[fargoparent]

My son received two loud party citations. Although these are infractions, there have been a lot of concerns about police conduct and this is not the first time. A subsequent offense could get jail time. No public defender is provided for this type of charge. He was convicted in city kangaroo court (not a court of record) but wants to appeal to district court, and the idea is to fish out some of the police issues. Discovery deadline is approaching.

Do we have to pay to get subpoenas issued?
To get copies of police records (we are looking for records of communication among police officers and with dispatch, departmental information on actual practice regarding enforcement of loud party ordinance--all that was issued in this case was a ticket, the same form used for traffic tickets).

In one instance, my son was alone in our garage, door closed, listening to music while neighbors and their friends (minors and adults) had gathered, were drinking, near and some of them on our property (their apartment parking lot is adjacent to our property, property lines are vague--deed description does not match county tax property description, and there has always been fairly fluid movement in that area). The police found the people drinking but also heard my son's music and made him the host of the party (there is nothing in ordinance about the host being responsible for the loud party, clearly states anyone who participates in gathering is in violation, he was the only one cited for loud party, one minor was cited for consumption while other minors who were clearly drinking were not, and there were adults who clearly provided the alcohol and were not cited. When the police found the kids drinking (the parent of one of them apparently bought the alchohol) they asked where my son was, they were told he was in the garage, police told one of the group to go get my son, who was oblivious to the activity going on. Police officer freely acknowledged that he sent partier to get my son, "it was easier") He could have been cited under another ordinance for loud noise--this has lower penalty, I am not sure if subsequent offense could result in misdemeanor charge.

All summer my son had been working on setting up computer, sound system, wireless network in garage to learn recording and mixing music. He also goes to school for computer networking and hardware engineering and does volunteer computer work for a non-profit, as favor to friends, occasionally for hire. He was doing this without regard to what the neighbors were up to. This will be part of the argument that his playing music was not related to the party.

We have two days to write this up to submit.

Are interrogatory and deposition the same thing?

Do requests for subpoenas, interrogatory, and/or deposition fall within the same deadline as discovery deadline?

[JudyKayTee]

If your son is a student at home on his property applying what he is going to school for - how did he break the law? Maybe he was doing an assignment for class? It is what ever he say it is. Sounds to me your son's intentions were clear - he was doing an assignment in the privacy of his garage on his own property until his privacy was invaded.

You cannot play music at an illegal volume whether it's a school project or not. "Privacy" does not entitle a person to disturb the neighbors and break the law.

OP has posted same question 3 times. Needs to be combined.

[fargoparent]

There are arguments that could be made regarding the noise itself partly because of how the ordinance is written and where we live--near 4 sets of train tracks, a very busy ER, on a main street including semi traffic, and the ordinance says the character of the neighborhood is to be considered. But not even going to bother going there, the legal issues we are interested have to do with whether there was a party--that's a separate ordinance--and whether the defendant was involved in any way with a party--which he was not.

[JudyKayTee]

There are arguments that could be made regarding the noise itself partly because of how the ordinance is written and where we live--near 4 sets of train tracks, a very busy ER, on a main street including semi traffic, and the ordinance says the character of the neighborhood is to be considered. But not even going to bother going there, the legal issues we are interested have to do with whether there was a party--that's a separate ordinance--and whether the defendant was involved in any way with a party--which he was not.

Why do you think the Police are giving your son a hard time over this - if you know.

[fargoparent]

My son grew up with Tourette;s and a laundry list of other psychiatric diagnoses, also tentative dx of Asperger's. He received poor treatment in school (we obtained multiple state findings of special ed law violations by the school district over a 6 year time period) and basically has had a lot of trouble with overall adjustment. Because of psychiatric crises and school problems he had multiple police contacts over the years. Some officers have been helpful, but others not. He has several times been denied police services when he was the victim of a crime, including one instance involving one of the officers who issued loud party citation. We have filed a complaint against that officer and also there is an investigation into an illegal search of our car (not disclosed to us by police, nothing was found, police were familiar with the car and had previously described it as my son's car--actually mine--witness to the search was a retired deputy who lives across from where the car was parked. So far no officer has admitted, we have contacted a lawyer who unfortunately is on temporary leave due to a family illness). We have become known in addition because I have encouraged my son to get involved with more organized efforts to address concerns about police conduct, I am active in mental health advocacy--actually serve on one state and one county advisory board in this area. There have been numerous times in the past when my son was charges but charges were dismissed, usually lack of evidence but one time the result of a juvenile referee becoming very angry at the prosecutor for bringing the charges to court.

It's because of this history that on the one hand makes my son an easy target (there are also multiple instances of stop and frisk for no legitimate reason), but also makes it more difficult for him to function because of the constant stress, paranoia, and fear--he's been dxed with major depression and anxiety, including OCD, since he was little, and this does nothing to make his response to police productive.

[JudyKayTee]

Wow - you've got your hands full. I'm so sorry -

Now this all makes a whole lot better sense to me. I'm sure the neighbors also see him as a somewhat easy "mark."

You do have an Attorney, right? When will he/she be back?

I don't know the history of this but I wonder if it's a clear cut case of harassment is the Attorney hasn't considered a suit against the Police Department.

[fargoparent]

There is an ACLU organization in the area of the country where I live--but it is a small chapter and they have no attorneys. I spent quite a bit of $$ on attorney fees a couple of years ago because of bogus charges, that attorney would be willing to sue, but he has a small practice and cannot afford to take anything on contingency, and the $$ I spent in the past have left us in a precarious situation.

Incidentally, I did find out some things about interrogatories and depositions, wrote up discovery requests and made interrogatories, so far what we have received is just copies of the two tickets themselves with officer notes attached--the officer notes are handwritten and not signed or otherwise identified (each ticket was signed by two officers for a total of four officers signing tickets, there are a few officers who were around.

Discovery reply deadline is Feb 2. If they haven't coughed up everything asked for by then, what is the next step? Would that require a motion asking the court to order the plaintiff to respond to discovery requests and interrogatories?

Last month there was a very interesting trial in a city about 70 miles away. This guy had been pulled over and forced to stand outside without a coat, this is cold country (tomorrow's temps will remain below 0 degrees and that isn't wind chill). It was above zero but below zero windchills and the guy got some frostbite. Two officers were actually charged with criminal endangerment. One pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, the other went to trial and was recently convicted. Included in evidence were text messages between the two officers, joking about giving the guy the deep freeze treatment and how he deserved it "after all these years." At trial the officer tried to pass it off as a bad joke but the jury didn't buy it. Turns out--this was not mentioned in the papers--the guy was black, so now it has also turned into a civil rights complaint with the Department of Justice.