder charge, a Baldwin County Circuit Court judge dismissed the charge after Dennis failed to testify at the criminal trial. Rutens said Dennis already had retired and moved away by that point and never received the notice from the district attorney’s office about the trial date.

Dennis had tried to get the civil suit thrown out. But Chief U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose ruled that there was a genuine factual dispute that only a jury could resolve. Rutens praised the jury for doing just that.

“We’re glad the jury saw the facts for what they were and came to the proper conclusion,” he said.

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