Nearly a year after Jim Johnson was arrested with 11 others for the horrible crime of assembling for a protest on the supposedly public property of the local jail, he faced a jury trial. They found him guilty. Sentencing has yet to complete. Here’s the footage of this historic first-ever jury trial of a free stater and at the end you’ll see an interview with a juror. While the trial did not come out in Jim’s favor, it wasted an entire day of the court bureaucrats’ time and filled up 50% of their courtrooms. Any large amount of civil disobedience and refusing to plea-bargain will crush the system with a huge burden of cases. Please come join the activism in NH!
Although the City of Keene has been known to drop several activists’ parking tickets when faced with a court date, such did not happen on Monday. Nick Ryder had a “Notice of Violation” placed on his car in October of 2010, and in March 2011, the matter was handled in Keene District Court. (Update 03-30-11) Judge Burke has found Ryder guilty, and enforced the fine of $15.
Most everybody simply pays the low cost of a parking ticket in Keene. But not Ryder, and not many other activists such as Ian Freeman, Johnny Ray, Mark Edge, and Dale Everett, who have all resisted paying the parking fine, and were either found not guilty in court, or had the matter dropped before trial.
Here is the video from Monday’s trial:
During trial, the question came up of whether the owner of a vehicle is legally responsible for parking tickets placed on it, even if the owner was not the operator of the vehicle. According to the Keene City Code, the answer is yes:
Sec. 94-155. Owner responsibilities.
A person shall not allow, permit or suffer a vehicle registered in his name to stop, stand or park in violation of any section of this Code controlling the stopping, standing or parking of vehicles. The owner or person in whose name such vehicle is registered shall be held prima facie responsible for such violations.
(Code 1970, ยง 2818.0)
Lance Weber is General Counsel at the Human Rights Defense Center and he gave a presentation at this past weekend’s Agora I/O unconference called “Prisoner Outreach: How the Caged Can Help Advance Liberty”:
