Name: Valley Brook loses court fight over traffic stops
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Valley Brook loses court fight over traffic stops

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Nolan Clay VALLEY BROOK — For years, police officers in this small town best known for its strip clubs have been making traffic stops on streets that are in Oklahoma City.They have relied on a 1992 opinion by a now dead Oklahoma County district judge that they have jurisdiction under the law on SE 59 Street because it forms the town's northern boundary line.Since then, the town's attorneys claim, Valley Brook police have arrested and kept off the streets probably close to 1,500 drunken driving suspects.Lately, though, the validity of stops on SE 59 east of Camille Avenue and on Eastern Avenue have increasingly come into question.Last week, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the town's request to rule both Oklahoma City police and Valley Brook police have jurisdiction on SE 59."The public safety considerations of stopping drivers from driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol before they can drive away onto the highways and neighborhoods causing serious injury or death should be an important consideration in the decision," the town's attorneys argued.Instead, the appeals court upheld Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong's decision that a 2018 traffic stop was invalid."We find the District Court's decision ... was not an abuse of discretion as it was not unreasonable under the facts and law," Judge Gary Lumpkin wrote in a five-page opinion. "By Valley Brook's own admission, the town limits and jurisdiction extend to and abut the southern right-of-way of S.E. 59th St. and do not extend into the roadway of S.E. 59th St."The four other judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals concurred with the opinion.The opinion came in a case involving a Del City man who was stopped in December 2018. The driver, Jordan Wayne Stroder, was cited in Valley Brook's municipal court for possession of marijuana and three other offenses. He was found guilty in municipal court and fined $2,065.He appealed to Oklahoma County District Court, where Truong ruled in his favor. Valley Brook then challenged that ruling to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.Those citations will now be dismissed because of the Court of Criminal Appeals opinion Thursday.After the 2018 traffic stop, Valley Brook also sought to have Stroder, then 18, charged in Oklahoma County District Court with driving under the influence. Oklahoma County prosecutors never did, apparently because of the same questions about the legality of the stop.Stroder was represented by attorneys Jeff Box of Oklahoma City and Marvel E. Lewis of Guthrie.In 2018, Box and Lewis filed a lawsuit against Valley Brook in Oklahoma County District Court on behalf of another stopped driver. They are seeking refunds for that driver and thousands of others they allege were illegally cited for violations.The lawsuit is still pending.

Nolan Clay VALLEY BROOK — For years, police officers in this small town best known for its strip clubs have been making traffic stops on streets that are in Oklahoma City.They have relied on a 1992 opinion by a now dead Oklahoma County district judge that they have jurisdiction under the law on SE 59 Street because it forms the town's northern boundary line.Since then, the town's attorneys claim, Valley Brook police have arrested and kept off the streets probably close to 1,500 drunken driving suspects.Lately, though, the validity of stops on SE 59 east of Camille Avenue and on Eastern...

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Valley Brook loses court fight over traffic stops

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