Or, Dont Water the Homeless
Part Two
Here's part two of my diary entry that I posted Wednesday. This one's about how I ended up on trial before a jury of my peers in the first place. I warn you it's not short but I think I did keep it concise.
Link to Part One
See it in one piece here
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Like Water for Homeless
To think this whole thing was about water. That I had the temerity to tell one of the guards at Saint Vincent's homeless shelter--what 60 Minutes once called the "Taj Mahal" of homeless shelters here in downtown San Diego--that she should expedite the juice line in the dining hall and that cold water should be available for the people outside (who like me were waiting in line for over an hour under the hot noon-time summer sun.)
I mean the people who run this place act really weird when it comes to water. As if drinking water has to be rationed. Rationed especially to those that don't live at the shelter. For no reason, during this unusually hot and humid summer, they closed the showers to non-residents. And the bathrooms--they had been closed to non residents for the past year. It's like they want people who don't live in the shelter to just take off.
Anyway, shortly after I made my remarks, the guard would apparently "extrapolate" that I was not so much making a complaint as I was really breaking the rules by "cutting in line". So that when I returned to my seat with a plate of spaghetti, side of mixed vegetables--and an empty cup of juice--she was calling the cavalry. While I was literally minding my own p's & carrots she was on her way with the shock troops to have me taken out. One of them came up behind me, reached under my armpits and yanked me off my seat. As I struggled to my feet he put me in a headlock just before he ended up--in my spaghetti. We then both tumbled off the table. In the blink of an eye, with both of us on the floor, another guard lined up the nozzle of her pepper spray to my left pupil and blew off my contact.
They took me into the security office and began searching through my pockets and belongings. Whatever they were hoping to find--most likely incriminating evidence of anything--they came up empty. What they did find was an old police citation that notes where I had been previously arrested for illegal lodging. Just before they released me, the female guard who had initiated the incident made a point of showing me that she had found the ticket in my wallet and was putting it back while she told me not to come back for 5 weeks.
Late that night, while I was sleeping at my usual spot the cops arrested me and I was taken in for illegal lodging. I was in a dead sleep at the time they arrived--exhausted from the pepper spray and it’s related near anxiety attack inducing affects. The cop who arrested me this time was very aggressive and cuffed me behind the back while I was still on the ground in my sleeping bag lying on my stomach. They wouldn't even let me put my shoes on. Since it was a Tuesday night (Wednesday AM) I ended up spending 5 days in jail. It was my fourth arrest for illegal lodging--a grand total of 17 days in jail--so far.
When I got out Monday I was, as usual, hungry. When I got to the shelter I joined the line and tried to act inconspicuous. It occurred to me acting inconspicuous in this line would actually be conspicuous. Then the guard with the German Shepherd came walking down the line. The dog sniffed everyone as they went by. As the dog and the guard got closer I was getting a little anxious. I felt like a terrorist waiting to board the next flight. As the two went by the guard didn't give me a second look--but I think the dog did.
At the library later that day I googled trespass and found out that criminal trespass in California is covered by Penal Code Section 602 and despite having 25 subsections, this law does not provide for criminal trespass on private property open to the public.
Borderline
The next day, I was again waiting in line at the Taj Mahal, but this time there was this little Mexican guy behind me--singing his heart out. Ordinarily, as I already mentioned, people singing, dancing or citing scripture or otherwise acting conspicuous while waiting in line is not unusual. But you don't usually see Mexicans waiting in line at the shelter--especially Mexicans singing Madonna's smash hit "Borderline".
He didn't sing the whole song. Just one part of it he really seemed to like, even improvising with a kind of staccato delivery emphasizing each of the words of the chorus:
"Keep--On--Pushin'--My--Love, over the..."
then in a throaty rasp,
"Borrderr-lie-yeen!, Borrderr-lie-yeen!"
Which is not at all, of course, how Madonna sings it. So I'm thinking this is going to attract some attention and blow my cover with the guards at the front door. Looking around I start to get panicky. Desperately seeking Susan--I mean Spanish--for 'please shut up' I realize it's too late. Me and Material-Girl have reached the guards at the door and the diva is deeply into "Keep-On-Pushin-My-Love..."
