(CN) - A woman who said her civil rights were violated after she was arrested by Hurricane City police in Utah in the hotel she owned almost six years ago had her case heard in front of a three-judge panel at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday in Denver. 

An attorney representing Danyale Blackmore and her husband, Vincent Blackmore, described a scenario where she was not given clear commands and was unfairly targeted by police officers almost as soon as she made contact with them after a guest at the hotel she owned, My Place Hotel, broke a lobby door while trying to get into his room. Blackmore was roughed up by police and arrested in violation of her Fourth Amendment right, her attorneys said.

Much of the interaction is filmed on police-worn body camera footage that dates back to Jan. 6, 2020, in Hurricane City, Utah. 

"I have never had a case, yet, where the video is so complete as it is in this case," attorney Robert Sykes of Sykes McAllister Law Offices told the panel on Wednesday in a videoconference, adding that he has been practicing law in Utah for 50 years. "What you don't see in the video is a middle-aged hotel owner who gets a call at 1:40 in the morning, who's never been arrested, who spent the whole day cooking for a funeral for one of her relatives, who is exhausted."

Instead, the bodycam footage shows a locked and empty hotel lobby with a broken door, Sykes said. "There is no crime alleged and no crime shown" by Blackmore, he said. 

"You see an arrestee who's not committed a crime, who's never committed a crime, has no weapon, makes no threats, makes no aggressive moves, is not escaping," he said. 

In the plaintiff's brief, Blackmore's attorneys say Hurricane City police officers Jared Carlson and Eric DeMille arrived on the scene that night to assist a hotel guest who left his key in his room and was unable to get back inside. Blackmore was asleep in one of the hotel rooms when an officer called a hotel phone number and asked her to come down.

Blackmore's attorneys described a confused, distraught woman trying to attend to her business who was quickly subdued by police for reasons she did not understand, they said in their opening brief to the appeals court. 

Blackmore was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of disorderly conduct and interfering with an arrest, according to the attorneys in the plaintiff's brief.

An attorney representing the police officers and Hurricane City described the situation much differently to the appeals judges, arguing that Blackmore "immediately flew into a rage" upon being contacted by officers DeMille and Carlson and refused to follow their orders. 

"They arrived for one purpose only: to assist a guest who was trying to get back into his hotel room," attorney Gregory Hoole of Hoole & King told the judges. "They didn't know anything else going on in that moment. ... They were trying to get control of the situation so they could listen and understand the situation."

U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, a Barack Obama appointee, dismissed Blackmore's initial complaints of unlawful seizure and excessive force against the police officers and Hurricane City in June 2024. Blackmore filed for an appeal shortly after. 

A key question among the three judges present for the Wednesday morning arguments - Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jerome Holmes and U.S. Circuit Judges Gregory Phillips and Joel Carson - focused on whether Blackmore's establishment, a hotel with more than 40 rooms, was considered a "public place" at that hour of the night. The appeals judges also questioned whether the nature of a business can shift between being public and private throughout a 24-hour period. 

Blackmore's attorneys argued in their opening brief that their client could not be arrested for disorderly conduct in a locked hotel at 1:40 a.m. because it was no longer public at that hour. 

Blackmore's attorneys said the police officers did not have probable cause to arrest their client for interfering with an arrest because she never refused to comply with their orders and that they were not entitled to qualified immunity because their excessive force clearly violated her rights. At one point, an officer grabbed her left breast, her attorneys said. However, the appeals judges did not necessarily agree that it was intentional. 

"These are jury questions," Sykes told the appeals court judges. "This case should go to a jury of her peers and let them decide these issues." 

The defendants' attorneys refuted Blackmore's claims, saying the federal court was correct in its decision. 

"Had she simply cooperated with the police, none of this would have escalated," Hoole told Courthouse News on Wednesday. "These police officers exercised the patience of Job in dealing with Mrs. Blackmore."

Hoole said the full bodycam footage shows that officers Carlson and DeMille provided Blackmore many opportunities to follow their commands. Courthouse News was unable to view the full body camera footage as of Wednesday.

"We're confident that Judge Nuffer's decision will be affirmed," Hoole said. "His decision is grounded in the law. It would be very difficult for it to be overturned."

Source: Courthouse News Service