“City of Keene” Loses in Supreme Court Smoke Alarm Case Against KAC

If you have been following the blog here at Free Keene for the last 18 months, you may recall the raid on the Keene Activist Center that occurred in the summer of 2012. The Keene-police-backed raid by code enforcement and the fire department ultimately resulted in a court case against me for an alleged smoke alarm violation. (They claimed that all homes must have an interconnected, AC-powered smoke alarm system.)

We went to court and the “City of Keene” ultimately lost because I caught them violating their own rules – fire chiefs aren’t allowed by their own statutes to inspect single and two-family homes. Judge Runyon correctly invalidated all the evidence collected by the fire chief and dismissed the case. “The City” people, desperate to crush the KAC and hating to lose in their own system, then appealed to the NH “supreme” court, spending hundreds of taxpayer dollars on a transcript of the district court hearings.

The supreme court then informed “the City” that their filing was deficient because all criminal cases must have the approval of the attorney general’s office prior to the appeal being filed. They gave “the City” some time to correct the error. Meanwhile, “the City” and the AG’s office filed memorandums of law arguing the case was not criminal, but civil, and therefore they did not need the AG’s permission to move ahead with the appeal.

Ultimately, the court’s “justices” disagreed with “the City’s” arguments and ruled the case is indeed criminal and so “the City” must get the AG’s approval by Nov 7th. The approval was never given. Therefore, the supreme court dismissed the case. I and the KAC win! (Of course, I’ve lost lots of time and effort I could have spent on other things.)

The fact that “the City” couldn’t even win their smoke alarm case at the supreme court against me may not bode well for their eventual performance in the Robin Hood case appeal, where they are actually against a real, experienced free speech attorney!