9th Circuit Court Slaps Santa Cruz City Attorney in Mock-Nazi Salute Case

So, your information you are sharing with us is that the panel asked the City Attorney tough questions. Wow incredible!! So that means. . . .NOTHING!! Typically the panel already has it's mind made up when oral arguments happen. . . They were likely just passing the oral arguments time or looking for wording to use in the final decision.

Thank you for a huge nothing. . .except more attention about you. With all the other issue we have to deal with in Santa Cruz: Subrosa being hassled by cops; Subrosa break-in; Public opinion; homelessness; Tuition increases; ICE being invited to SC; and I could go on and on. . . You being kicked out of a City Council meeting because you have them a Nazi high five is as insignificant and stupid as you.

Limiting the abusive powers of City Council to exclude critics is an important issue--and relevant to most of the issues you itemize.

Folks around Santa Cruz who've spoken to me in the last week seem even more pleased than I about the court's direction.

To have the courts reveal the absurd depths to which the City will sink with outright lies about its current policy is news. And to have the huge amount of money they're willing to expend to preserve their imperial prerogatives made clear in a time of depression is even more instructive. To have it punished is even better.

I listened to the tape of the previous hearing conducted by the 9th Circuit judges. In that tape they certainly asked tough questions of the city's attorneys. They seemed to be particularly hard on a few points. I remember at the time Robert's fans were saying things looked okay. Look how that one ended up.

What was the Subrosa break in? Was it all creepy like they didn't steal anything but went through papers?

The break-in was committed by a homeless man. He stole money and a laptop computer. The police caught him after the fact with the items in his possession. SubRosa has decided not to press charges, citing their desire not to work with the police. But they do, however, want to work with the police long enough to get back their material possessions and cash. Possessions manufactured by large multinational capitalistic corporations that prey on the poor and unfortunate in poor countries.

It's sad that SubRosa is wasting the opportunity to build a stronger relationship with the community. After the events of May 1st, where many locals had their businesses vandalized, SubRosa felt the need to defend themselves against accusations of collusion with the people who committed the acts. Part of their reaching out to the community, to let people know what they are all about, was to suggest open dialogues with local citizens and business owners on the issues of crime, violence, and vandalism. Now, that they have been the victim of a crime, they are suggesting that the perpetrator be set free. A person who has committed some of the same acts against those they want to reach out to. In not pressing charges against this individual they are in effect letting this person go free to commit further acts of crime against the group they hope to partner with. I can certainly see where the local community will not be happy with this and see that SubRosa's words were for show and not to be stood behind. In effect they are enabling a person to act out once again and harm people's serenity. It's a shame.

How did the police know the money and stuff came from subrosa? I doubt it had their name written on it.

....because SubRose told them. Gave the cops the serial number of the computer. And, who knows--someone may have seen this home challenged individual do it and pointed him out to the duly constituted authorities....

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2009/11/21/petition_for_rehearing_09.pdf

This is the text of the brief which persuaded the 26-person Court of Appeals to order an en banc hearing and dissolve the original ruling of Appeals Court which had found in favor of the City, denying me a trial for damages for false arrest. The matter is now being reconsidered and is looking like a llikely winner where an actual trial may be ordered and the City held to account.

The City's Brief
(9th Circuit Court Slaps Santa Cruz City Attorney in Mock-Nazi Salute Case)

The City's brief was written by someone in City Attorney John Barisone's office, not me. Expensive brief--so far costing the city over $125,000. Whether it's cops on the street or lawyers backing up the unlawful force, the City is willling to spend and spend. Whatever is necessary to defend power and privilege.

Who keeps all their serial numbers written down? For some reason I can't believe the SubRosa people had the serial numbers to their equipment written down and gave it to the police. It just doesn't sound like something they would keep track of or do.

Overview >
By David L. Hudson Jr.
First Amendment scholar

A citizen feels strongly about an issue in the community. He or she attends a city council meeting to voice those concerns. Unfortunately, the powers that be prohibit the citizen from addressing the controversial topic. Have the citizen’s First Amendment rights been violated?

Such a scenario is not a product of a healthy imagination. It is a daily reality for countless citizens across the country.

