No. _________ _______________________________________ In The Supreme Court of the United States _____________________ ∆ _____________________ SHANE M. GATES, ` Petitioner, v. WALTER P. REED, RODNEY J. STRAIN, JR., et al., Respondents, _____________________ ∆ _____________________ On Petition For Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Fifth Circuit _____________________ ∆ _____________________ PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI _____________________ ∆ _____________________ JOHN A. HOLLISTER Counsel of Record 613 BON TEMPS ROULÉ MANDEVILLE, LOUISIANA 70471 TELEPHONE: (985) 792-5353
[email protected] _______________________________________ i QUESTIONS PRESENTED: 1. Whether the Court of Appeals erred by failing to recognize that a District Attorney, who in his private law practice represented, and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees from, the liability insurer for the Parish (county) served by that District Attorney, both violated the Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. § 1951, et seq.) and denied a criminal defendant substantive due process when that District Attorney used the authority of his public office to institute and maintain a misdemeanor criminal prosecution at the behest of that insurer and for the purpose of bolstering that insurer’s defense of a civil lawsuit for the tort of excessive force that was filed as a civil rights action by the misdemeanor defendant against the Sheriff of that Parish and others. 2. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in upholding the District Court’s dismissal of two civil rights suits against a District Attorney and a Sheriff, on the alleged ground that the plaintiff had failed to prosecute his civil suit when, in fact, that District Court had stayed the plaintiff’s suit on the defendants’ motion.