To my relief the guards were just as distracted by the "Vincen-tainment" as everyone else and I once again slipped through the door. As I'm walking with a tray of food past the many tables populated with poor and homeless people wearing an assortment of multi-colored thrift store t-shirts and hats emblazoned with logos for companies few of them have worked for or scenic destinations few of them have gone I'm humming "somethin' in the way you love me won't let me be..."
A thrift-shopper myself I'm used to people asking if I work for the particular company or if I'm from the inviting place depicted on my t-shirt. Finding a seat I notice the guy across from me, looking a little worse for wear, has "Cape Cod" printed across his chest. I don't bother to ask. Instead, while I'm eating he asks me "Hey, how you eat so fast... oh, you got teeth?"
It was just about then, when I was reaching for a bite of my garlic bread, when I right away noticed there was another hand on my tray and it wasn't mine. The hand jerked and my tray disappeared, skittering down the lunch table to be quickly plucked bare by other dexterous sets of of can-picking hands.
Uh-oh.
I looked up. Busted. One of the guards apparently recognized me. Or maybe it was that nosey German Shepherd.
The guards tell me to take off. They'll even give me a "sack lunch" outside if I leave now. But what about tomorrow I ask, and the day after that? This is the only place that serves hot meals every day and a shower. Besides I say, I can't be "trespassing" since this place is obviously open to the public. I told them if they want, call the cops, they'll write me a ticket and we can argue about it in court.
Instead they cuff me behind the back. I'm thinking "I don't want to be your prisoner, so baby just let me free..." but instead I say why don't you just wait for the cops?
They tell me to stand.
Listen, being hungry sucks. Being thirsty sucks too. Being jailed... well you get the idea. Most people do. Most people don't need to experience those things to understand them. What some people, usually politicians, business types and judges don't seem to be able to grasp is why--after being subjected to all of those things-- homeless like me don't just get lost.
It could be lack of imagination and insight on their part. Or something deeper--call it a corrosion of character. Maybe a "homeless" retreat would help. A tramp boot camp. Something to make it all real again. That way as a newly minted mendicant you can more readily visit that hungry pit in your soul , that thirsty place in your heart and respond: fuck you. With conviction. Fuck You.
Well I didn't use any of those words in this case. I try to avoid foul language. Besides, it's having the thought that counts. And with that thought I refused to budge.
Hamburg v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (2004) , Cal.App.4th "It would appear that, at least with respect to California state law, security personnel would not have grounds to arrest someone who refused to leave a common area of a shopping mall, and that any attempt to do so might constitute battery and false imprisonment."
The guards hoisted my cuffed arms over my head. Which hurts like hell so I yell. Loudly, with conviction. Luckily, I had chosen a table right in front of the volunteer food servers whose fresh innocent faces are now gaping at the guards torturing the homeless guy. The guards dispense with the arm twisting and haul me into the security office like sack of potatoes. While again searching my belongings they tell me the cops are on the way. While they searched in vain, through the open door of the security office, off in the in the distance I could hear "Keep-On-Pushin-My-Love..."
Snyder v. United States "That an officer may not make an arrest for a misdemeanor not committed in his presence, without a warrant, has been so frequently decided as not to require citation of authority."
After the cops arrest me they take me to jail.
A Market in California
Now might be a good time to give a brief overview of some of the forces at play on the more vulnerable and others in a society structured on self-interest.
The real estate market in the East Village in downtown San Diego (where the Taj Mahal is currently located) went from bleak warehouses and abandoned buildings and parking lots just a few years ago to a new ballpark and high-rise luxury condos. Now everywhere in the city big-money developers, fat-cats and deal-makers are pursuing the "smell of property like a beasts after prey."
As a consequence, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" has been busy at work shoo-shooing away the market-challenged like the poor and the homeless. That is, a new more aggressive police policy was initiated in 2003 to ticket, arrest and jail the homeless for "illegal lodging." The idea is to solve the homeless problem in San Diego. No homeless--no problem.