Sometimes government officials need to silence disruptive citizens or to prohibit endless repetition. However, other times the officials may be squelching citizen speech because they want to suppress the message. This article seeks to explain the legal parameters surrounding the regulation of citizen speech.

Many government meetings are open to the public and reserve a “public comment” time for citizen commentary on issues. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explained in its 1990 decision White v. City of Norwalk: “Citizens have an enormous First Amendment interest in directing speech about public issues to those who govern their city.” These meetings, particularly the “public comment” period, are at the very least a limited public forum during which free-speech rights receive heightened protection.

Types of public forums
In First Amendment jurisprudence, government property that has by tradition or by government operation served as a place for public expression is called a traditional public forum or a limited public forum. In a traditional public forum, such as a public street, speech receives the most protection and the government generally must allow nearly all types of speech. Restrictions on speech based on content (called content-based restrictions) are presumptively unconstitutional in a traditional public forum. This means that the government can justify them only by showing that it has a compelling state interest in imposing them, and that it has done so in a very narrowly tailored way.

At limited or designated public forums, however, the government designates certain types of subject matter. One court explained as follows: “After the government has created a designated public forum, setting boundaries on classes of speakers or topics, designated public fora are treated like traditional public fora.” This again means that content-based exclusions face a high constitutional hurdle. Even in nonpublic forums, restrictions on speech must be reasonable and viewpoint-neutral.

One must be careful in discussing the public-forum doctrine, because courts do not apply the doctrine with consistency. For example, some courts equate a limited public forum with a designated public forum. Other courts distinguish between the two, as a 2001 federal district court in Pennsylvania did in Zapach v. Dismuke. That court noted that “there is some uncertainty whether limited public fora are a subset of designated public fora or a type of nonpublic fora.”

Just because something is called a public forum doesn’t guarantee a person unfettered freedom to utter whatever is on his mind. Public bodies can limit their meetings to specified subject matters. Also, the government may impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on speech as long as those restrictions are content-neutral and are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest.

In other words, the government could impose a 15-minute time limit on all participants as long as it did not selectively apply the rule to certain speakers. Council members would violate the First Amendment if they allowed speakers with whom they agreed to speak a full 15 minutes, but allowed speakers they did not agree with to speak for only five minutes.

It bears stressing that First Amendment rights are not absolute during public-comment periods of open meetings. Speakers can be silenced if they are disruptive. Disruption has been defined to include far more than noisiness and interference. For example, a federal district court in Ohio wrote in Luckett v. City of Grand Prairie (2001) that “being disruptive is not confined to physical violence or conduct, but also encompasses any type of conduct that seriously violates rules of procedure that the council has established to government conduct at its meetings.”

“A speaker may disrupt a Council meeting by speaking too long, by being unduly repetitious, or by extending discussion of irrelevancies,” the 9th Circuit wrote in White v. City of Norwalk. “The meeting is disrupted because the Council is prevented from accomplishing its business in a reasonably efficient manner. Indeed, such conduct may interfere with the rights of other speakers.”

Unfortunately, many situations arise in which citizens are silenced because of the content of their speech or because they have disagreed previously with a government official. This raises the specter of censorship. Government officials may not silence speech because it criticizes them. They may not open a “public comment” period up to other topics and then carefully pick and choose which topics they want to hear. They may not even silence someone because they consider him a gadfly or a troublemaker.

In City of Madison Joint School District No. 8 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, (1976) the U.S. Supreme Court said in a collective-bargaining dispute case arising out of teachers’ speaking at a board of education meeting:

“Regardless of the extent to which the true contract negotiations between a public body and its employees may be regulated — an issue we need not consider at this time — the participation in public discussion of public business cannot be confined to one category of interested individuals. To permit one side of a debatable public question to have a monopoly in expressing its views to the government is the antithesis of constitutional guarantees. Whatever its duties as an employer, when the board sits in public meetings to conduct public business and hear the views of citizens, it may not be required to discriminate between speakers on the basis of their employment, or the content of their speech.”

A federal district court in Pennsylvania explained in the 1993 decision Wilkinson v. Bensalem Township: “Allowing the state to restrict a person’s right to speak based on their identity could quickly lead to the censorship of particular points of view.”

