Do YOU REMEMBER THAT "UNLAWFUL CAMPING" CITATION I got on 6/21/10 ? I CALLED THEIR BLUFF & got the case dismissed, ha ha ! I saw Officer McCarthy @ the court. They brought him in just in case I didn't show up. They wanted me to NOT SHOW UP (makes me look like I've got something to hide)..
...but I was there..so they knew I was FOR REAL, the REAL DEAL...& Jim Harwood (the assistant D.A., a younger guy) came out & told me they don't have the resources to prosecute the case. I had requested a JURY TRIAL & it was scheduled for today. But I went in with the intention of asking for a POSTPONEMENT (continuance)...so that I could get more information.
I suspected that Officer McCarthy had been on the lookout for my car simply because I had written ASSERTIVE LETTERS to Officer Storey (who gave the seatbelt citation on 5/11) & Chief of Police Mitch Waller (all of Westminster PD). I had prepared a SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM for a list of all citations written at this Walmart Parking Lot. This would have told me if they were routinely writing "unlawful camping" citations against all travelers or just me.
There was also the problem that I had only been there for 15 or 20 minutes & so HOW IN THE WORLD could an officer make a determination that I was "camping". My contention was that you need to be there several hours , or at least most of the night to call it "camping" & arguably that legislators intended it to be for those remaining in place long-term (I.e. more than one night, altho I would have to do a "legislative history" to be sure of the original intent of legislators).
I tend to think these "unlawful camping" codes are, by & large, intended to be enforced against those who truly CAMP in one place for a lengthy period &/ or become a nuisance (loud music, BBQ, pitching a tent, etc), NOT for the person passing thru who needs to rest for a few hours before continuing onward, NOT even for a person perhaps who has had too much to drink & for his own safety & the safety of others pulls off the road (do we want drunk drivers saying to themself that they better not pull over because they might get an "unlawful camping" citation?) .
I personally fit more in the "passing thru" category & had gone there with the intention of staying up all or most of the night & being at the court when it opened to pay my bail for the seatbelt citation & Walmart is known by travelers, especially those in Recreational Vehicles (RV's) as being traveler-friendly, allowing RV's etc to park in their parking lot overnight.
In some cases, however, there are municipal codes that conflict. I spoke with Bob the manager at WM Walmart last week after pre-trial & he said that the city owns the parking lot. Yet at the same time I noticed some signs saying it was a "private parking lot" while other signs cited a municipal code re parking.
So it was NOT exactly clear & there may have been some shenanigans going on, by whom, I'm not yet sure.The further problem is that Walmart is open 24 hours as is the drive-thru @ the Carls Jr. Restaurant (& there are numerous 24-hour restaurants in & around Westminster in OC, which I occassionally take advantage of).
As I've done before many times, I've stayed awake most of the night working on Audio Bible & other things (I'm currently doing the Audio Bible in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines). The PROBLEM is that we live in a CYNICAL SOCIETY that is NOT quick to believe in the goodness of people.
All it takes is one CYNICAL person on a jury to sway everybody against a defendant (& of course race & skin color comes into play). At the arraignment they offered a deal that if I pled guilty & paid $250 it would be finished (altho it would still be a misdemeanor against me). I said, "NO, NOT GUILTY' I want a jury trial. Then, last week at pre-trial they offered a dismissal if I got a DNA TEST & paid $75 for the test. I said NO DEAL, again.
So they set it for JURY TRIAL for today. I was going to ask for a continuance (postponement) & had also asked my dad to be be a potential witness, if necessary. I also gathered all my church bulletins & some copies of my Audio Bible on CD, & my educational transcripts etc to show as evidence of my journey in life. Judge Cassidy seemed to be a decent fellow at pre-trial, in good humor about life, so that put me at ease.
Fortunately, it's something I don't have to be unneccesarily stressed about now, although I'm still upset with what appears to be a collusion amongst those officers to "get me." I noticed McCarthy's "OFFICER NOTES" (that I got a copy of) that said he observed me "SLEEPING NUDE" ha ha...but that's a LIE. I actually saw him coming (altho I didn't know who it was at the moment, an officer or a peeping tom (or both) or somebody thinking about breaking in, or whatever, & I had only been there a few moments.
I was changing my pants in the back of the car because my pants were wet from washing my car at the self-wash in Bellflower around 10:45pm. Suddenly, he was shining his light in on me & peeking intently thru the window. I had a blanket covering me & sat up & pulled my pants up the rest of the way. He saw my naked butt for a second, but on his notes he said he "Observed me sleeping nude..."
Of course you can imagine how an officer might convey such a [false] observation to a jury with RAISED EYEBROWS...creating innuendo so it would have been something to contend with in front of a jury. Would they believe me--that I was simply changing my pants in the back of my car when Officer McCarthy came by or would they believe McCarthy saying I was sprawled out BUTT NAKED sleeping in the back of my car [completely UNTRUE & misleading].
Its worth noting that this is how some of these officers operate. They can be sleazy sometime in their quest for control & trying to get convictions, but despite sometimes picking on a lot of people, the uniform still has a lot of psychological power over juries. Going with a jury trial is just like playing the lottery in some cases.
Who knows what a jury would have determined but anyways there's no need to worry now. DISMISSED ! Praise GOD.