In a San Diego editorial a local pastor wrote:
"For the good of the market, the poor must be removed from visibility. Thus they are increasingly guilty of their particular crime: being visible while poor. Being visible while poor is a crime because we now live in a society where all of life is market driven. One's ability to consume in the public marketplace determines human worth, dignity and status." Being Visible While Poor By John W. Wright
A number of people have taken the responsibility of helping into their own hands. One summer morning while I was walking up to the Taj Mahal I noticed a late model Cadillac Eldorado swinging briskly up to the curb. In a colorful flurry of shirts and blouses the Cadillac’s septuagenarian driver jumps out. It's Cadillac Lady! Her Caddy is packed to the windows with cloths! From nowhere a crowd materializes and begins helping Cadillac Lady to empty her wardrobe on wheels. They have to rush before the Taj Mahal guards can break up this rogue celebration of the soul--this spontaneous free market.
David Ross, a former case manager at the Taj Mahal laments in a recent article in the San Diego Reader Magazine "I left Saint Vincent's in December because I just couldn't take the corporate feeling that was happening over the past few years there." So at night, under the cloak of darkness Ross becomes The Waterman. Now, instead of managing cases for the Taj Mahal, Ross makes his rounds driving throughout downtown delivering water, chocolate bars, socks, shoes, blankets, whatever he can beg from his pals or anyone else to donate to the homeless.
According to the same article, one night he "was ticketed, cited, technically arrested, and detained for 35 minutes beside his "Homeless Hyundai" by SDPD Sergeant Laura Santiago. He was about to give water to two men, one of whom Ross knew to be diabetic."
Other groups are less sincere with their "help". As if it were just another commodity. In "Army of Altruists" David Graeber in this January's Harper's Magazine illustrates the right-wing's approach to self-interest, altruism and The Human Abstract:
"[T]he right's approach is to release the dogs of the market, throwing all traditional verities into disarray; and then, in this tumult of insecurity, offer themselves up as the last bastion of order and hierarchy, the stalwart defender of the authority of churches and fathers against the barbarians they have themselves unleashed."
As Graeber notes in the article, if it's a scam it's a surprisingly effective scam. Essentially it's a way of excusing taking with one hand by supposedly giving with the other.
It's the same legerdemain behind Reagan's successful exchange of our traditional economic freedoms that underwrote the American Dream for a worthless facsimile; an altar for marketplace idolatry. And more recently, it's the same curious logic that under funds common purpose organizations such as FEMA and other social programs so that they can be replaced with an "Ownership Society."
For me personally, it's the same slight of hand that allows the City's leaders to take freedom from homeless folks like me in exchange for generously giving up fundamental rights to teach "personal responsibility."
If no man is an island then maybe it's because the objectives of self-interest and altruism are not completely separate either. That is, the aims of each are in some ways interconnected. In that sense, responsibility in a healthy society consists of self-interest and altruism as a unified goal--otherwise known as the common good.
Well, enough of that, back to my legal odyssey. Up next, curious and curiouser encounters with those wacky public defenders.
Two Choices: Guilty or Guilty
On the wall in the waiting room of the public defender's office there's a wooden plaque. It has a slot in which to slip the photograph and name of the month's "best public defender". The heavily lacquered wood is impressive and shiny with polish. And the slot is empty. In fact I can't remember it ever being filled.
Not many of the public defenders here in San Diego are exactly 'winners' in the usual sense. My first public defender for illegal lodging--"Student F"--tried to waive my rights to be released on my own recognizance before trial. That time the judge almost locked me up for a month. Luckily another public defender, who told me she had another job lined up, interceded just in time.
This time around, the public defender at my scheduled readiness hearing wants me to reconsider my plea before I could see the judge. She gives me the impression that my desire to plead not-guilty is tantamount to resisting "help", or worse, it's denying that "help" is needed in the first place. The idea is for you to be passive so they can expedite you through the system faster.
So things were beginning to get heated between the prosecutor--I mean the public defender and me. She was as vehemently in favor of my pleading guilty as I was opposed to it.
Okay, here's where it gets a little strange. While we were arguing I began to notice what appeared to be red blotches breaking out on her chest just below her clavicle. I mean right before my eyes! One second I'm saying to her something like "what part of not-guilty don't you understand?" and the next I'm thinking whoa!-what's with all the blotchy shit? It looked like I'd been jabbing her chest with my finger while I emphasized I'M--NOT--PLEADING--GUILTY.
