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DESCRIPTION:FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE\n\nJune 5th, 2012\nContact: Ed Frey, (831) 
 479-8911\n\nSanta Cruz, CA: On Thursday June 14th 2012 at 4pm in department 
 5 of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court a three-judge appellate panel 
 will interpret and apply the United States and California Constitutions to 
 two local convicted protesters.\n\nIn June 2011 Gary Johnson, a homeless 
 man, and his lawyer, Ed Frey, were sentenced to six months each in the 
 county jail. Their crime: sleeping outdoors.\n\nThey were protesting the 
 fact that our local constabulary, courts, cops and prosecutors, send peace 
 officers out in the middle of the night to breach the peace and roust 
 people who are asleep, not bothering anyone, and simply trying to get the 
 rest they need in order to function during the day.\n\nThe protesters argue 
 that deliberately depriving people of sleep, people who have no shelter 
 bed, makes sense only in a culture and politics of cruelty, greed, and 
 domination. This particular sleep cruelty injects more poison into the 
 social atmosphere every day.  It makes people feel abandoned and despised 
 simply because they are poor.  The protesters argue that courts recoil from 
 their duty to recognize a basic right to sleep because our courts have lost 
 their fundamental ethical bearings. Judges, in effect, now say to homeless 
 people in their criminal proceedings: "despite all our Constitutional 
 principles that clearly protect the right to sleep, I am not willing to 
 acknowledge that right until the Supreme Court says I can".  This groveling 
 hesitation, the protesters argue, arises out of the judicial allergy to 
 considerations of human kindness and decency.  This is a haunting 
 demonstration, they say, of the kind of disrespect for basic rights that 
 slowly drains the legal system of its legitimacy.  After all, the 
 protesters contend, the judges' oath of office requires them to be guided 
 by the words of the Constitution itself, not their surmise about what 
 Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia might someday pronounce.\n\nThe judges 
 in California have taken one positive step: they've officially acknowledged 
 that sleep deprivation causes both physical and mental ailments which 
 degrade and shorten a person's life.  But when judges are confronted by 
 Constitutional principles that clearly protect the right to sleep, the 
 protesters argue, they suddenly turn silent and retreat to the safety of 
 the predominant judicial mission of protecting property rights and 
 corporate profits.  The protesters complain that the judges act as if the 
 protections in the California Constitution simply do not exist.  Those 
 protections go far beyond the enumerated rights in the United States 
 Constitution.  They point to how the right to "life, liberty and the 
 pursuit of happiness" proclaimed in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, 
 later became the right to "life, liberty and property" in the United States 
 Constitution.\n\nThe people of California, however, took care of that 
 shortcoming in the November 1974 election, by adding Article I Section I to 
 the State Constitution which declares that "All people are by nature free 
 and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and 
 defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, 
 and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy".  The right to 
 privacy has been called the right to be let alone.\n\nWhen the last 
 sleeping rights case came before a local appellate panel, however, the 
 judges ignored the California Constitution and affirmed the trial court's 
 decision that neither Constitution protected the homeless defendant, Robert 
 Facer, in his request for the right to merely sleep.  Mr. Facer, who was 
 widely loved and respected, died in April this year, perhaps because he was 
 prohibited from an activity that most people take for granted.  Mr. Facer's 
 case produced clear proof that the homeless policies are driven by the 
 forces and demands of commerce and finance: the prosecuting attorney asked 
 the policeman, his own witness, "Officer, why were you out enforcing the 
 sleeping ban that night?" and the officer responded "Because the merchants 
 wanted us to..."\n\nTwo years ago, in the Summer of 2010, attorney Frey 
 decided to challenge the law by sleeping at the court house and inviting 
 others to join him starting on July 4th.  Many local homeless people had 
 been feeling hounded, according to Johnson, and many were angry.  Anyone 
 who lacks the funds to purchase a property right that includes a place to 
 sleep is simply out of luck. There is not a single square inch in the 
 entire state of California where it's legal to sleep, except in a homeless 
 shelter.  And here in Santa Cruz County, as in much of the rest of the 
 state, there is only one shelter bed for every ten homeless people.  
 Further, the protesters point out, sleeping in a shelter exposes the 
 homeless person to unknown disease and potentially violent offenders.  They 
 argue that the status quo can be humanized if enough former lawyers now 
 wearing black robes can get get a grip on the reality of the law's 
 gratuitous cruelty, and its often horrendous consequences.\n\nThe case on 
 appeal argues that it's not only the California Constitution that protects 
 sleepers.  The argument emphasizes that when the United States Bill Of 
 Rights was being debated in Congress in 1790, a mere three years after the 
 US Constitution took effect, the congressmembers took up the task of 
 stating our most basic rights: freedom of speech, freedom to assemble in 
 public and seek redress of grievances, freedom of and from religion, 
 freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to remain 
 silent, and the right to due process of law, including the right of the 
 accused to be tried before a jury of fellow citizens. The protesters point 
 out, though, that many congress members were wisely concerned that, if they 
 listed only these rights in the Constitution, and failed to mention others, 
 then judges could reject all sorts of natural rights, reasoning that, 
 "well, this right or that was not included on the list, and therefore does 
 not exist."  The Congress resolved this problem by inserting the 9th 
 amendment into the bill of rights, which provides that "The enumeration of 
 certain rights in the constitution shall not be construed to deny or 
 disparage others retained by the people."\n\nThe California Constitution 
 has an almost identical provision in article I section 24\n\nThus the right 
 to breathe, for example, and the right to relieve oneself can not be taken 
 away by judges even though these rights are not mentioned in the 
 Constitution.  When the 9th Amendment was being debated, several legal 
 scholars have said, congressman Theodore Sedgewick rose and warned his 
 colleagues that if the 9th Amendment were not included, the government 
 might attempt to control people's sleeping habits.  This bit of legislative 
 history in the appellants briefs will be a bright light shining in the 
 judges eyes that will be impossible for them to ignore, say the protesters. 
  The legal briefs by both sides can be reviewed at 
 http://www.fullspectrumdemocracy.org/\n\nIn their written arguments, the 
 protesters urge the judges to speak out, to avoid the silent denials of the 
 past, and explain forthrightly how our constitutional law protects or 
 rejects the sleepers.  The protesters contend that all the people deserve 
 this explanation.\n\nFrey cites this judicial silence as typical of most of 
 our public office holders, who say they aspire to democracy but offer only 
 the most shallow public discourse.\n\nJohnson and Frey place heavy emphasis 
 on their freedom of expression.  They would have preferred to engage in 
 civilized public dialogue with office holders about this injustice, but see 
 protest as the only available process to get a dialogue going under present 
 circumstances.  They are disturbed that despite their 1st Amendment 
 protections, their demonstration cost them 6 months in jail.  Johnson, who, 
 decided to repeat his protest, was recently sentenced to an additional two 
 years in jail.\n\nThe protesters argue that a 25 year old US Supreme Court 
 opinion states clearly that sleeping is a valid form of protest, and point 
 to many other cases which hold that demonstrations on sites that are 
 traditional public forums (like the court house steps in Santa Cruz) are 
 entitled to the broadest protections possible.\n\nThe protesters hope that 
 the public will come to the June 14th hearing to view this latest chapter 
 of Constitutional justice.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/05/18714834.php
SUMMARY:Peacecamp2010 Appellate Panel hearing
LOCATION:Department 5 of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/05/18714834.php
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DTEND:20120615T000000Z
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