Chattooga County Sheriff John Everett Friday morning discussed with AM 1180 a ruling in a case involving the Sheriff's Department that was issued Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals. AM 1180 reported on the order Thursday in which the court deemed an appeal filed by Deputy Kandy Dodd "frivilous." 

The appeal was in relation to a  a search warrant that was used to search the home and business of a local businessman, Mark Gordon and his wife, several months ago.  

Earlier AM 1180 reported that a ruling was made on the appeal by Dodd and Everett.  Sheriff Everett took exception with that saying that he was not mentioned in that ruling. Everett was correct, he was not named in the ruling which only names Dodd. However, he is listed as a defendant on the front page of the order he provided AM 1180.  Technically, Everett is not a defendant in this particular ruling and his case is entirely separate.

Officially, the ruling only affects Dodd since Everett's case was separated from Dodd's earlier.. 

The Gordon's had filed a civil suit against Dodd and Sheriff Everett for the "illegal and unconstitutional invasion of their home.  U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy made a ruling calling the search "illegal and unconstitutional" and that Deputy Dodd was liable for damages to be assessed by a Jury in Federal Court.  Following that ruling, Dodd  appealed Judge Murphy's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

On Wednesday U.S. Court of Appeals made a ruling that the appeal of Dodd  was frivolous and had no basis in law and further ordered that Deputy Dodd would be required to pay all costs and attorney's fees for the filing of the frivolous appeal.  This award will be in addition to any damages that a Jury will assess for the unconstitutional violation concerning the illegal search.

Mr. and Mrs. Gordon are represented by Bobby Lee Cook, Sutton Connelly and Rex Abernathy of Cook & Connelly in Summerville and by Attorney Ranse Partin of Atlanta.

There is something different about this opinion according to unnamed legal experts. It includes only the ruling and no opinion.