Alerted by our raised voices the bailiff comes into the hall. Before I can even say "I didn't lay a finger on her" I notice the bailiff has this incredible smile on her face. Not a fake smile or a mean grin but a genuinely beatific smile with twinkling eyes. Between her and Blotchy I can't tell what the hell is going on.
So again I ask Blotchy--is there anything I need to sign? While she's saying no I see a spot pop out. I tell her I'm going in to see the judge. She says I can't until I "discuss my plea" with her further and as if on cue the Beatific Bailiff steps in front of the court door.
Fine I tell them, I'll leave. They just stand there beatifying and blotching. So I take off. As I make my way down the hall I hear Blotchy call out that if I leave now I'll be found in contempt of court.
I'm thinking how can a public defender charge their defendant with contempt of court?! Ridiculous! But whatever was up between Blotchy and the Beatific Bailey I suppose the joke between them really was on me. No sooner had I left then had Blotchy gone before the judge to issue a $5,000 bench warrant for my arrest due to (FTA) failure to appear! (I had spent most of the morning waiting in court)
Back in court the following week I get the warrant cleared and my trial date set but now It's a trial for trespassing and failure to appear.
Public Pretender
You could say at this point I was already beginning to question the public defender's sincerity of effort regarding my interests.
The public attorney eventually assigned to my case was someone I'll call Lau Lawless. Like most of the public defenders he's young and temporary--having just passed the bar and waiting to get a real job.
To speak with him I have to catch him over at the court house. The Bailiff points him out to me but I would have recognized him anywhere. He could have been Student F's precocious younger brother. Right away I noticed his worldly demeanor enhanced by a lunch box brief case, severe buzz cut, protruding jug head ears and freckles.
When I get a chance to speak with him the first thing he says to me is "let me get a few things straight: you are not in charge of this defense". Two thoughts occur to me simultaneously. The first is simply that I'm being admonished by what appears to be a very cross boy scout. The other thing was--what's he mean this defense? It's my defense. I'm thinking--has he been talking to Blotchy?
"Don't be fooled by movie and TV defense attorneys who often say things to clients like, "Do it my way or else". As lawyer's ethical codes recognize, cases belong to defendants, not to their attorneys. It is always the client, not the attorney, who pays a fine or serves the time. Thus, defendants have the right to have input into important case decisions." --Nolo's Guide to Criminal Law
Lau Lawless's plan was for us to try what apparently was his "specialty"--the plead guilty defense. It's a tactic ingeniously devoid of strategy wholly dependent on the mercy of some judge. But unfortunately for him, while I was waiting in court I had the opportunity to see just what was in store if I chose such an approach.
With fascinated horror I had observed Lau Lawless and the judge pile up a heap of convictions for DUI, failure to appear, disturbing the peace and illegal lodging all with little or no claim to any defense by the accused. One by one, scurrying like a sorcerer's apprentice, Lau Lawless would serve up each new supplicant like chow.
Unable to turn away (they don't let you read in court) I watched as each defendant’s hopeful countenance gradually gave way to something more akin to dread at the realization they had been swindled. I don't know what promises Lau Lawless had made them outside in the hall but once they got inside they seemed to detect something was amiss. Maybe it was the bailiff stern with gloom or the judge all in shiny black with the yellow face of doom. Too late one and all became cognizant that the "specialty" was them.
My appetite gone, I wondered--what's in it for Lau Lawless?
It occured to me it was time to avail myself of the services of another public defender or perhaps alternative counsel. I was thinking of asking Lau Lawless "whose your troop leader?" But Apparently reading my thoughts or maybe just out of habit he volunteered his boss’s business card. Reading it I noticed Majorangela's official title was assistant supervising attorney but in retrospect I think unofficially she's really the den mother.
The day we meet with Majorangela the first thing she says to me is "let me get a few things straight: you are not in charge of this defense". I look at her then over at Lau Lawless seated beside me. Suddenly, I suspect I know whose mannerisms, speech patterns and most disturbingly--hair style--he has been parroting. It was eerie.
