I think this is unfair, involved excessive force, and was overly harsh. I even find the prosecution of this woman a little fascist and totalitarian (although others may have differing opinions or not care). Woman convicted of felony for not complying with police, leaving after eviction notice A woman has been convicted of two felony charges just because she did not follow the orders of police when police had showed up after her mother had previously given her an eviction notice to leave the property (6 months prior). On May 30, police responded to the house after dispatchers received multiple calls reporting gunshots coming from the area of the home. Public Safety officers and the Kalamazoo Metro SWAT Team went to the house and tried to execute a search warrant, but the two sisters did not heed commands coming from a sound amplifying speaker to come out of the house. After several hours of waiting, police used an armored vehicle to ram the front door of the house and twice threw tear gas grenades into the house. The sisters then exited from the back of the house, and one of the officers began walking towards them. With the sisters about 10 yards away, the officer pointed his light at them and screamed commands to stop, show their hands, and get on the ground. The officer says that the two were whispering back and forth but could not tell what they were saying. Another officer joined the first officer and they say the girls were not complying with the orders, the girls were standing, had their arms down to their sides, and could be heard chanting. The first officer testified that he screamed at the two for "two to three minutes" to comply, but they did not. It's unclear if the length of time was actually that long. Because the sisters did not comply with police commands, the police fired rounds of a non-lethal weapon. Both sisters were struck once in the thigh and fell to the ground. At that point the sisters were taken into custody without any more problems. Both women claim that they did not fire any guns, but did hear two separate volleys of gunfire that day coming from east of their home. The woman was found guilty on October 14, 2015, of two counts of "resisting" and "obstructing" police, both classified as felonies under the law. (Under the country's federal law this automatically results in certain lifetime losses of rights, for example it becomes a crime if that person has gun; whereas the state of Michigan only removes those rights for 3 years after the end of completion of the sentence, for more minor felonies) The woman had already spent 163 days (over 5 months) in the county jail before the sentencing hearing, and was sentenced to serve one year of probation (with credit for time already spent in jail) and to pay more than $1,700 in court costs. Something that may have been an additional factor, police did find 27 guns in the house, most of which were loaded. This was not illegal, and the guns may have belonged to the two brothers who had also been living in the house. (The two brothers had been involved in an incident 16 days prior where they had been shot at by police after a lengthy vehicle pursuit) The woman also seems to have likely been obsessively paranoid, and tried to claim to the court that she did not realize the people who were outside were police. She said she never heard any announcements about a search warrant and that she did not see police labels on any of the vehicles. She said that when she exited the back of the house she heard officers announce themselves as police, but still questioned whether it was police officers giving commands because a bright light was being shined on her and she could not see behind the light. It was dark outside and raining. The woman's defense attorney argued that she did everything she was asked to do after police used non-lethal force against her and argued that she never resisted police or threatened them. (The attorney also said her client had no prior criminal history) This sounds like the law enforcement officers were angry this woman "did not comply", and so referred the incident for criminal prosecution. It also created a legal excuse to confiscate all the guns. The issue in the courtroom seemed to center on the claim that the woman should have known or had probable reason to believe the people outside were law enforcement officers. Kalamazoo County Judge Paul Bridenstine said during the sentencing hearing that her behavior was "extremely dangerous." "You put yourself and many others at risk ... by not complying with law enforcement. "Resisting" and "obstructing" police is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison, in Michigan. Sister of Portage man killed by police found guilty in May standoff - mlive.com, October 14, 2015 Sister of Portage man killed by police gets probation in May standoff - mlive.com, November 9, 2015, Rex Hall Jr. The mother, Christine Pelletier had tried unsuccessfully to get her four children, all adults, who were living together, to leave the house that she owned. (It can be very expensive and difficult for young adults to be able to move out these days) The prosecutor even asked the judge to order that the two sisters not be allowed to have any contact with each other during their probation (this would have prevented them from sharing the same house), but fortunately the judge did not order it. Just another prosecutor trick trying to make the defendant's life unnecessarily difficult. This is a transcript of part of the sentencing hearing: Judge Bridenstine: "Miss Pelletier, is there anything you want to tell the court before I impose sentencing?" Michelle Pelletier: "I don't believe you actually heard very much of the facts. When I was on the witness stand, I was starting to explain various things that had taken place. I was cut off. I wasn't allowed to ever share those things. So I