Norse Trial Postponed To May 22nd

AP0LOGIES AND ISSUES

My apologies to those who showed up this week and found no trial nor mention of me on the court dockets.

The issue in this case is the shortened public comment rules specially tailered for me and a few others at City Council by then-Mayor Mike Rotkin and Councilmember Ed Porter. The so-called Five Minute rule for Consent Agenda Items and the Three/One Minute rule for Administrative Items has significantly limited public discussion.

After the Coast Santa Cruz Hotel debacle last spring, Rotkin seemed particularly eager to cut back public input.

He has a history of using other parliamentary and extra-parliamentary devices to avoid hearing my brief comments.

CASE HISTORY

For two sympathetic treatments see:

"A Santa Cruz homeless advocate is brutalized and shackled while the public voice is eroded"
by Becky Johnson at
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/July2005/arrested.htm

&

Having Your Say At City Council Meetings Is a Right, Not A Privilege by Thomas Leavitt at
http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/18359/index.php

For the City Council minutes version see:
http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/ cc/archives/05/mins_pdf/6-14Rmin.pdf

For some discussion of the Five-Minute Rule under which I was arrested see:
"Rotkin's Council To Cut Back Public Comment"
by Robert Norse at http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17159/index.php

For the Sentinel version:

Speaker pushes Santa Cruz City Council´s limits "Tighter time for public comment angers advocate June 24, 2005" at
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2005/June/24/local/stories/07local.htm

And my response:

"City Council knows how to muzzle critics" By Robert Norse August 14, 2005 at

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2005/August/14/edit/stories/03edit.htm


UPDATE

The case has been repeatedly postponed, most recently at the request of prosecutor Archie Webber, who said he had a DUI case he wanted to do first.

Webber has been insistent on prosecuting this case, and denied me access to a tape recording which I made of the City Council meeting that day, until a court order forced him to let me hear and examine it--some four months after my original request.

Apparently top D.A. Bob Lee also wants this case to go forward, or so he informed attorney Kate Wells, who, with Berkeley attorney David Beauvais, are pro bono attorneys defending me.

I face a potential 1 1/2 years in jail, not as unlikely a possibility as it might seem, though I've never been convicted of an offense in Santa Cruz County for which I've served time. I am currently uninterested in plea bargaining or in taking probation, which means I'm likely to be locked up if found guilty. There is also an uncertain history of folks being freed pending appeal.


HELP WANTED

If anyone wants to help interview witnesses, do legal research, or help put out public information on this case, please contact me at 831-423-4833. I can use the help.
The case will be listed on the court calendar under my family name Robert N. Kahn. It will begin in Dept. 1, probably around 9 AM, be farmed out to another court (we don't know which one), and then jury selection will begin. The actual trial will probably not start until the afternoon or the next morning. It is expected to take several days to a week.

I am suing City of Santa Cruz, the SCPD, and Mayors Krohn, Fitzmaurice, and Kennedy in federal court in a civil suit tentatively scheduled for jury trial in September. The suit claims a pattern of harassment and repression at City Council, most visibly involving false arrests in March 2002 (the so-called "Heil Krohn!" case) and January 2004 (the Kennedy "Hush the Homeless" case).

See "Santa Cruz City Council Will Face Trial in mock-Nazi salute case" by Robert Norse http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13163/index.php

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