She goes on to state that according to Gideon v. Wainwright "strategy is the purview of the lawyer". Most defense attorneys cite Gideon v. Wainwright as extending defendant’s rights--not limiting them. Her unique interpretation might very well be breaking--if not new legal ground then maybe long-standing tradition not to mention common sense.
With a formal, clipped, military-style of speech and the severity of a martinet she intoned that in the "structure" of the public defender's office there is a "division of labor" that effectively precludes me from input as to my case other than "pleading guilty or not guilty" and "testifying or not testifying".
While she's barking out rules and orders I'm thinking--what do they do all day if they don't actually defend people? Especially if it's raining! Do they sit around and think up secret oaths and special handshakes? What about on sunny days? I see the two of them--Majorangela and Lau Lawless--outside in the building's sunny court-yard, one with a bugle and the other with a flag, close-order drill, parading around the water fountain, Majorangela hollering Hop-2-3-4, Hop-2-3-4...
I ask Majorangela if she can have Blotchy verify or testify, affidavify or whatever it is that I in fact did not fail to appear in court the day I waited in court most of the morning. She says no.
Uh--well then, I said, I should be heading along. I gather my things and get up to leave when Majorangela says I can't. Lau Lawless sternly points to my chair and orders me back into it. While I'm ignoring him Majorangela, with surprising speed and agility, comes out from around her desk like Starsky. She tells me if I step outside her office without permission I will be arrested for trespassing.
She really said trespassing. Considering that's what they're supposed to be defending me against in the first place I thought maybe she was adding a little levity to the situation--just being a little clever. But one look at Majorangela's face told me there was nothing clever about it.
So I left. Outside her door, peering across a sea of cubicles, I spotted the red exit sign shining like a beacon in a storm. I charted my course and with Lau Lawless trailing closely behind set out on what became an impromptu parade zigzagging through the mauve office labyrinth with Majorangela--sans bugle--hastily but noisily bringing up the rear barking out: "you'll be charged with a 415!--a 415!!" I'm thinking--what's a 415--am I supposed to know what a 415 is--and is it like, I don't know, insubordination?
California Penal Code 415 Disturbing the peace.
Any of the following persons shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not more than 90 days, a fine of not more than four hundred dollars ($400), or both such imprisonment and fine: (1) Any person who unlawfully fights in a public place or challenges another person in a public place to fight. (2) Any person who maliciously and willfully disturbs another person by loud and unreasonable noise. (3) Any person who uses offensive words in a public place which are inherently likely to provoke an immediate violent reaction.
As I'm taking the elevator down to the street I again regarded Lau Lawless. On the one hand he's a model of respect and veneration for law and authority. But on the other he's too much the model. Something about his 'Eddie Haskell' type interaction with the judge and Majorangela seemed to have a self-destructive quality to it. Like he was not only pretending but over-pretending and even compensating. I was beginning to have the sense that from nine to five Lau Lawless was busy, frantically busy, accumulating a reserve--no, a stock pile, a mountain of goodwill or "moral capital" so that the rest of the time he could be a devil. A living synthesis of reverence and rebellion, rage and order. Anyway, a boy scout he is not.
"...the young bent upon becoming wealthy and thinking they are fulfilling themselves are in fact limiting themselves" --William Sloane Coffin
Fake-Serious
I don't hold any particular grudges against officers of the court such as Lau Lawless or certain others any more than I do for the guards at the Taj Mahal. After all, for the most part it's nothing personal--it's just how things today are structured. That is, if certain religious initiatives are structured more like HR departments in their function to serve business interests then the courts are simply the legal department. It's just business.
Nevertheless I had to get a look at the head of this legal department. I mean, have you ever come across a group so dysfunctional you had to see what type of person is responsible? So I'm back in the empty waiting room at the public defender's office staring up at the by-now all too familiar empty plaque waiting for Joe Cocktails. He not only heads up the office but was the one who originally opened it some years back.
