so, what actually happened? what's the story, here?

around 20:00 on monday evening, i sat down to make some spaghetti. as i was about to slice into my tomato, some cops banged on my door.

as mentioned, my primary concern was avoiding resisting arrest, so i was very compliant. whether i've committed a crime or not, resisting arrest is always one, so you don't want to do that.  

i was arrested for "criminal harassment", and brought to the station in cuffs in a windowless van. i called a lawyer when i got there, for the purposes of informing somebody i was in jail, but i did not expect to be in custody for more than a few minutes. i am, after all, being charged with repeatedly applying for an ad.

i was instead placed in a holding cell for over twenty hours. i spent most of that time screaming for access to a judge, who i knew damned well would snicker at the situation, yelling the situation into the cameras (for the record) and counting to....i made it 10,500 before my throat forced me to stop. i suspect i could have counted to 20,000 if i had metallic vocal chords.

i decided i would charge $1000 emotional damages for every second left to rot in a cell for the crime of replying to an ad. so, when i get around to it, the suit against the city will be for $11 000 000. that should be enough to find somewhere to live that is smoke-free, right?

i did not sleep. i urinated once, close to 16:00 the next day. i ate one of the three meals they gave me.

i was brought out to see several people during the day, including duty counsel and a representative for legal aid. as mentioned, duty counsel was a conservative older lady that i trust was acting in what she perceived were my best interests, but she seemed quite concerned that i was going to become irrational in the court, and feared i would harm my own well being. i fully recognize that she spends most of her days helping people with low levels of education get out of terrible situations, and there's obviously a lot of altruism in that, but it sets up a mentality of fiduciary duty; she wanted me to go sit in the corner and be quiet and let her deal with it. which i did actually do, because, on some level, she was absolutely right. i just worry that i wasn't present for a set of important conversations. it's one thing to tell me to be quiet in the room and let me listen, and another to tell me to sit in the other room.

it seemed like the outcome of the hearing had already been decided when they finally brought me into the court room at the very end of the day. the justice was clearly baffled by both the situation and the charges, stating into the record that it was unacceptable to arrest somebody with no prior record and leave them in a cell for twenty hours. i was not permitted to speak and was in fact asked to sit down repeatedly, but i think i might have helped her understand, if i was permitted to do so. duty counsel was a nervous wreck, clearly frightened i was going to undo her careful work...

but, i stayed quietly. i didn't sing o canada through air guitar. i didn't call the judge a fascist. i didn't curse the accused, or swear at the prosecutor or do anything of the things that....that she probably actually deals with on a daily basis. it was perhaps incorrect to see me the same way as most of the people she represents, but i can't fault her for it. that's what she knows. that's what she sees.

the judge only seemed willing to reject the crown's argument up to the point of triviality. i suspect that she would have dismissed the charges if she could, but, given that she couldn't, she had to leave the conditions in place. so long as the charges exist, i must be ordered not to reply to the ad. and, while she did not feel that she could remove the recognizance altogether, she reduced it from $2000 to $100 - a functional dismissal.

she repeatedly stated that there is no evidence to justify the conditions.

when the crown read the charges into the record, she talked about how the owner of the apartment felt unable to show the apartment to other "legitimate" applicants because she feared i might be using false identities to reply to the ad (which is simply schizophrenic nonsense, imagined whole cloth, and without the slightest evidentiary basis), and told me i was "not welcome here". i reacted by scoffing at the absurdity of the presented scenario, and the oppression inherent in the language - and the justice seemed to agree with me.

so, i can't go near guns. like i'd go near guns, right. that's a standard condition, and i had no argument, because i don't care. and, i can't reply to the ad until the charges are dropped or defeated. if i do either of those two things, i will be arrested a second time, and have to pay $100.

i need to reappear on october 10th, if the charges are not dropped before then.

to me, continuing to reply to this ad is a rights issue. i hardly expect to be approved. but, i have the right to be annoying - independently of whatever schizophrenic fantasies anybody wants to have, or pretend to have. however, i have been charged with a crime and agreed to not engage in this behaviour, until such a point comes that a judge upholds my right to be annoying. you could articulate this different ways: i am providing for due process, or allowing for judicial review. but, it's one thing to tell a cop that he's wrong and close the door and another thing to get charged by that cop and go to court and need to have a judge state that the cop is wrong. i will expect compensation, in the long run.

i was released a little after 17:00.

yeah. ok. careful language in the code.

"release from custody by officer in charge" - that was the warrant/non-warrant binary, which comes with the $500 max.

but, i was ordered released by the judge. so, i don't have a max, because the cops didn't actually agree to releasing me at all.

the cops didn't want to release me at all.

for the crime of replying to an ad. 

lol. fucking idiots.

but, listen: the justice thought this was retarded, entered into the record that she was upset at the amount of time i spent in custody and ordered me released on the most lenient conditions that she could. i expect any judge to agree entirely with the justice: this is vexatious. i fully acknowledge that these details are something i'm just learning about now, but i understand the legality of the situation fairly well and it's a flatly stupid case. in the end, the more ridiculous the crown is about it, the harder the judge is going to come down on it.

i snickered when the charges were read, and the duty counsel cringed, but the justice smiled - she agreed.

this is stupid.

is the difference that a regular release is agreed upon by the cops, and a judicial release is ordered by the judge?

