Convict's civil-rights trial begins in Missoula
Burgert seeks $7 million
David Burgert of Evergreen returned from a federal prison to present his case Monday about how a Flathead County sheriff's deputy, Kalispell police, Missoula County jail officers and others all allegedly have violated his civil rights.
Burgert represents himself in his lawsuit, asking nearly $7 million in compensatory and punitive damages, special damages for mental anguish, pain and suffering, harassment, anxiety and other damages.
Burgert is making his case before six jurors, under the direction of Chief U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula.
Currently serving a prison sentence for possession of illegal machine guns after an armed standoff with local SWAT teams in February 2002 in the woods west of Kalispell, Burgert names more than a dozen defendants. Others have been dismissed from his original suit.
The remaining defendants include sheriff's deputy Thomas Snyder, Kalispell police Chief Frank Garner and officer Kevin McCarvel, the city of Kalispell, Missoula County, Missoula County commissioners, Missoula County Sheriff Mike McMeekin and a host of defendants from the Missoula jail.
Molloy allowed Burgert some latitude in how he presented his case and guided him on legal procedures. But Burgert was only a few sentences into his opening remarks to the jury when Molloy sustained a motion to stop Burgert's assertion that he is serving time in a federal medical prison facility in Rochester, Minn., because of trauma inflicted upon him by the defendants.
"That's not why you were sentenced there," said Molloy, who was Burgert's sentencing judge.
Burgert told the jury he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of his abuse at the hands of officials.
Attorney Sean Goicoechea of Kalispell has a different take on Burgert's complaint. He represents Snyder and told the jury:
"David Burgert is angry at just about every law-enforcement agency he's ever come in contact with."
Among Burgert's allegations are that Snyder submitted a false report after a confrontation with Burgert at his home in January 2001, that McCarvel used excessive force by spraying Burgert with pepper spray during an arrest, that Garner and the city of Kalispell violated their duties to not authorize policies against excessive force - including the use of pepper spray and the timely decontamination of people who have been pepper-sprayed - that the Missoula commissioners and sheriff destroyed Burgert's mail while he was a prisoner there, and that jail staff denied him medication and food, injured him, retaliated for grievances he filed, strip-searched him, attacked him, and otherwise violated his rights.
He has been so traumatized that he has "never gotten over the shakes and tremors and nightmares," after inhaling pepper spray, a potentially lethal chemical, he said.
Burgert owned a boat and snowmobile rental company in Kalispell and also served civil summonses on people named in legal actions, including officers.
"The more I served summons on them, the more tension it created," he said. Officers eventually fabricated charges against him and grew ever more hostile, he said.
Burgert introduced videotape from a Montana Highway Patrol officer's vehicle of a confrontation that included Snyder. He also introduced video of the incident in which he was pepper-sprayed and arrested.
By electronic link with the Montana State Prison, Burgert called a former inmate at the Missoula jail to talk about Burgert's alleged abuse at the hands of officers there. The prisoner, Roger Griffin, said officers dragged Burgert down some stairs and used his head to open a door.
Another prisoner, Shane McClanahan, was sworn in, but said he doesn't remember Burgert.
Today, attorneys for the defendants will have the chance to cross-examine Burgert.
They are Goicoechea for Snyder; Todd Hammer representing McCarvel; Missoula Deputy County Attorney Michael Sehested representing Missoula County defendants, and James Vidal and James Ramlow representing the city of Kalispell.
The trial is scheduled to conclude tomorrow.