NH Jury activists gathered this morning outside Cheshire superior court in Keene to perform jury outreach prior to jury selection for the trial of James Cleaveland which begins tomorrow morning (Tuesday 12/15) at 9am.
James is facing two “Class A” misdemeanor charges with a possibility of up to two years in prison for being arrested while recording video of police at the scene of a suicidal man in the summer of 2014. The charges are “disorderly conduct” (the state’s favorite catch-all charge) and “resisting arrest”.
James has already had a bench trial at Keene district court, the video of which can be seen here, and was found guilty. District court judge Edward J Burke sentenced him to 1.5 years in jail, suspended, plus a $625 fine. After sentencing, James opted for his right to a jury trial “de novo”, which means, “from the beginning”. So now, not quite a year later, he is being given that trial.
This morning was jury selection. Nearly all of the jury pool of about 58 people had received the NH Jury trifold last month. (In Cheshire county, petit juries are empaneled for two months.) Usually the jury outreach process involves handing out flyers and opening the door for folks, but in addition today it included activists holding signs featuring phrases like, “2 Years 4 Filming?”, and “Filming the police is not a crime!”
More activists are expected to be on-the-scene tomorrow morning at 8am for further sign-holding, with the trial starting at 9am and expected to last two days. If you can’t make it in person, live tweets will be available here at FreeKeene.com and later the full trial video will be posted.
Fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump visited Portsmouth, NH last night to accept the endorsement of a police union, the New England Police Benevolent Association.
Hundreds of protestors including a handful of Free Staters turned out to oppose him. Free Staters were photographed or interviewed by the New York Times, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Portsmouth Herald, and various independent media.
Free Stater ally and NH native Harrison De Bree was interviewed by The Guardian, and got three paragraphs in their article about the event.
Some of the anti-Trump protesters were paradoxically Republicans. One of them, Harrison Debree, 28, held up a placard that said “Trump: America’s Hitler” with a photograph of the candidate with a Hitler moustache etched on it.
Debree normally votes Republican but said he was so unhappy about the messages being put out by Trump that he was seriously now considering voting for the leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
“I don’t like the way that Trump is assaulting the Bill of Rights, like this week’s statement on closing the US to Muslims – that’s an attack on the First Amendment religious test. He’s more of a threat to the Constitution than even the Democrats are.”
Though Secret Service guarded every entrance to the hotel, we were able to do a bit of trolling. We realized that the back of the Sheraton had an unguarded hill you could climb up to access a window that looked into the hotel bar where a number of fascist Trump sympathizers gathered.
During the event we put the above TRUMP IS A FASCIST sign on the window sill looking in, to the frowns of some sympathizers inside. Later it had been removed, so I replaced it with a leftover NO TRUMP sign.
I’ve had loads of news from New Hampshire of interest to libertarians that have been stacking up over the last couple of months that I just haven’t been able to make the time to post individually here. So, this is my attempt to catch up on my backlog by putting them all in a news round-up post:
Come one come all you’re invited to a fantastic show. We’ve finally captured that evil fellow Robin Hood and am going to punish him for his devious acts.
Last June he was filming the police and was arrested by our heroic kingsmen.
We will surely get him this time!
Trial shalf be 12/15/2015 at 9 AM.
The scoundrel has this to say for himself:
“This court experience will likely prove very entertaining so I invite all who wish so to attend.
Illegal UBER Driver Stephanie Franz, courtesy CBS Boston
In an article at Seacoast Online, Portsmouth acting police chief Frank Warchol uses his best, “I’m just doing my job” excuse for his department targeting 63-year old grandmother Stephanie Franz a SECOND time for what is now a total of $1,500 in two tickets. Franz is accused of driving people somewhere in Portsmouth without the city’s permission slip.
The protectionist racket will continue on unabated after Monday night’s city council meeting, where there were people who testified in favor and against driving freedom. Christopher David had a volunteer read his letter to the council, as he could not attend due to his wife having a baby. Here’s the feed from the council chambers, starting with the people addressing the council:
The second speaker is a taxi company owner who accuses UBER of “stealing” money from him, since he’s obediently jumped through the city’s hoops. However, he does suggest (perhaps sarcastically) to repeal all ordinances so his companies can lower their prices, which I think most libertarians would love to see. After him is a former fireman who suggests that UBER drivers could be a danger to passengers due to misdemeanor convictions which the city’s regulations prohibit within seven years of the background check. He also claims that the state background check is more thorough, but the Free Uber page on facebook says otherwise: (more…)
JP recorded a brief interview with Chris before he turned himself in to be arrested for the first time in his life. Chris points out in the interview that he’s only turning himself in so the cops don’t bust in during his fiancee’s upcoming home birth and take him away then:
![35e6df80-e0cc-11e3-8847-391b35944c9b_robin-hood[1]](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/35e6df80-e0cc-11e3-8847-391b35944c9b_robin-hood1.jpg)