An Ohio appeals court refused to dismiss the lawsuit of an individual who sued city officials after being thrown out of a city commission meeting for wearing a ninja mask. In City of Dayton v. Esrati (1997), the Ohio appeals court reasoned that the individual wore the mask to convey his dissatisfaction with the commission. “The public nature of the legislative process and the right of citizens to participate in and voice their opinions about that process are at the heart of democratic government,” the court wrote. “The government may not impose viewpoint-based restrictions on expression in a limited public forum unless those restrictions serve a compelling state interest and are narrowly drawn to achieve that end.”

Other issues
Courts have also been wary of laws, rules or regulations that prohibit criticism or personal attacks against government officials. A federal district court in California invalidated a school district bylaw that prohibited people at school board meetings from criticizing school district employees. In Leventhal v. Vista Unified School District (1997), the court wrote: “It seems clear that the Bylaw’s prohibition on criticism of District employees is a content-based regulation. … It is equally clear that the District’s concerns and interests in proscribing public commentary cannot outweigh the public’s fundamental right to engage in robust public discourse on school issues.”

Similarly, a federal district court in Virginia struck down a school board bylaw that prohibited personal attacks during public comments at meetings. (See Bach v. School Board of the City of Virginia Beach, 2001.)

Another kind of restriction on citizen speech at public meetings involves residency. One federal appeals court determined that a city council rule prohibiting nonresidents from addressing the city council was constitutional. In Rowe v. City of Cocoa (2004), a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that a resident rule was reasonable and viewpoint neutral. “A bona fide residency requirement … does not restrict speech based on a speaker’s viewpoint but instead restricts speech at meetings on the basis of residency.”

Conclusion
When a government decides to offer a “public comment” period at an open meeting, it provides that citizens may exercise their First Amendment rights. Government officials can limit comments to the relevant subject matter, control disruptive or overly repetitive speakers and impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on speech. However, when government officials create a public-comment forum, they have created a limited public forum in which greater free-speech protections apply. The government may not silence speakers on the basis of their viewpoint or the content of their speech. The government must treat similarly situated speakers similarly. In essence, the government must live up to the values embodied in the First Amendment.

For more info go to http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/personal/topic.aspx?topic=speaking_meetings

One sentence of your post really jumped out at me. "Government officials can limit comments to the relevant subject matter, control disruptive or overly repetitive speakers and impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on speech." It kind of describes you and your behavior exactly.

How come there has been no mention of Robert's friend setting fire to Barisone's office? It's not like it's even a rumor as they have the guy on tape. The guy did it while passing out fliers for a HUFF rally. No mention of it is odd.

I hope you point out in court that it is actually the American salute. The Pledge of Allegiance was the origin of the Nazi salute.

See the work of the symbologist Dr. Rex Curry. http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html

See the image at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_of_allegiance.jpg

The early American stiff-armed salute was not an ancient Roman salute. That is a myth debunked by Dr. Curry, who showed that the myth came from the Pledge and from various facts including that Francis Bellamy grew up in Rome, N.Y., not Rome, Italy, and thereafter the Pledge salute was repeated in early films (some showing fictional scenes of ancient Rome). The reasons above and more led to the American stiff-armed salute being picked up later by German socialists and the National Socialist German Workers Party (under the influence of Adolf Hitler and the U.S. citizen and Harvard grad Ernst Hanfstaengl, a confidant of Hitler) and by Italian socialists under Benito Mussolini (who discovered the salute while he gained power as a socialist journalist writing for socialist newspapers, and later became an ally of the National Socialist German Workers Party). http://rexcurry.net/pledgerome.html

See the video documentary at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BssWWZ3XEe4

See "9th Circuit Mandates New Trial in Free Speech "Nazi Salute" Lawsuit Against City" at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/15/18666771.php

Robert,

I’m probably your biggest fan I have filed suit Hamer v. El Dorado County et. al.l It was a free speech retaliation claim. I put up a website and accused the local counsel, Helen Baumann of negligence in regards to public safety. The Republican party read the site and questioned a counsel woman. She then conspired with every local and state representative that I was contacting, and gave them false arrest reports stating my wife and I were criminals awaiting trial, in order to regain their confidence, because coincidentally, a week earlier she sought their approval for an Assembly Bid. My website put a kibosh on those aspirations! They even apologized, not to us, but the party for getting caught. Helen Baumann was so despondent she was found crashing her car into properties, drunk as a skunk. Poor thing!