don't feel like I was given a fair trial." response from judge: "When I sentence you miss I'm concerned about punishment, rehabilitation, protection of society, and deterrence. You stand before the court having no prior history whatsoever. What I heard in court during the [2-hour] non-jury trial, what you stated to the court satisfied the court at that time that your behavior was criminal, by not complying. Despite the fact that you mentioned in court here your thoughts about what was happening in the community that particular night, what you said, you didn't understand what was going on, what you didn't see, things of that nature... It was clear to me that there was enough of a law enforcement presence that you should have behaved differently. As far as you comments today about being cut off, the court is bound by the rules of evidence, you can't simply allow someone to take the stand and talk on any issue that they want to talk about, in a criminal trial." Listen to Michelle Pelletier during sentencing - YouTube, MLive
There's a small chance I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like law enforcement and the court system would have treated this situation exactly the same even if the women had owned the property. (In other words the prior eviction notice does not really have anything to do with this case, is just coincidental) I'm sure many of those on the Left might have trouble seeing anything wrong with this story, but from the perspective of Conservative Libertarians, people in their own home should not be punished after-the-fact just because they did not follow orders from police. Especially when the person doesn't even have any real way to know for sure whether they are real police. That seems totalitarian. What reason did police have to arrest the women? I cannot see a valid or justified reason. And claiming that what they were doing was "obstructing" or "resisting" is a very stretched and questionable interpretation of the law, in my opinion. What they did should not have been seen as illegal, I strongly believe.
Should these people have had an obligation to have to comply with orders from a group of people shouting through a megaphone outside, when it's dark and rainy, and they couldn't hear clearly everything being said? I could be wrong, but from the story in the article it kind of sounds like they never even bothered knocking on the door. The police may have been afraid it was too unsafe to send an officer to the door, so they just barked orders from a megaphone. When they finally broke down the door, it was with an armored vehicle.
The problem (one of the problems) I have with resisting arrest being a crime, is what happens when there was no other underlying crime? When police did not even have just legal reason to make that arrest in the first place. A person often has no way to be absolutely sure the person (or persons) trying to arrest them are actually real police officers, or are acting lawfully. Or maybe the arrest is due to a wrongful prosecution, and there actually does not exist justifiable reason for the arrest. With resisting arrest laws, there then becomes a legal reason to punish that person, even though they committed no other crime. In this story those women didn't even actively DO anything to resist arrest. It seems all they did is not open the front door, not immediately go outside of their house, waiting several hours, and then they left their home from the back door, and when approached by an officer just stood for several minutes. Until the police attacked the two women. So they are being punished for what they did NOT do, rather than what they did. What they did NOT do was treated like a crime. It could be said that they were not even convicted of breaking any law, other than not going outside of their home and making it easy for police to put them in handcuffs. (Something police would have almost certainly done in this situation, with a SWAT team outside the home, even though police were not there to arrest the two women for any specific crime) So the message of this story is, if police want to put you in handcuffs but don't have any solid evidence you committed any crime, then it becomes a crime if you do not go to them and make it easy for them to arrest you. How totalitarian is that! I guess you lose all rights to live in privacy and peace when some neighbors claim they hear gunshots coming from near your home but they're not really sure. The women were not charged with criminal trespass, which makes me inclined to believe this story did not have to do with trespass or eviction. The article says their mother was in the process of trying to evict them. If they had not already been evicted after 6 months, I suspect there may have been some legal reason the mother could not get them evicted yet. But (in my opinion) the fact that they were given an eviction notice before is relevant so far as it shows that the women should have had an expectation there was a likely chance police might show up to their homes. Although it was 9 p.m. when police showed up in this story and usually police would not show up that late for an eviction notice. And an eviction notice would usually involve someone knocking on the door. I do think the outrageous nature of this story and how this case was handled would be a lot clearer to people and less obfuscated if the two sisters had owned that house themselves. It's also possible that the way police and the court handled this might have been influenced by the crime committed by the two brothers of the sisters, combined with the fact that guns were in the house. Neither of which should have affected the rights of the sisters, theoretically, but reality does not always match idealism. It's very possible the authorities could have been prejudiced and biased against the sisters because of these two factors, in my opinion.
