(Source: MIRS.news, Published 08/01/2024)A now-76-year-old Canton man lost, again, his federal court case stemming from a $400 traffic ticket he earned by trying to drive around a police barricade of a fatal traffic crash. 

Marc M. Susselman unsuccessfully claimed that police slapped him with a ticket because he argued with them for not completely blocking the road with their patrol cars. He said this was a First Amendment violation and malicious prosecution. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court held Monday that Susselman failed to plausibly allege a claim against Washtenaw County or Superior Township, in part because he cannot point to conduct by the deputy “that shocks the conscience.” 

“Susselman does not base his malicious prosecution claim on a violation of any constitutional guarantee, so his claim requires that he plausibly allege that (the deputy’s) conduct shocks the conscience,” Circuit Judge John K. Bush wrote in the published opinion. “He has not done so.” 

The panel, including Judges Julia Smith Gibbons and Eric E. Murphy, also rejected Susselman’s argument that the issue of a second ticket was “caused by First Amendment protected conduct.” 

Susselman drove past a Washtenaw County Sheriff’s patrol car that was parked horizontally across the eastbound lane at the intersection of Plymouth and Cherry Hill roads in February 2020. 

Two sheriff’s deputies informed Susselman that he had entered the scene of a fatal crash and would receive a ticket, prompting Susselman to yell at one deputy for failing to block the entire road. 

Susselman successfully got the $400 ticket dismissed because it had been written for failing to yield, rather than disobeying an officer as initially alleged. However, he soon received a new ticket stating the proper charge. 

That, too, was subsequently dismissed after the prosecuting attorney’s office failed to file a response to Susselman’s appeal. 

Susselman then sued the county sheriff’s office, the township and the deputy issuing the ticket, alleging First Amendment retaliation and Fourteenth Amendment malicious prosecution. 

Susselman argued the ticket “shocks the conscience” because the deputy lacked probable cause to issue it. 

The district court dismissed the suit.