On Monday Night at 3am, two Keene police show up outside my house, knowing I’m in jail. They park in my yard, and begin talking loudly. Moments later they make their way to my front door. When Meg, who was home alone, woke up and saw this, she turned on a light. The two policeman responded by running back to their car, getting in and driving away. Here’s her Porc411 call after the terrorists left.
What were they doing? Perhaps looking in the windows to spot something that would justify a search warrant? Perhaps they were planning to break into my home, and conduct an illegal search, hoping to find something to get a warrant. Perhaps they wanted to plant something in my home to set me up. Perhaps they wanted to bug my home for monitoring.
From the Keene Sentinel. Be sure to click to the article to see the usual hate and fear-based comments about “free staters”:
To hear Russ Kotfila tell it (Westmoreland witch hunt must stop, Keene Sentinel, March 23), Free Staters are the quintessential upstanding citizens and those questioning their well established goal to infuse 20,000 ultra libertarians into New Hampshire to take over local and state politics are off on a witch hunt.
Mr. Kotfila seems to be suggesting that resisting or even talking about this influx is somehow unseemly and “will not be tolerated any longer.” For one espousing tolerance for Free Staters, Mr. Kotfila seems harshly intolerant of those who don’t feel warm and fuzzy about the Free State agenda.
A majority of Free Staters currently in New Hampshire have indicated they want to replace public education with home schooling and private schools; they want to end all government regulation of businesses, from licensing manicurists, to getting drivers licenses, to elimination of planning and zoning boards.
They don’t believe government should be able to mandate taxation to pay for schools, roads, Social Security or any social welfare programs like nursing homes.
Most people don’t agree with the platform of the Free Staters. (more…)
“At least 95 percent of all cases are settled by plea negotiations,” Keene defense lawyer Paul G. Schweizer said. “Plea bargains are absolutely essential to the judicial system.”
Without plea deals, the courts, jails and prisons would become clogged with defendants and inmates.
“As a practical matter, we would have to build 10 new courthouses in Keene if we took everyone to trial,” he said. “We would have to hire five times as many police officers and prosecutors. The judicial system would come to a screeching halt.”
Please take a moment and think about that quote. It reveals an Achilles’s heel of the state. Their system is counting on you to go with the flow.
“Just take the plea, pay up, and we’ll make this go away.”, say the government aggressors. Naturally, people eagerly take the “deal”. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to minimize the harm that the state is inflicting upon them and their loved ones.
However, I’d like to encourage them take a longer view. (more…)
Back in October, while attending an arraignment for recently arrested activists from the Keene Pumpkin Festival, Brandon Durham was asked (told?) to remove his hood while in the court. After refusing multiple times the bailiff’s order, he was arrested and taken off to jail.
This past Wednesday, Brandon had his trial on a charge of trespassing. Not a charge of “wearing a hood in court” or “disobeying a court officer” or even their favorite – “disorderly conduct”. He was charged with trespassing under the logic that the court officer had asked him to leave the court, and he didn’t. Of course he was welcomed in, but suddenly was trespassing when he wanted to wear a hood?
Nonetheless, he had his trial on the charge, and here is the full video:
While Brandon did not offer much of a defense, Judge Howard Lane still saw the case as ambiguous enough to take it under advisement, and we will await a verdict. Maybe, just maybe, he will realize that wearing a piece of clothing is not a $1000 offense, or even a $1 offense.
