It comes as a modest victory that the case of State v Garret Ean, relative to a bicycle headlamp violation dating back to June 2011, was closed without a guilty finding on December 18. Judge M. Kristin Spath issued the order which I received on the 20th stating that, “The court is using its discretion pursuant to RSA 262:42 and placing this complaint on file without a finding for a period of six months…” This ‘neither guilty nor not-guilty’ ruling is a legislative creation for New Hampshire courts which reads, “A complaint against a person…may be placed on file at the discretion of the court, if the violation appears to have been unintentional, or if no person or property could have been endangered thereby.” This provision applies most to the ambiguous motor vehicle statutes and some other infractions that do not fall under the more straightforward criminal code. While I complete a summary article on the entire court performance, here is a brief history of the case chronicled with court documents.
The first court appearance I had for this incident was in September 2011, when I received discovery from the state and traded with them my evidence and witness list. The case was continued a number of times while my witness was traveling. When a date of late September 2012 was set for the trial, I was concerned that my witness may not have returned to New Hampshire by this time. Before I had a chance to file another continuance request, I received one from the state’s attorney Heather Flanner, which requested the trial be moved to a date later than October 25. I did not object to the continuance, but apparently it must have been withdrawn by the prosecution, because on September 28, I received a Notice of Fine from the court, claiming that I had been found guilty in abstentia for a trial date that I had missed on September 25. (more…)
The best quote in the piece is, “It’s really disturbing to think about what 20,000 of them – assuming they are all serious about coming here – could do to New Hampshire.”
The statists know we are making a difference, and they are frightened to death of more liberty activists coming here. Remember, we’re only just getting started, with only about 1,100 liberty activists here for the FSP.
If it wasn’t obvious that the FSP is the most effective movement for liberty in existence, this article should solidify it. No other liberty migration can claim this success. No other liberty movement can claim this impact. If you love liberty, you need to be here. Please join the Free State Project today and move ASAP.
Aaron Gill sees an inherent contradiction in the Free State Project and what he believes to be its stated mission, which is to get 20,000 people to move to New Hampshire from other states in order to establish a libertarian utopia where limited government exists only to protect individual rights – and little else.
It’s a project that Gill, a Democrat, believes will backfire on the Free State movement and its participants. (more…)
Attorney Knowlton has told me that Assistant US Attorney Emery Hurley is a pretty cool guy, so please remember the things he writes are done on behalf of his client. The man could be a staunch civil libertarian for all we know, but his client happens to be the US of A at the moment.
CBP is hands-down the most powerful of any law enforcement agency in our country because they’re located at the border. No one can film what they do, they “lose” exculpatory video evidence when it suits them, and with officers doing things like this, they deserve some serious enhanced public scrutiny.
If you’d like to share with me your opinions (good or bad), please feel free to do so by emailing me at bbraduma at gmail dot com. If you’d like to do so anonymously you can easily find an anonymous email provider through Google.
Kind donations to fund the litigation can be made to the chip-in… or if you prefer the “super secret squirrel funding method,” through Bitcoin: 19vQDqJzXZWkxHTCtgpoYJwnvGYghHu4AE
One may have noticed that a good amount of the content featured here in the past week has followed a bicycle headlamp trial endeavor of this blog’s editor, Garret Ean. The full trial video with very minimal editing has finished uploading and is now available via youtube.com/freeconcordtv. About 2/3 of the video’s fifty-four minute run time consists of the cross examination of detaining officer Michael Pearl. The raw videos from which the complete piece was crafted have been available since shortly after the event at Fr33manTVraw. There has been an entry featuring new media from the trial almost every day since, including coverage of the camera fiasco prior to the trial, a raw podcast segment overviewing the trial, and a visually illustrated discussion of court issues from Tuesday evening’s episode of Free Talk Live.
If you have been trying to access the Keene Police Scanner stream over the past few days, it has sounded very distorted. That problem has been solved and the audio is again clear and understandable.
As always, you can tune in via your favorite media player via your computer or smartphone to KPD.FreeKeene.com (just use “open URL” in your favorite media player and put that in). If that link doesn’t work, you can enter: http://98.143.36.105:6060/live
The easiest way to listen on your smartphone is probably the Tunein app. It’s available for all phone operating systems. Just install the app and search for “Keene police”.