While I wait I'm wondering which type he will be. That is, its seems to me most successful businessmen and politicians can roughly be divided into two types; win at any cost or go-along to get-along. Just as I considered the possibilities the door swung open and Joe Cocktails strode purposefully past me up to the receptionist's window. Nattily dressed for an evening out--perhaps dinner, cocktails and a play he looked like a sartorial splendor. To the receptionist he asked, with his arm slightly raised terminating in an extended tanned and wrinkled digit pointed roughly in my general direction "is this Mr. S?"
As I stood up we greeted and I understood immediately that for him it was all a matter of style. I realized that no, there was no way he would take part in anything as distasteful and rude as an adversarial defense. That would be... unpleasant.
Briefly we sat in the waiting room and talked. I told him the bit about the '415' and he chuckled. On a lark I mentioned the lack of probable cause for my arrest in the first place. His only response was that the police frequently arrest people for murder or robbery without having witnessed it.
That was pretty much it. Whatever else we might have talked about I can not for the life of me remember. Suffice it to say it all amounted to nothing more than empty cocktail chatter.
Another Market in California
You might well ask yourself--while all this is going on--what am I doing for food? I'll tell you. When I'm hungry--I eat. Just because I've been banned from the Taj Mahal doesn’t mean I can just kick the eating habit.
"He who never was an hungered may argue finely on the subjection of his appetite; and he who never was distressed may harangue as beautifully on the power of principle. But poverty, like grief, has an incurable deafness, which never hears; the oration loses all its edge; and 'to be, or not to be' becomes the only question." --Thomas Paine
It was a sunny Friday afternoon--second to last day of my 8 week ban from the Taj Mahal--and I was just coming out of a Vons Supermarket. Suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere but presumably from behind an attractive display of fresh avocados--6 big ones in a bag for $4.99--charged a fat-kid store detective. A 275 plus pound hurtling ball of fat. BAM! He pops me like Junior Seau and we both sail into to the parking lot crashing to the pavement--me head first--with him landing on top of me. Old ladies curse, a businessman screams. I'm thinking Jesus Christ! I can hardly breathe. I felt like Jonah in the whale. No--I felt like Jonah under the friggin' whale. I look over my shoulder--I'm under a whale! And the whale's shoving a badge in my face. At first I think it says "Special Pops" but then I see its "Special Ops". Feeling woozy, I realized I must have hit my head. More like "Special Oops!"
Out of the corner of my eye I see two "Poor Boy" neatly wrapped ham sandwiches resting near my head on the pavement--retail value $5.49 for both. Vaguely I remember them jumping out of my back-pack upon impact and bouncing along the pavement like two little Mexican jumping beans.
Another "Special Ops" guy comes along, amazingly fatter than the first and together they sandwich me between them as I'm taken in to yet another security office. When the cops show up--about two minutes later--they explained they happened to be in the parking lot when the call came over. Anyway, one cop decides, because there's a good sized gash over my right eye now dripping blood down my face, to call an ambulance. The EMT's arrive and one of them tells me I may have a concussion and should see a doctor right away. I tell them I will. But the cops, instead of writing me a ticket, decide to arrest me.
So with me in cuffs, still bleeding, we stroll out of the security office and down the open corridors of the market together, right past the gaping cashiers to the police car waiting outside. What a sight. A frisk before they put me in the car produces an unopened ten ounce container of Minute Maid. "Didn't know you were packin' juice!" says the cop. Ha Ha Ha, Haw Haw Haw, they both laugh, "packin' juice!" and then more laughs.
They take me to jail downtown but the in-take technician informs them they have to take me to the hospital for X-Rays. No laughing now. X-Rays! So now both cops--really pissed--are taking me up to the university medical center in Hillcrest. When we get there they uncuff me and tell me to take-off. "We're not gonna pay your medical bills" one of them told me.
I take off. I'm walking down a side street in Hillcrest with a potentially serious head wound and a bad headache. Fatigued with hunger I notice nary a supermarket in sight. Then along side of me I hear a car slowly approaching. I don't want to but I look anyway. It's the two cops. As they drive by alls I see are their two heads, framed in the driver's side window, kind of bobbling close together with gleeful laughter. Haw-Haw-Haw, Ha-Ha-Ha. The two heads and teeth went by as if in slow motion.
