David Jurist moved to Keene from Arkansas back in September and a month later was already in handcuffs in Hillsborough, NH for the dastardly crime of driving safely without a government permission slip. After receiving personal recognizance bail, he was released and other Keene activists made the trip to Hillsborough to pick him and his car up.
David is a freedom to travel activist and has studied many unusual courtroom approaches. For years I’ve encouraged people who want to try unique approaches to court cases to move to the Keene area so we can document them on video. (Many states do not allow recording in court, so it’s impossible for the court theorists to prove their techniques actually work.) So, I was excited to see him question the judge Edward B. Tenney during his arraignment this week at Hillsborough District Court.
Watch as the city’s private attorneys try their best to get the court to approve of their request for an unconstitutional injunction that would infringe on the free speech rights of the “Robin Hooders“, the activists who’ve made international headlines after the city filed suit against us for filling expired parking meters and calling out the parking enforcers for the evil they commit on a daily basis.
The court’s justices, who normally give each side a good grilling in these hearings, seem to only give the city’s attorney a hard time. Free speech attorney Jon Meyer, who has taken the case pro-bono says he’s “cautiously optimistic”. One should not get too sure of one’s position with the court, so we’ll know likely within six months how they have decided on what should be the final appearance in a New Hampshire court.
If they lose, will the City of Keene spend tens-of-thousands more taxpayer dollars to appeal to the federal courts to stop an activity that has basically tapered off on its own? (The city’s own updated suit has dropped four of the six original respondents as they don’t even live in town anymore.) The city gang is notoriously bad at learning their lesson, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
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The new tax rates are in • 13 years of daycare • UNH caught electioneering • New governor likely to repeal same day voter registration • City officials endorse solar energy advocacy letter to be sent to state legislators • http://CitizenCain.org
This week, newer mover-to-Keene Steven Johnson tried his hand at a speeding ticket trial against newer Keene cop Luke Antin, who appears to be a decent guy. Steven heroically refused the plea deal and appeared for trial before judge Edward J Burke, in Keene District Court… but not really.
See, Keene District Court normally occurs in Cheshire County courthouse’s courtroom one. At 8:30 in the morning on November 7th, as usual, dozens of people had filed obediently into courtroom one, awaiting Burke’s arrival. Little did they know, however, that Burke had appeared in the smaller, upstairs courtroom three at 8:30am sharp.
This is a smart move – it prevents the average court attendee from seeing someone actually take a speeding charge to trial. (Based on the large number of youtube views on speeding ticket trials – people are very interested in this subject.) Sure, we give the court victims fliers to encourage them to not take a plea deal, but it’s another matter entirely for them to witness someone actually doing it.
So, courtroom three contained four people: Burke, Steven, KPD officer Luke Antin, and the cameraman – me. Thankfully, we can record the court proceedings in New Hampshire, so the trial can be seen by the world. Here’s the video:
The director and executive producer, Vince Perfetto, recently made this retrospective blog post celebrating the second anniversary of the movie. I highly recommend checking it out.
Now that the movie’s been such a hit on YouTube, to commemorate the second anniversary, it’s been uploaded to Facebook. Can the Facebook version get its own 100,000 views? Please help us accomplish that by sharing the facebook version. Thank you!
