GUEST COLUMN: How local government scorned the U.S. Bill of Rights
By Doug Stinehagen and Douglas Bruce
Today is the 218th anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Our city government recently showed how little it respects the freedoms listed there.
Charged with a crime August 15, we demanded a speedy trial, but it was delayed until December 4. We paid a “fee” for our jury trial. We requested 12 jurors, and got six.
The officer’s citation first ordered us to court August 8, a week before the alleged crime! It listed Mr. Stinehagen as female. It stated our “crime” occurred in September, a month later than the day we were charged. The officer meant to charge trespassing, but the citation was for transporting explosives — a felony. Mr. Stinehagen’s charge was amended two days before trial.
No Costco employee ever asked us to leave, a legal requirement for trespass. Councilman Herpin later called that glaring omission a “technicality.” We showed printed police policy bulletins promising no trespass arrests of peaceful petitioners. The officer stated we would not be cited.
Armed with handgun and Taser, she ordered three times we erase a photo taken. That forced destruction of evidence was so clearly a felony (18-8-610 C.R.S.) she was advised of her right not to testify against herself.
We signed her citations about 5:30 p.m. and left. After 9 p.m., she pounded on Mr. Bruce’s door and demanded he return his citation for her to rewrite. He refused. She then tried to coerce his 76-year-old co-defendant in a 10 p.m. phone call. She then altered both tickets, after we had signed them and received copies!
Our motion that the case be heard by a neutral outside judge was denied. Our judge was a loyal city employee whom the council appointed and could fire any time, and whose salary faced a financial impact if our petition, issue #300, passed.
Two weeks later, that judge dismissed the tickets over our objections, letting the city re-file with three weeks delay. Police rewrote the tickets, quietly changing Mr. Bruce’s charge and other items, while pretending to fix only the date.
City Attorney Patricia Kelly emailed the city council about the new filing and invited them to reply if they wanted the case dropped. Asking politicians whether to prosecute their political foe is grossly unethical. We notified the state bar. The judge covered up that email discussion and council’s secret and illegal meeting.
Prosecutors proposed gag orders that we not mention “freedom of speech,” police bulletins, proof of targeted prosecution, etc. The city had secretly changed its petition policy by demand of Costco’s Denver lawyer. We were ordered not to show the jury his email naming Mr. Bruce as the target of the change. Their new policy, never passed by the council, erased “First Amendment” 14 times. It specifically protected burning our American flag, but ended previous tolerance of peaceful petitioners.
On a sidewalk outside the courthouse, a man handed out informational fliers noting the historic role of juries as buffers against tyranny. No jurors had been chosen for any case. The city-paid judge went ballistic and orally made up a law that no one could ever post signs or pass out leaflets within 100 yards of the courthouse. He made that area a “constitution-free zone.” Talk about legislating from the bench! No offering papers to sign on public access property, no distributing papers to read within 100 yards of public property — two insane and illegal city “rules.“
The judge asked us in open court, “When WE finish the prosecution, will you be ready with your witnesses?” That gaffe exposed him as a co-prosecutor, rather than an objective arbiter of justice. When we asked for the tape, he said it was not recorded, claiming an electronic “glitch.”
This city-paid judge blocked testimony from about 30 defense witnesses, 25 of whom had petitioned at Costco without arrest, and many documents proving our innocence.
Jurors were denied the transcript of the star city witness’s prior sworn testimony showing his many inconsistencies, and his typed statement he signed in August, showing (a third time) he never asked us to leave. We were threatened with contempt of court if we mentioned our evidence.
Verdict: Not guilty. The city’s bumbling incompetence was so gross they made the Keystone Kops look like the Bolshoi Ballet. The bias was overt. We would call this a kangaroo court proceeding, but kangaroos might sue us for libel.
“Doug Stinehagen and Douglas Bruce are patriots who will continue to petition.”
