The Cheshire County Superior Court has unequivocally asserted that it is completely within the Court’s prerogative to order violence to force you to stand in the courtroom when instructed. In the past this Court has even done such ridiculous things as ordering law enforcement officers to lift people up by their elbows and ordering people’s arrest for not standing… only to release them five minutes later and wish them a “Merry Christmas.”
This stuff is happening in the United States of America. Really.
As an officer of the Court, I must ask you to comply with the Court’s order and stand under your own power when attending Jason’s trial tomorrow. If you don’t stand, you may be physically lifted or imprisoned.
If you’re unable to stand or are injured, you may just have to explain yourself further.
After a cost of eighteen days in a cage and a few months of legal threats, there is good news to report on chalking freedom out of Orlando, Florida. The ABA Journal published yesterday that Timothy Osmar, who was twice arrested for chalking at the Orlando city hall plaza, had his rights violated when he was legally kidnapped over protected political speech. US district magistrate David Baker’s ruling deemed the arrest for violation of a city ordinance to be an overreach of a code designed to prevent unauthorized commercial advertising. Unlike NH, Florida’s towns and cities are endowed with the power to write words powerful enough to invoke arrest for their violation.
Prior to the decision Friday, Orlando officials indicated that they would be appealing an “adverse ruling”. The city would find it difficult to play a purer than thou antichalk attitude in this case. Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer encouraged downtown businesses to chalk their sidewalks in support of the home team Magic when they were in the NBA playoffs in 2009. The city also permits a yearly chalk art festival held by the local Rotary Club. David Baker told Orlando bureaucrats, “The city may not selectively interpret and enforce the ordinance based on its own desire to further the causes of particular favored speakers.”
Mayor Dyer did not seem thoroughly interested in the deeper constitutional and moral issues regarding chalking arrests. His comment, while charges were pending was, “This was a guy who wanted to be arrested, by all accounts, and has been… This guy was given every opportunity not to go to jail, but he chose to go to jail.” (more…)
Did you know that rule 1.1 of the district courts is that they can waive the rules at any time? It’s true – and they do. Anytime you call them on breaking their own rules, they just breeze right on by like the rules mean nothing to them. However, when *you* break one of those rules, they operate on a whole other set of standards.
There are countless examples of this, but here’s another one.
So, we’re mere days away from the trial date of April 17th, and the Cheshire attorney’s office has only just sent their witness list to me. Their rule, 2.10 B says:
Not less than 14 days prior to trial, the State shall provide the defendant with a list of names of witnesses, including experts and reports, and a list of any lab reports, with copies thereof, it anticipates introducing at trial.
It was less than a week prior to trial before I got the witness list (more…)
New Hampshire State Representative Kevin Avard (R) (Hills-20) is doing amazing work on giving voice to people who have suffered abuses by the NH Judicial Branch in his new show “Speak Up New Hampshire.”
I was honored when Rep. Avard asked me to be his second guest to speak of the abuses suffered by Ademo Freeman and Jason Talley of Keene by the hands of the judiciary. That interview now has over 1,000 views.
Rep. Avard is shining a much needed spotlight on a branch of government that operates almost completely unaccountable to anyone.
He also needs your help.
Rep. Avard is asking that all people who support accountability in the New Hampshire Judicial Branch come to a press conference he is holding at the Legislative Office Building (LOB) in Concord next week in support of House Speaker William L. O’Brien’s continued support of the Redress of Grievances Committee.
I’d argue that whether your individual political ideology makes you a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Voluntaryist, Anarchist, Communist, or simply someone who doesn’t care about politics at all, you should agree that criminal public officials need to be held accountable by someone.
04/17/12 (Tuesday) at 12:00PM
Legislative Office Building
33 North State Street
Concord, NH 03301