Assemblyman Ted Gaines had my house raided by about 10 armed police. I asked them what I did. They stated I “contacted my representatives.” I stated so what, what is your probable cause, they stated, that’s it, and don’t do it again or we will be back.”

I did it again and they called me and I invited them back, they never came, but the called me and scolded me. I said, you got to be kidding me, and they said if you record this I’ll arrest you! No this isn’t Russia, or China, it is the USA. It’s the best corrupt country to live in, I am told anyway.

Then I filed a grand jury complaint. I was given a case number, and they left a message on my phone for me to contact them. But before I could do that, a judge issued me a letter with a court seal stating that if I contacted the grand jury they would arrest me and my wife and fine us.

I filed a complaint with the CJP, and they privately admonished Judge James Wagoner. He then arrested another civil right activist, and she complained and the publically admonished him. Admonishment means, hey, next time don’t do it in front of witnesses, I think. http://www.cjp.ca.gov/res/docs/public_admon/Wagoner_DO_9-13-11.pdf

I filed a complaint 3 years ago in federal court. I didn’t have the first $10,000.00 of the $150,000.00 it would cost me for a lawyer so I could prove to myself I had a constitutional right to be free. So thought, geez its obvious, they can’t deny prima facie evidence, and I hired a fool for an attorney for free. The courts identify them as Pro Se. They can’t pick on freed slaves no more, so they got pros se litigants to abuse. I alleged a first amendment retaliation claim the subject of my complaint. Defense restated it as a “failure to enforce law” claim. I objected. They failed to respond or address it. The magistrate fixed the defects in the defective defense argument and made it more defective, so they could not hide from all those judicial watchdogs out there who are keeping our judges in line, its like they want to get caught! Some Freudian slip type thing I suspect. What a straight shooter that creep is, magistrate Brennan. So, because I’m a pro se, I’m lynch-able. Pro Se is the new whipping boy for abuse of power mongers.

In your case, I loved the reference to double-speak. That was amazing and revealing. As you probably know, this term stems from “doublethink” created by George Orwell. In my civil right case, I mention, they “misconstrued” my 14th amendment elements to a non actionable fail to act, by Gonzales v. Castle Rock. I agreed with them that it was non actionable, but I objected with a futile argument that I was not alleging what they were saying I was alleging. They countered by saying NOTHING! Consequently for the next 3 years I argued that in futility. I never did get to go in the courtroom, they did not want to give any credence to my first amendment retaliation claim. I had the rare Monell, pembaur, proprotick smoking gun in writing from a municipality, exhibits A1, A2, A3, and Q, which was handed to my by the Late Senator Dave cox with his seal, as “plaintiff exhibit.” Furthermore, all the defendants had been punished by other agencies or reprimanded in some way.

So similar to George Orwell’s “O’Brien, the inquisitor, holding his hand up in front of Winston Smith whom he just tortured, as he would hold out 4 fingers, he would say, “how many fingers do you see?” Smith would reply, “4.” They would torture him again, until he actually and truthfully saw the 4 fingers as 3 fingers.

In my case, I sued for retaliation. The eastern district court in Sacramento stepped up the retaliation and added insult to injury. Robert, they are trying to prevent your case from coming here and curbing their corruption!

I’ve googled this, Bogan, Kaahumanu, Norse, and my articles and ramblings about it are everywhere. I apologize that I am the one who sees the powerful affect that overcomes the evil doctrine of immunity that has defied logic stemming from the dogma era of witchcraft and beliefs in sea monsters, flat worlds and anti-Copernicism. Witches float and rulers are sovereign and cannot be held accountable! Idiots still believe that horse shit! We need the ones going to the moon to run our country, not these political zealots running with the Roman Catholic political system that supports these creepy beliefs in Sovereign rights to insulate holy representatives from corruption. Nothing against God and Roman Catholics, but separation of church and state from my perspective, includes Sovereign right of “Non enim una civitas potest facere legem super alteram, quia par in parem non habet imperium”, and Par in parem non habet imperium Mideaval political dogma that created our 11th amendment, and is responsible for the Catholic inquisition, and slavery.

