by James Cleaveland | Dec 21, 2015 |
After the city’s latest failure at the superior court, once again the city has given us an early Christmas present by deciding to appeal the most recent decision to the NH Supreme court.
The city’s expensive attorneys from Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell waited until the LAST possible day they could file to legally file the appeal (PDF). The city has already spent countless dollars on this case and this latest appeal is a further waste of taxpayer funds.
The appeal is for the Supreme court to look ONLY at the lower court’s ruling regarding the request for the “buffer zone” injunction. The NH Supreme court has already decided the allegations of “tortious interference”, “civil conspiracy”, “negligence”, and the demand for financial compensation were unfounded and the activities engaged in by the Robin Hooders are protected by the first amendment.
Once again the robin hooders will be represented by the NH Civil Liberties Union’s Jon Meyer who expects the case to be heard sometime in the summer of 2016, three years after the case was first filed in 2013. We will keep you up-to-date on any further developments.
by Ian | Nov 30, 2015 |
Parking Rates in Keene Now Up 50%
By no means is this a pro-liberty decision by the Keene city council, but perhaps the hundreds of petition signatures by business owners downtown and their clients had some impact on the council’s ultimate decision to grow the parking department’s collections, but not to the level the enforcers wanted.
by Ian | Nov 27, 2015 |
As I reported earlier this week, Robin Hood of Keene has again been victorious in court as the city of Keene’s suits have failed. The news got covered in a bunch of news sources via the AP pickup as well as articles in the Keene Sentinel, Union Leader, and the front page of the Concord Monitor!
by Ian | Nov 23, 2015 |
Robin Hooders Victorious – AGAIN.
The city appealed to the NH supreme court which ultimately upheld the superior court’s dismissal except for one part. They affirmed the lower court’s ruling to dismiss based on free speech grounds, but said the superior court needed to look at the request for the “buffer zone” injunction separately from the allegations of “tortious interference”, “civil conspiracy”, “negligence”, and the demand for financial compensation, all of which the city failed to prove to the court’s satisfaction.
Thankfully, the superior court agreed with attorney Meyer’s arguments and denied the city’s request for any injunction against us whatsoever! This effectively kills their case, unless they decide to continue spending ridiculous amounts of taxpayer money to appeal this latest failure to the NH supreme court.
James Cleaveland, Attorney Jon Meyer, Ian Freeman
In a fifteen-page order issued on 11/20, Kissinger writes of the city’s request for injunction:
The Court cannot conceive of any more narrow or alternative relief that would provide any meaningful protection to the PEOs without running afoul of the Respondents’ First Amendment rights…the government interests here are not sufficient to warrant an infringement on the Respondents’ First Amendment rights. Any injunction requiring a buffer zone of any meaningful distance would require a significant change in the method used by the Respondents to disseminate their protected speech.
So, despite the city’s interests in their parking enforcement continuing unabated, their significantly-reduced proposal for injunction is still beyond what is constitutionally permissible, and further, the court could not think of any lesser restrictions that would pass constitutional muster.
Kissinger, in his conclusion, does remind the city that if Robin Hooders’ conduct is rising to the level of violating criminal statutes, that they can bring such charges. Of course, the reason they never have brought criminal harassment or assault charges is because Robin Hooders are peaceful. There is zero evidence of “harassment, threatening, or intimidating” – the claims the city has long libeled us with throughout this lawsuit.
The poor, innocent parking enforcers.
If the parking enforcers don’t like being called out for their threatening, intimidating, and harassing behavior, they should get jobs in the productive economy. Until the city council ends the parking department and turns over the spaces to downtown businesses to decide how to administer, per market forces, Robin Hooding will continue to rescue peaceful motorists from the threats of the city government.
The city has 30 days to appeal this latest failure. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
by Ian | Nov 15, 2015 |
The lawsuit brought originally in 2013 by the “City of Keene” vs several Robin Hooders (people who feed expired meters to save folks from parking tickets) continues onward, with both sides having filed legal memorandums with the Cheshire superior court after a second round of “evidentiary hearings”.
First up, heroic pro-bono free speech attorney Jon Meyer filed this 12-page legal memorandum. Meyer points out that the city’s demand for an injunction against the Robin Hooders would clearly be unconstitutional as it’s directed at specific people and speech. He cites various case law for the court to review, and points out the obvious discrimination and hypocrisy:
If the Defendants had been engaging in demonstrations for the purpose of expressing their support of PEO’s, or were making comments supportive of their job performance, this proceeding would never have been initiated. The videos and other testimony show that other private citizens have emphatically expressed their support for the PEO’s, and their opposition to the Robin Hooders, in some cases physically. No injunction is sought against any of them because they do not convey the Robin Hood message.
Meyer further invalidates the claims of the city that somehow Robin Hooding is a breach of the peace, as claimed by the city’s suit:
James Cleaveland, Attorney Jon Meyer, Ian Freeman
There is a criminal statute, RSA 644, which addresses and prohibits virtually every type of breach of peace. The fact that no breach of peace, disorderly conduct, or assault prosecution has been brought against any of the Robin Hood Defendants for Robin Hooding is compelling evidence that this asserted interest is not significantly implicated by their activities.
The only episodes in the record that amounted to anything approaching a disturbance of the peace were several incidents in which Robin Hooders were physically assaulted by third parties. Several instances over several years of hundreds if not thousands of Robin Hooding demonstrations hardly amounts to a substantial problem. 2 And even if it were substantial, it would violate the First Amendment to restrict the Defendants’ expression activity because of illegal assaults against them by third parties. This is a classic example of a “heckler’s veto” which is antithetical to the First Amendment because it puts speech, particularly unpopular speech at risk, and, in effect, rewards mob or individual violence.
Meyer points out that just because the parking enforcers may be uncomfortable with some of what has been said to them on the streets does not give the city the right to restrict freedom of speech: (more…)
by Ian | Nov 12, 2015 |
The city of Keene has (again) quietly stuck their proposed parking rate and fine AND hours-of-enforcement increases into tonight’s FOP committee agenda. It’s item #8 here.
This may be our last chance to stop this proposed increase – as you may recall, at previous hearings petitions with hundreds of signatures of people downtown, including dozens of business owners opposed the proposed increases. This has not stopped the city from continuing to return and push the idea again and again.
Tonight the decision will be in the hands of the FOP committee which meets starting at 6:30pm on the 2nd floor of city hall at 3 Washington St. in Keene.
Committee meetings are the only time they will actually hear from the people on any matter – when this goes to the full council there will be no further public comment.
Please come out tonight and let these councilors on the committee know that parking meters and fines hurt downtown businesses, or however else you’d like to frame your thoughts on the issue.
See you there!
