YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED TO APPEAR IN ROOM 240 COURTHOUSE WEST, ST. PAUL AND LEXINGTON STS… FAILURE TO REPORT FOR JURY SERVICE MAY RESULT IN PENALTIES UP TO $1,000 FINE, OR UP TO 60 DAYS IMPRISONMENT OR BOTH.
When I first opened the official notice, I was a bit troubled. Not that I have any problem with doing my civic duty, but to me the whole situation was filled with irony. Not to mention the potential of severe economic loss caused by a day, or many days of no real income.
You see, one of the last times I was in that very building, for what was to be a routine preliminary appearance for a hearing, I was taken into custody upon entering. I was held without a charge for 40 days! Yup, 40 days of no income, 40 days of my house left unattended (broken into several times), 40 days of mental anguish being held and having not committed a crime. This is a place I’d sooner never re-enter unless I was some sort of plaintiff suing the pants of this city for all that it put me through.
If you’re not familiar with the story of the abuse and harassment I’ve suffered at the hands of Baltimore City Police, I’ll have to save it for another time.
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Incidentally various rumors and snippets of what actually happened leading up to, during and after what I now call the “incident of 2009” have been floating around. It should be noted, as of this writing, I’ve never published a full account of this, so anything you’ve heard or read is most likely highly inaccurate.
You might imagine that I am not very found of the Circuit Court For Baltimore City, commonly known at the Mitchell Courthouse.
Having been arrested, detained, and otherwise seeing my constitutional rights totally trampled on by various entities of Baltimore City, I simply wasn’t thrilled to be forced to go into a city government building. After all, this is how they got me the last time, and the time before that.
Seems like a pretty good piece of entrapment. Let’s force you to come to one of our buildings, antagonize and be rude to you, and when you speak up and stand up for yourself, arrest you for “trespassing” and or “disturbing the peace.” Like the time my car was impounded and I was arrested for refusing to leave the impound lot without my car. Never mind I had a signed company check in hand.
Being in a place that you have to go to on official business should hardly constitute trespassing. Of course, expecting logical behavior by government and law enforcement in Baltimore City might be asking a lot. Not sure if you noticed, but these days this seems to be in short supply.
It should be noted that for one of my “trespassing” charges, the arresting officer, Michael Maurice, didn’t have the nerve to show up to court in order to substantiate his bogus and baseless charges.
I should not have been surprised by this, after all, Baltimore is known for illegal unwarranted arrests, for this we can thank then mayor, now governor, Martin O’Malley.
Between the murders of several people close to me and my major disappointment in the way the Baltimore Police has handled the investigations, my house being broken into numerous times, my cars being broken into repeatedly, motorcycles stolen from my backyard, numerous incidents of false arrests and imprisonments, countless fraudulent towing and impounding of my vehicles, you can see why I feel little need to “give back” to Baltimore. Quite frankly, after paying the exorbitant taxes in this city, I feel like I’ve given plenty.
In Part Two I’ll walk you through my day as a juror.
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