related older thread: another freedom taken away: "Resisting Arrest" (posted in Civil Liberties section, Nov 13, 2014 )
TL;DR If you don't want to be treated like a criminal don't fire off shots in a residential neighborhood. And when the police show up listen very carefully to what they want you to do. You can get a lawyer later but not if you go the suicide by cop route.
There is no evidence that those sisters fired off shots. (Or at least I'd say the evidence for a connection like that is very weak, circumstantial and flimsy at best, certainly not anywhere near close to the level to justify a criminal conviction. And you will notice that "discharge of firearm" is NOT one of the charges they are facing, so clearly there was not adequate evidence for that) It's very possible the sisters could be telling the truth and the shots could have come from another part of their neighborhood nearby. It probably wasn't the nicest or safest neighborhood. If you read the account of this story, it seems like police did not even bother to actually knock on the door. Just shouted through a loudspeaker from a distance, at 9 p.m. at night, in the darkness, while it was raining. While it may be kind of difficult to believe the sisters were not aware police outside were ordering them to come out, it is not impossible. The point of this discussion is kind of to discuss whether they should have had legal obligation to follow the orders of police, when there was no strong evidence of an underlying crime. Especially since they were in their own home at night.
The article says only that it was a bench trial, meaning the case was decided by a judge with no jury. There are multiple reasons a defendant might agree to a bench trial. In many types of cases the prosecutor will take it easier on the defendant if they agree to just let the judge decide, and the defendant will likely be sentenced to less prison time if found guilty. In certain types of cases, as well, the defense attorney may advise their client to agree to a bench trial because they believe the prosecution has a higher chance of winning if there is a jury whose opinion the prosecutor could try to sway with emotion. In this case there were several things that could have prejudiced the jury against the defendant. Or a prosecutor may convince the jury to apply a very literal interpretation of wording in certain laws, which can be very vague and open ended. Laws can be unfair and unjust in certain types of situations if interpreted too literally. So they may believe they have a higher chance of convincing an intelligent legal expert that the law should not be interpreted the way the prosecutor is attempting to use it. The prosecutor and judge usually try to make sure most cases do not end up in a jury trial, and there are several things they can do to pressure defendants to agree to a different option. A question like that really deserves a whole separate thread.
If the defendant consented to waive the jury, then I would say she got what she bargained for. If she was denied a jury, then I'd say she was railroaded by corruption and violated by the state.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-police-leaving-after-eviction-notice.608735/ "A woman has been convicted of two felony charges just because she did not follow the orders of police when police had showed up after her mother had previously given her an eviction notice to leave the property (6 months prior)." "On May 30, police responded to the house after dispatchers received multiple calls reporting gunshots coming from the area of the home." so was that why cops where there... or the gunshots.... confused?
I understand how you think. Many people think that way. I used to think that way. But you do not understand how the system is set up against people having jury trials. There are numerous unfair things in the system, too long to attempt to discuss here (probably too long to even discuss in an entire thread devoted to that one topic). These things can be used to incentivize, pressure and coerce defendants not to choose the jury option. Holding a jury trial requires a lot of additional time, money and resources. The justice system as it currently is would get clogged up and be unable to function if they were to hold a jury trial for every person who is charged. Realize that there is a reason why only less than 6 percent of felony cases at the state level go to trial. Well, the point is, even if she selected not to have a jury trial, it is still a travesty of justice that the case ended up with this outcome.
