In a front-page story from the Keene Sentinel, as well as a small article in today’s Union Leader, the legal saga of Keene’s Robin Hood is documented.
Spending seven hours in a courthouse is seldom entertaining, but during the Robin Hood of Keene trial which occupied the entirety of Monday, the proceedings maintained general lighthearted hilarity. Attorney Jon Meyer represented five of the six accused of filling meters as part of a conspiracy theory hatched by Prince John and Jester Mullins. Despite fairly condemning affidavits filed by parking enforcement officers alleging harassment, the one full and one partial testimony from parking enforcers honestly relayed that Robin Hooders’ interactions with them are fairly innocuous. For example, all enforcer affidavits claim Robin Hooders invade the personal space of enforcers, yet when asked on the stand if anyone present in the courtroom had bumped into or initiated unprivileged physical contact, parking enforcer Linda affirmed one incident and identified a member of the courtroom audience who was not even named in the lawsuit.
It is certainly appreciated that so far, enforcer testimony has been quite accurate. I did take exception to one point made by enforcer Linda on the stand, when asked if I had expressed desire to shut down the parking enforcement division of the Keene police, she hesitated before affirming. Granted, this was after she had already offered that she had chosen not to engage any Robin Hooders in conversation, and acknowledged that her requests were respected for the most part.
There was very visible lawyering going on by the city’s hired-gun attorney Charles Bauer, who over the course of her testimony, was able to persuade Linda to shrink the amount of space from her person that she originally believed Robin Hooders would generally film from. Just before 10:30am, Linda had testified that participants with videocameras would get “not that close”, estimating 8-10 feet of space. Five minutes later, random distances are thrown out and asked. “Could it be 50 feet? How about 30 feet? How about five? Maybe three sometimes?,” Bauer suggested, as he slowly inched himself closer to the witness stand to demonstrate what crowding a person looks like. An hour later, the 8-10 feet of general distance became 4-5 feet.
Testimony related to Pete Eyre was expedited as he will be out of the country in the coming months. It never was clear why he was affiliated with the case in the first place, and after hearing the evidence against him at the end of the day, the city’s attorneys were given ten days to respond to Pete’s motion to strike his name from the lawsuit. Pete was also representing himself, which allowed him the opportunity to ask his own questions of witnesses as well as participate in bench conferences with the myriad of attorneys from the city along with defense counsel Jon Meyer.
Though proceedings inside of the court house went well, outside of the lobby, during the lunch break, an impatient custodian sprayed water on peaceful chalkers who sat to preserve their art. One would think that it would be illegal to water someone without their consent. See the video embedded below.
The evidentiary hearing is scheduled to resume some time next month. Stay tuned for full video from the day’s proceedings coming from Free Keene.