'cause, if that's the case, it was clear to me that the judge thought this was a pretty stupid thing to charge somebody with.

ok.

on third thought, i'm in a different section, a "judicial interim release". see, lawyers aren't logicians. so, they don't recognize a binary between "arrest with warrant" and "arrest without a warrant". i would think that these are the only two possibilities, but apparently a third one exists.

there are no maximum recognizance conditions set on a judicial interim release, and that is apparently true whether there was a warrant involved, or not.

but, see, this is the kind of thing that i didn't have explained to me. what is the difference between this situation and a regular release on recognizance? in both situations, the accused is being released before a trial, right? so, why is there a separate section for this?

well, if he arrested me without a warrant on a hybrid offence (that is unlikely to result in jail time), it's just another strike against a guy that shouldn't have the job that he has.

frankly, i'd be surprised if a judge issued a warrant.

i guess we'll find out.

actually, the maximum amount is $500, regardless.

period.

there is no situation where they can lawfully ask for more than $500 recognizance.

yet, they did.

when the crown attorney breaks the law in court, right?

"in progressive canada, the (in)justice system commits crimes against YOU."

so, that's something else i need to figure out - was i arrested with or without a warrant?

and, see, here's the thing.

maybe i could have stopped all this bullshit before it started if i knew this stuff off of the top of my head. but, what fun is that? see, then the cop gets to keep his job, and i don't get to sue for damages for harassment and negligence.

there will be a proper investigation, in the end. and, the fuckers will be held accountable for their errors.

the thing going through my head at the time was "i don't want to resist arrest, i'll figure this out afterwards". so, i was compliant for that reason. because you hear about that all of the time - cops show up to arrest you for swearing in church, and then instead of the cop getting fired, you end up in jail for assaulting a police officer.

you know, i'm wondering something else.

i didn't ask for a warrant. maybe i should have.

these are the rules for releasing somebody arrested via warrant.

"(b) release the person on the person’s entering into a recognizance before the officer in charge without sureties in the amount not exceeding five hundred dollars that the officer in charge directs, but without deposit of money or other valuable security"

they tried to charge me $2000, but the justice said that was crazy because there was no evidence (take note.) and cut it down to $100. so, in the end, what happened was lawful.

but, did the crown make an unlawful request, or was i arrested without a warrant?

because, if i was charged with a hybrid offence without a warrant, i should not have been arrested at all - i should have been asked to appear in court.

the more incompetence i can uncover,  the bigger the payout.

the duty counsel got me out of jail without any meaningful conditions. that was what she said she wanted to do, and that's what she did, and on a certain level she's right - that's the most immediate concern.

but, if it was done at the expense of me understanding the accusations against me, or putting me at a disadvantage in relation to the trial, then it was a pyrrhic victory.

i need to confront her about what documentation she has to pass on to me, tomorrow.

the crown did read something into the record.

it could be that that was all there was to it, but i know i wasn't getting the whole picture. what do you do, in that scenario? you can hardly escape the cage and barge in. you just have to figure out what happened and hold people responsible for it accountable for it.

they obviously can't conduct a bail hearing without me, and then tell me that evidence is admitted later. that's all on the record. they'll all get fired.

but, none of this can happen, it's all impossible.

so, we'll see what the transcript says, right?

i was not asked to testify.

i was not asked to present evidence.

i was told this would occur later, both by the counsel provided and by the justice.

again: i accepted duty counsel because i was unclear of the proper procedure and unable to research it. when told that the evidence would be presented later, i knew it seemed wrong, but i deferred, due to being unable to verify it. and, i am confident that the charges would have been dropped outright if i had been given the chance to present anything at all resembling a case.

hrmmn.

if i got fucked around at the bail hearing, that's just another reason to sue the city.

let's see what the transcripts say...

i have neither heard nor seen, in writing, any allegations made against me.

see, this is not what happened.

and, i asked about it, repeatedly.

i was told by both duty counsel and by the justice that no analysis of the evidence would occur until a pre-trial.

i was brought into the court at 16:45 and asked if i agreed to the conditions or not. i did not see a witness. i did not see an officer. i did not get a chance to present evidence. i pointed out that this seems wrong, and was told otherwise.

i have not met my accuser.

the more layers of corruption there are, the more layers that will fall, in the end.

let's see what the transcript says...

http://lawfacts.ca/node/146

ok.

i'm going to wait and talk to a lawyer about the holding cell video, as there's no obvious way to do it. i'll probably need to make a request to a judge.

i have a stress disorder. putting me in a cell on trumped up charges is pretty egregious. i don't think it'll be hard to get a judge to release the footage. but, it's going to take an argument of some sort. that's ok.

right now, i need to focus on getting full disclosure.

...and, on determining whether a part of the bail hearing happened without me, or not. i suspect that i missed some of it...it just didn't seem like the whole thing, to me...

i was arrested for replying to an advertisement on the internet, and held in a cell for twenty hours.

i'm sure he thought it was very funny.

but, it was also very illegal.

hey, listen.

this cop made a huge mistake for the benefit of his ego. it's like having sex with a camel: you might enjoy it for a few seconds, but then you have to live with the consequences.

and, he's going to pay the price for that mistake.

yeah, so, with the bail hearing, i should order a transcript, and i've sent out an email about it to a transcriptionist.

it should cost roughly $20, but we'll see an estimate for it.

now, how do i ask for video footage of myself in detention? that could be harder.