Originally published at: https://freekeene.com/2023/08/19/bonnie-takes-a-parking-ticket-to-trial-and-wins/
Keene activists are ready for a new wave of activism. Riley Blake, a new mover and Free Talk Live host, is hosting weekly 420 meet ups in downtown Keene. Press NH Now, a police accountability activist recently moved to Keene. Most recently, I took a parking ticket to court.
In this video you’ll see the whole process of how to do it yourself. I’ll explain it here, although this is not legal advice as i am not an attorney. First, you have to contest the ticket which is done at City Hall. Bring your ticket and your ID and registration if applicable. Then you’ll get served a court date. That does mean a psychopath with a shiny badge and a gun will likely come visit your home to give you the ticket so make sure you film your encounter and warn any roommates about what you’re doing. Then, you show up to the court date they give you. You don’t need to hire a lawyer for this and they won’t give you a public defender for a fifteen dollar ticket. You could tell the judge you don’t understand the nature or cause of the charge so you cannot plea guilty. You can use that as an opportunity to ask him questions about why you’re there that day. I asked the judge in my case if I am entitled to a fair trial. He said yes. I asked him if I could get a fair trial if there was a conflict of interest. He didn’t answer my question. He lied and said he couldn’t answer that yes-or-no question because he’d have to know what the conflict of interest would be. That’s non-responsive but I didn’t object since I didn’t want to piss him off that early. The obvious answer is that it wouldn’t be a fair trial if there was a conflict of interest in the case. Next, I asked the judge who he represents. He lied and said he doesn’t represent anyone. That stumped me because I knew the judge could say whatever he wanted but I hadn’t expected a human being to stand in front of me and say he represents no one, not even himself. That doesn’t even make sense but we are in legal land when we are in court. So up is down and down is up as Marc Stevens would say. I dropped my questioning and he asked if I would like to plea and I still said no. He gave me a trial date in July.
The prosecution didn’t end up giving me discovery until the day before trial. So the day before trial I went to the court house and the police station to file a Motion to Dismiss with the judge. You have to go to the police station and file it there to because they give it to the prosecution and you must notify them as well. The day of the trial, the judge granted a continuance so I would have more time but didn’t grant my motion to dismiss. So a trial was rescheduled for two weeks later. I was actually happy it didn’t get dropped because I wanted to cross examine Jane McDermott, the old lady thug who wrote the ticket and left it on the car I was using. The day of trial I was able to do that. I got to ask her a lot of fun questions including how much she gets paid to be at court. She was on her day off but being paid twenty-five dollars an hour to be there. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Writing parking tickets is objectively not just something the City of Keene needs to do in order to maintain parking spaces. If it was, they wouldn’t spend all of this money paying the parking enforcer, the prosecutor and the judge to be in court in order to get fifteen dollars out of me. I believe the real reason is to create an atmosphere of fear and make sure people stay obedient. No private company maintaining these parking spaces would waste so much money. But they don’t care, it’s your tax dollars they’re wasting so why be responsible with it? They’ll get more out of you, right? If you don’t pay them they’ll come to your house and shoot your dog and bring you to prison.
I won the case because when Jason Short, the prosecutor, rested his case I motioned to dismiss on the basis that he never showed any evidence that I was the one who had been operating the vehicle or that I owned the car, since it’s registered under a church for which I am a minister. But even if you try this yourself and your car is registered under your name, if the prosecution rests without showing any evidence that you were the one operating the vehicle or that the meter was actually out of time, you could motion to dismiss. The judge may just not like you and deny your motion. He may order you to pay the fifteen dollars. If you really want to be a stellar activist you can tell him you’re not going to pay the fine. He will either make you do community service or put you in jail for one day. But, (and this is especially true if you are able to film the trial,) they don’t want to be seen throwing people in jail over fifteen dollars. If enough people contest their tickets, they will be so backed up there’s no way they would be able to continue this racket.
Please enjoy the video of the whole process. It’s fun to laugh at how ridiculous of a situation we are in while in court trying not to be harmed by these freaks who believe they are superhuman. They wear suits, badges and robes. They speak in ritualistic patterns. They will reprimand you for getting frustrated with someone who is lying under oath about you. They pretend it’s fair that all of them are on the same team against you. But that’s the “fair and just” legal system we are forced to not feel contempt for!