SAN DIEGO (CN) — A man who was cleared of a conspiracy to commit murder charge after spending eight years in prison claims in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that, since he release, San Diego Police stopped him while he was driving four times in 14 months.
Nicholas Hoskins says that during one of those stops in May, place broke his passenger side window, pulled him out of his car, searched and arrested him, and accused him of resisting arrest. His claims against San Diego and its police department include violations of his Fourth Amendment right protecting him from unreasonable search and seizure, negligence, and violations of California’s Bane Act.
In May, Hoskins left a community event at a park in the Southcrest neighborhood of San Diego and was on his way to pick up his son from school when he was stopped by police who claimed he did not come to a complete stop at a stop sign. Hoskins says the stop was not justified.
The police officers, Hoskins claims, demanded to search his car for weapons without any probable cause to suspect he had committed any crime.
“‘There is nothing dangerous in this car, I am a Black male,’” Hoskins says he told one of the officers.
When Hoskins asked to speak to the officers’ supervisor, two additional officers surrounded his car.
Hoskins says his prior interactions with police contributed to his “cumulative emotional distress” and were why he wanted to speak to the officers’ supervisor.
Eventually, one of the officers broke his passenger side window, arrested him, and searched his car. Hoskins was taken to jail, released, and given a notice to appear in court for resisting arrest.
“Defendant officers each either wrote reports themselves or helped one another write reports that they knew contained fabrications about Mr. Hoskins and the encounter on May 9,” Hoskins says in his complaint.
Not only did the police officers not have a reasonable suspicion to pull Hoskins over, he claims, but they also did not have a warrant, or a valid basis to conduct a warrantless search.
“Defendants breached their duty of care and caused harm to plaintiff, including fear, mental anguish, humiliation, indignity, and degradation based on their conduct described above,” Hoskins says in his complaint.
Hoskins is seeking a jury trial and damages.
In 2014, prosecutors charged Hoskins and 16 other people with conspiracy to commit murder connected to a string of gang related murders in San Diego.
During the trial, prosecutors claimed Hoskins was a member of the 5/9 Brims gang that was involved in a conspiracy to murder rival gang members.
The prosecutor’s case against Hoskins didn’t present evidence that Hoskins either committed or aided any act of violence, or that he agreed to commit any violent act. Instead, it relied heavily on social media posts, especially on Facebook, where he posted braggadocious and incendiary comments that prosecutors suggested alluded to and celebrated real life violence.
Hoskins was convicted in a jury trial and sentenced to 25 years to life.
In 2020, he and other defendants in the case appealed their convictions. The appeals court struck the gang conspiracy conviction, but not the conspiracy to commit murder charge. Hoskins then appealed to the Supreme Court of California.
“Social media is not a bedside diary; it is a platform for expression aimed at a particular audience,” wrote Associate Justice Leondra Kruger of the Supreme Court of California, in the court’s unanimous opinion that the evidence presented at Hoskins’ trial was insufficient to show that he intended to participate in a conspiracy to murder rival gang members.
The evidence showed Hoskins was an active member of a gang whose members committed acts of violence, and that he celebrated those acts of violence, but being “a cheerleader, no matter how enthusiastic, is not a coconspirator unless the prosecution can prove the cheering was intended to play some role in achieving the object offense,” Kruger wrote.
Attorneys for both Hoskins and San Diego did not immediately respond to requests for comment.