As I Watch the rear of the car's light rack recede down the tree lined street it occurs to me who's laughing last. So I too, shaking my head, started to chuckle--but not too loudly as the sidewalk was beginning to fill with serious looking people getting out of work and my head hurt.
Pickwickian
Soon after my meeting with Joe Cocktails my trial began. I'm present in court but Lau Lawless isn't. Another public defender explains to the judge that Lau Lawless experienced some sort of heart trouble over the weekend while "playing soccer". "Soccer" I think. That fits nicely with the cub scout persona. The kid is slick. More likely the jackass came up short partying his heart out in some club south of the border. Spending his capital like a Vanderbilt.
Since a continuance at this date would violate my right to due process, I insisted that the trial either begin today or be dismissed. Whenever I do that--insist on a particular right thing--at first they all just stop and look at me. Then my public defender counters that she is not ready and asks the judge for a continuance. I counter her counter by pointing out it's hardly my fault that she along with everyone else in her office is not "ready". I don't even think the prosecutor said a word. So while the judge rules in her favor I'm thinking--with defenders like this who even needs a prosecutor?
California Penal Code 1382 a) The court, unless good cause to the contrary is shown, shall order the action to be dismissed in the following cases: (3) Regardless of when the complaint is filed, when a defendant in a misdemeanor or infraction case is not brought to trial ...within 45 days after the defendant's arraignment
A week later, like Bill Murphy's "Groundhogs Day" we're all back in court again, with yet another public defender. Where do they find them all?--wait don't tell me. Anyway, unlike any of the other public defenders this one has absolutely no pretense to humanity. He is short and slight in stature and his face is pinched and closed and crafty and mean. His hair is soiled colored with a buzz cut with sadly more limp fuzz than buzz. His complexion is not just pale but sickly translucent. You can actually see blue veins moving through his skin--like shadows of slippery snakes. But most disturbing were his eyes! Regardless of the degree of light the pupils in both remained constricted to the size of a tiny little pin prick.
I'm visually shocked and repulsed. That--mind you--from someone who's seen most walks of life living on the street. Inwardly I'm thinking--what the hell is this? First Blotchy with her spots, then Lau Lawless's destructive heart and now... this! This one's an outright mutant.
Before I can stop him Pinprick goes and does two things. First--to me he says "let me get a few things straight: you are not in charge of this defense". Uncanny. Then later to the judge he asserts that "I" want to waive my right to a jury trial. True to form.
I suppose at this juncture, as if submitting to God's guiding hand, I could yield to a higher authority. Unfortunately in this case that immediate "higher" authority would be Pinprick.
Sorry God, I'm not acquiescing to Pinprick. I'm going with a jury. Pinprick will have to convince them I'm guilty.
So we go to a jury trial. During which Pinprick's most annoying habit by far, besides waiving my rights the first chance he gets, had to be his way of refusing to answer my questions by holding up his hand--palm facing me--in a manner as if to command silence.
He would do this right in front of the jury pool. During voir doir, as I had previously mentioned, he was arguing to dismiss the gift from God jury. I'm telling him the obvious reasons why we should keep them. It was then he said to me in a stage whisper, his little palm in my face "the prosecutor can hear everything you're saying--lower your voice". He was having fun--as if the prosecutor could give a shit what I was saying or for that matter could be even remotely considered his "opponent".
He was having so much fun I yanked him by his fuzzy head out of his chair over to the "bar of justice" and to the applause of the jury began running one side of his face down the length of the rail while his corrupt-midget legs pin-wheeled like a windmill to catch up whereupon I flipped his face and ran him down the other side of the rail.
Actually, I just patted him on his little shoulder and said at least someone’s listening. In truth Pinprick just made his last "mistake". I tell the judge I want to represent myself--Pro Per status. I couldn't wait to get in front of this jury. But the judge, who as I mentioned before wanted this jury pool gone--suddenly smiled the way babies do when they pass gas.
While Pinprick packed his things to go he told me he sees a "pattern" of my "obstructing people" trying to "help". Then before things got even more nostalgic this erstwhile asshole, my wingman in the battle for justice, took off.
See ya Prick!