I met a group here locally. They are trying to do something. I told them your case, and they couldn’t wrap their brain around it at first. But then I read the Kaahumanu city attorney letters to the counsel members advising them that “ad hoc” means you lose your kids college funds, and your house! Have you seen those letters? I have two of them! Santa Cruz lawyers should be doing the same thing, and advising their counsel members. I want those letters if you can provide them. Virtually every thing they do to skew arbitrary and capricious takings is done in a way that looks like a basis, but this ad hoc thing is going to turn that upside down, but it is hush hush right now.

Anyway, back to O’Brian and Winston Smith. In my case I told them I see 4 fingers. The defense attorney swears on a stack of Stalin Doctrines and says there are only 3 fingers and you need 4 to win. I hold up the 4 winning fingers to the Magistrate, not knowing he’s in with the Defense team and he says I only have 3 fingers. I take my fingers outside the court and show them to the people, compare them to your 4 fingers, and yep, I have for fingers.

Now I am convinced I only see 3 fingers. I have reached the point life is not worth living, in this country realizing that officials can manipulate "inalienable rights” and steal your life’s effort and dreams, and do it using the law, in a contrary way, and there is nothing you can do about it, for even suggesting I had 4 fingers.

I appealed the dismissal, on the grounds of 4 = 4 opposing the ruling with proof the 3 does not equal 4 that they insist. So then, even though the FRCP says they have 14 days to file for attorney fees in Rule 54, the filed in 30 days, because the FRCP is only a guide line for attorneys, and a bright line for Pro Se’s. The courts are corrupt for Pro Se citizens. They insist on paying attorneys before you can have a right be reviewed for purposes of having a right.

I wish I could have afforded counsel But I own a truck and a mortgage, and that excludes lawyers from representing you. They want your truck but the mortgage repels them!

A case in the Ninth Circuit actually shows how those Nazi’s you saluted, murder folks without even showing up, the perfect crime! Macias has been upheld by the Ninth Circuit in 2010 in AE JA Elliot-Park v. Jarrod Manglona 592 F.3d 1003 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 723

In Macias v. Ihde , infra Misconstruing is grounds for reversing; “The district court erred in determining that there was insufficient evidence of actual causation in part, by misconstruing [the Appellants'] constitutional injury as `murder' rather than `lack of equal protection.' By so doing, the court ignored the evidence that [the Appellees'] ARBITRARY [EMPHASIS ADDED BY PLAINTIFFS HAMER] failure to enforce the law caused [Mrs. Macias] to suffer not only her murder on April 15,.”

This Dismissal on appeal asks the Ninth Circuit to prohibit a BLUE PRINT FOR STATE CREATED MURDER if you publically embarrass officials accusing them of simple negligence, they step it up the “Cause” of murder. Not murder, but the cause of murder. There is a difference. Even though it is more premeditated, to actually, with malice intent, to be aware of a scenario that will allow your critics to be murdered.

It happened in my case. Not to me of course silly, I’m not murdered yet. Nevertheless, it did happen to John O’Sullivan a few miles away. O’Sullivan, unknown to me at the time, was suing the same county officials. His Magistrate Judge, was Edmond F. Brennan the same as mine! Both of us were confident, I’m sure! At last our precious federal system is there to stop the evil sheriff of Nottingham, but we forgot, the good King Richard was fighting the holy war, and we got stuck with his Caligula Cross eyed Bother the Tyrant King John . Nepotism cannot weed out the week genes of the human species and we all suffer. So, speaking of Nepotism, Magistrate Brennan…humm, where have I heard that name before, sorry I digress! Within 2 months the Evil Brother played by Magistrate Brennan, whose “arbitrary failure to enforce the law, like in Macias, can under those circumstances in Macias, could have caused the death of John O’Sullivan. Magistrate Brennan filed an order closing the case of John O’Sullivan, and now they could concentrate on ending my case. Well we moved and hid from our stalker, who is videotaped trying to run me over in violation of a restraining order. If we didn’t have the order, they could have arrested him on a penal code violation, but they said the restraining order is not enforceable and quoted “Gonzales v. Castle Rock.” Hummm, will I’ll be!

