On today's call we pulled a name from the list to receive an all expense paid trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately, the winner was not present and you had to be present to win. Long story short, it was a brief call with only one participant, so we didn't get into too much detail. If you had been on the call, you'd know I'm stretching the truth quite a bit about the drawing, but hopefully garnered your attention. To give you an idea of the significance of what you do, since September 1, there have been 206 cases involving Section 1983 with decisions reported by Lexis of which 198 involve the federal courts. Of those 206 cases the words "probable cause" crop up in 33 of them. Why is that significant? I believe the Plaintiff's bar has been schooled to plead in more cases that an officer has lied about probable cause as a way to get over summary judgment and to avoid QI. Your thoughts? John Wilkinson from Arkansas pointed out that he's seeing what seems to be more officers shooting at cars. These cases lead to bad verdicts as I think jurors recognize that bystanders can get shot and using this force in anything but the most extreme circumstances may seem unwarranted (despite what Murtaugh and Riggs may do). In one case, John mentioned that a juror after giving a healthy verdict to the Plaintiff explained the verdit that the officer was able to get out of the way, so why shoot? I sent a synopsis a little while ago about a case from the Pittsburgh area where offices were able to get QI, except for the officer who fired into the disabled car. Still, shooting at a fleeing car with bystanders around should be part of a training protocol that cautions against it. For future calls - we'll do the next one in November - let's try to see if some of you can present a tricky case that you have to the group to see how they'd handle it. Also, I think it would be helpful to share experts. John mentioned Tom Martin who he uses for Physical evidence interpretation. He's very high on him. What about the rest of you - suggestions for experts? I'll try to keep a list for sharing. We're all in this together, so don't try to push the wheel all by yourself. Chuck Charles W. Thompson, Jr. Executive Director and General Counsel International Municipal Lawyers Association, Inc. 51 Monroe Street Suite 404 Rockville, Maryland 20850 202-466-5424 x7110 Direct: 202-742-1016 Cell: 240-876-6790 Plan ahead: IMLA's Annual Conference October 14- October 18, 2017 - Niagara, Ontario, Canada (Passport required) To register, go to: http://imla.org/events/conferences#registration IMLA's Annual Seminar and Section 1983 Defense Conference - April 20- April 23, 2018 Washington, DC