- A federal jury ruled that Levy County Sheriff's corporal Chase Gregory violated Terry Dukes Sr.'s Fourth Amendment rights during a 2019 unlawful home entry and arrest.
- The jury awarded Dukes $59,916 for economic loss and suffering, while the case led to scrutiny of LCSO practices and previous related lawsuits.
A federal jury decided Thursday that a Levy County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) corporal violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Terry Dukes Sr. after deputies entered his home in Bronson, tased and arrested him in 2019.
The verdict confirms what Dukes, 66, said the night he was arrested: officers had no legal right to enter his home.
According to the complaint filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Dukes sat outside his home with a taser probe stuck in his bare chest and told officers he would sue them for the violation.
“You just simply cannot go into someone’s house as a law enforcement officer if all you have is someone opening the back door [and] you can’t even tell who it is or what they’re doing,” James Slater, attorney for Dukes, said in an interview.
Levy County Sheriff Bobby McCallum, named president of the Florida Sheriff’s Association in 2021, signed off on an internal investigation saying officers acted correctly.
LCSO did not respond to a request for comment on this verdict.
The jury awarded $59,916 to Dukes for past loss of income and earning potential, past physical pain and mental suffering, and future physical pain and mental suffering. Slater said the plaintiff requested $200,000 for just the economic damages, but he said the jury did its job and respected the monetary award it decided was appropriate.
The lawsuit began with seven counts against three responding officers, along with McCallum for failing to train officers and allowing a policy of unlawful searches and seizures. But the case ended with a single count of unlawful entry in violation of the Fourth Amendment against LCSO Corporal Chase Gregory.
Slater said Dukes never deviated from his original statement of facts, keeping the story nearly verbatim all seven years. Meanwhile, he said Gregory changed his story over time and included new facts at trial.
Pointing out the shifting story made an impact on the jury, Slater said.
The incident occurred in the early morning of May 15, 2019. LCSO received a call of a possible battery of a pregnant woman, and a responding officer put out an alert for Terry Dukes Jr., the then 31-year-old son of Dukes.
Gregory and two other officers responded to the home of Dukes Sr. because his son often stayed there.
LCSO was very familiar with Dukes Jr., responding to 21 investigations into him over the previous two years. In fact, officers had arrived at that same home the previous month in response to an investigation.
It was around 5:15 a.m., and Dukes Sr. was in bed. He’s hard of hearing and didn’t have hearing aids at the time because he couldn’t afford them, the complaint said.
Officers announced their presence at the front door, but Dukes Sr. said he didn’t hear them. Then officers pointed flashlights through the bedroom window, waking him up. The complaint said Dukes Jr. would also flash a light into the bedroom so that his father would come unlock the door for him if he arrived at night.
Thinking his son was outside, Dukes Sr. didn’t bother getting dressed. He walked naked to the back door and opened it before turning around and heading back to his room. Gregory was out back and saw the door open. Without announcing he was law enforcement or saying he was entering, Gregory entered the back door, the complaint said.
According to Gregory’s post-incident report, “The door was opened slightly by an unknown individual from inside, whom [Gregory] did not see. This person immediately turned and retreated back inside the home.”
The other two officers followed, and the complaint said Gregory followed the retreating Dukes Sr. to his bedroom, where he planned to get ready for work, before commanding him to get on the ground.
“Prior to hearing Gregory’s order to get on the floor, Plaintiff had not heard any other orders from any of the officers,” the complaint said. “Plaintiff was unaware of the deputies’ entrance into his home, he believed he had cracked the back door open for his son.”
Dukes Sr. told officers that he was the father, not Dukes Jr. Further, the complaint said that Gregory knew the entire time that Duke Sr. was not the man they were looking for, since he had met him twice before, once at that house and once at his workplace.
Despite this, the complaint stated the officers kept Dukes Sr. on the ground while he asked to put his pants on. Dukes Sr. reached toward the door where his pants were while telling officers he was putting on his pants, but Gregory fired his taser without warning.
The complaint said that Dukes Sr. also had a gun in the room but made clear that the gun was on the bed and in the opposite direction of where Dukes Sr. moved.
In its investigative report, LCSO said opening the door counted as consent for the officers to enter the home, but the complaint argued that Gregory admitted he erred during a recorded, post-incident report the next day, saying, “And my thought process was and looking back now I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
Both sides agreed that Gregory lacked a warrant to enter the house. The officers also had no probable cause and exigent circumstances that would allow entry. That means a law enforcement officer would need consent from the occupant to enter the house, and the entire case centered on consent to enter the door.
According to Slater, Gregory’s initial report said the door opened and he walked in, but his internal investigation cites him saying he saw a hand in a gap and a figure walking away. But at trial, Slater said the story changed, with Gregory claiming someone first pulled the curtain aside and looked through the window.
It’s an important distinction. Slater said someone looking through the window could possibly see the officers in the dark, and then opening the door would be more of an invitation.
But Slater questioned why someone looking through the door before opening it would be absent from the initial reports. Without body cameras, the evidence came down to testimony.
“The jury, with the verdict in Terry’s favor, ultimately didn’t believe [Gregory] and his new facts,” Slater said.
Dukes Sr. experienced mental and physical anguish after the incident, the complaint said. The taser exacerbated a shoulder injury, and the entire ordeal caused him to retire early. He retired in 2021 from the Levy County Solid Waste Department after 25 years, earning a certificate of appreciation for his work.
Slater said former incidents of Fourth Amendment violations raised questions about the LCSO. He said the case against McCallum would be incredibly difficult to prove, but he pointed to a previous lawsuit against Gregory for Fourth Amendment violation that began in 2022 and was settled the next year.
“I’m concerned about the way that that sheriff’s office operates,” Slater said. “If something like this they could find is by the book, I would have some questions about the sheriff’s fitness to run the [Florida Sheriff’s Association].”