Pull Quote:
Believe, me, this sounds crazy to me too. But it is true! That is the beauty of being an official. Most of society think this could never happen to them and those it does happen to are somehow “not as sane as them.” We’ll eventually that may turn out to be true. Remember how Orwell’s finger illusion works. In Orwell’s book, it was a totalitarian society, and they had been brainwashing their children into lock stepping belief that would turn in their own parents. A lot of kids grow up hating their parents, I wonder if there is any correlation.

Well Brennan, the Magistrate and evil King John type denied our injunction to stop a man whose 4 criminal trials were fixed openly; and who had violated local restraining orders. These 5 individual orders were supposed to protect a dozen people; though we had video proof, and evidence; D.A. Vern Pierson who was mad at us for complaining against him, and his county, and this is reflected in a police report. They are still as dumb as the Key Stone Cops, but nobody is looking. D.A.’s have absolute immunity, or at least they believe they do, but they all forgot about indictments that can send them to prison. Our society has a few good guy police left, but not much. Orange County just sent their sheriff Mike Carona to prison! Should have lived in El Dorado County! Magistrate Brennan, borrowing, or better stated, “acquiesced” to the pattern of murder from the Macias Case and set a string of events that like “poker for murder” created high odds that you would be murdered.

If you are a statistics major, look at these odds. John O’Sullivan and Pat Hamer, had the same Magistrate that they thought would enforce the law. Who would have thought that the odds were 50% that they would be murdered? Well it was exactly that, if I’m not mistaken! After dealing with the public scrutiny and the stigma created when people talk to me about this, I think John O’Sullivan is the lucky one.

For you skeptics and naysayers, hey, I didn’t make up the Macias case, and it is direct quoted, “failure to enforce the law caused [Mrs. Macias] to suffer not only her murder on April 15…and the 3 months of violence and stalking proceeding her death.” If I may borrow the pun, there is only two things for certain, “death and taxes.” Hey look! Maria was murdered on April 15th, you can’t get more patriotic than that!

Harris v. Maricopa County Superior Ct,” infra is concerned that:
Even when unsuccessful, such suits provide an important outlet for resolving grievances in an orderly manner and achieving nonviolent resolutions [emphasis added] of highly controversial, and often inflammatory, disputes.

Lol, that is a bunch of crap! The district courts have no deterrence from ignoring the Ninth Circuit. So we citizens think that justice is done. Not really, Norse you took 10 years just for the courts to tell them that you are being considered for approval to claim the bill of rights suspended by the 11th amendment. The rest of the world didn’t get that memo? Martin Luther King Jr. did get the memo, and he was pissed off! He got murdered before the word got out! People still have no clue that the 11th amendment suspended the bill of rights! Gandhi actually removed India’s version of the 11th amendment, and is the only one who can claim that success. But looky looky mama! Gandhi and MLK are on the ground in a pool of blood with a bullets in then! If you didn’t get it on the India’s version of the 11th amendment, don’t feel bad, your not alone.

Another pull quote:
Call me crazy, but when Britain left India, so did Sovereign Immunity! That is the 11th amendment, and it is not possible that Sovereign or Absolute Immunity and the word Democracy share the same bed.

So again, we look at Orwell, a British Scholar, and professor who designed and analyzed rhetoric, and produced authors like Kurt Vonnegut Jr. looking to escape sovereign abuse of power in “Trafalmadore.” He explains it from a child’s perspective of “finger painting.” And most brainwashed patriots still don’t get it! Ask yourself this, how many fingers do you see? If you think I’m a loon, then you see 3. If you sort of may consider, my view on this within rational thinking, you see 4 and you are better off keeping it a secret! But if you see three, you will follow that logic people erroneously attribute to Einstein who gets credit for stating, “insanity is repeating failure over and over again.” You will register Republican or Democrat, and bet your life that your team will win! Yay! Go team go!

So good job! You did it, wish I could help move it forward to Sacramento, but I’m tortured now and can’t move forward. I don’t know if I’ll even want to see next month.