But as soon as Pinprick's sulfuric cloud had dissipated the judge dismissed the jury and announced the court would reconvene Monday morning to empanel another jury. He reminded me that the trespassing and the FTA charge each carry up to 6 months in jail. If convicted of both I could spend up to 1 year in jail. Then he imparted these words of advice: "a person who represents or defends himself in a court of law has a fool for a client."
"His soul will never starve for exploits or excitements who is wise enough to be made a fool of. He will make himself happy in the traps that have been laid for him; he will roll in their nets and sleep. All doors will fly open to him who has a mildness more defiant than mere courage." --G. K. Chesterton
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The Corrections
The next Monday the new jury pool filed into the courtroom. I notice most of them stealing bashful glances and others outright smiling at the prosecutor as they passed by her table
Uh-oh.
They looked, well they looked like the kind of jury I thought I'd get. Someone must have switched faucets filling the jury pool.
The defining moment during the trial, the low point that is, had to be when the judge chose to give the jury "special" instructions on which to deliberate. No kidding that's just what he called them. Special. Kind of like Lau Lawless's specialty or Special OPs--but without the fat-kid.
These instructions are special because the prosecutor made them just for me. When I objected that one of the special instructions (below) had no relevant basis in California or Federal law he smiled and said it was in fact an "extrapolation". Here's one of judge Lex Rex's "extrapolations":
Special Instruction Number 1
"Land, real property, or structures belonging to or lawfully occupied by another and open to the general public is not open to a member of the general public if that member of the general public has notice that he was not to enter or reenter the premises."
It's those "ifs" that will pop up and get you every time. I just hate that.
After the jury delivered a verdict of guilty of course, the judge lectured me about "choices and consequences." I'm thinking--does he mean economic choices and career consequences? I'm also thinking--with business concerns, interests and policies permeating all aspects of society and with religion now supplanting government's role in civic affairs who's really doing all the trespassing?
He also gave me advice about rules. Earlier in the trial he had averred that despite the fact that he was trying to "help" me--as were the public defender and everyone at the Taj Mahal--I seemed intent on "marching on" in my own direction. This time he suggested that in the future I follow the rules. I'm thinking--which rules-- business rules?
Sentencing day came around and I was back in court. Having spent 8 days in jail--three on the trespassing charge along with five more for illegal lodging--I was curious to see what mulct the judge would add. As it turned out, instead of sentencing to me more jail time or a hefty fine he handed me 3 years probation.
Chutes and Ladders
Marching out of the courtroom I fell in step with the prosecutor on the way to the elevators. We had gotten acquainted with one another the previous week--shortly after Pinprick made his malodorous his exit. What happened was one day after court I had been holding the elevator door expecting The Sphinx to come around the corner but instead to my surprise in stepped the kitten. Just to make sure, I poked my head out in the hall to see what could have happened to The Sphinx but the hall was empty.
I discovered that out of the courtroom the kitten is not at all a monumental chunk of stone. I mean this women is in fact absolutely tiny--and she speaks! So I kind of like the kitten. Don't get me wrong--she's the friggin' prosecutor--someone not out for my best interests. In fact, whether or not my case was prosecuted was the sole prerogative of her office. But like I said before regarding how things are structured--well, you know, you can't go around holding grudges... right?
Well whatever, so we're taking the elevator just after I got sentenced and talking about me getting screwed--I mean the case. I'm feeling a little down--like Gulliver just after they tied him up. Anyways there I am blah, blah, blah-ing along which there is plenty of time to do because to get out of the court complex you have to take an elevator to a certain level where you then have to traverse several spaces down a long corridor to take a set of escalators at the end of which, if you’re lucky, you'll reach the exit. Kind of like Chutes and Ladders.
I don't remember what we talked about the whole time during the shoots or the ladders but as we approached the exit she hands me an envelope before she departs to... I don't know--another department maybe. When I get outside I see it's raining--the first real rainfall of the year. Dodging drops I open the envelope which is one of those colored miniature deals with a matching minnie card inside. I can't believe it! I read the card and it contained some very kind words regarding my politeness throughout the trial. Then I noticed something else. Also placed in the envelope was a small, plastic object--a prepaid gift card to Vons Supermarket.