I had a court case today, acted as my own lawyer and WON!!!

I own a bar and one night a couple dudes got into a heated conversation about a pool game. I and my bartender (I was cook that night) came out and broke up the discussion. 20 minutes later the guys got into a fist fight in my parking lot.
When the cops arrived I was told that I would be cited for Failure To Report a Disturbance for the heated conversation inside the bar.
Well I plead not guilty and acted as my own attorney in a jury trial.

And I won.

'I'm not really a lawyer, but I DID stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night!'

Yay me!

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Ginny in Denver-ish
78 300SD, 265K (mine)

Are you kidding me ?!?!

Around here, the bars would have to hire additional staff just to cover that BS.

Good Job.
Glad you won.

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1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

That law you broke is sure messed up, obviously the jury and or court agreed.

You should spearhead a drive to get Police pensions, overtime, salary and benefits and uniform allowances cut
down by really a LOT, for what they did.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

I've seen fights happen IN THE BAR where there was no police/legal involvement afterward.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

This is just IMHO,

These types of cases are job security for the judicial system and police, and they also create a large amount of revenue. A jury trial? I can only imagine what it cost the taxpayers, but the state attorney scored some brownie points with someone over this I'm sure.

Good for you! Boy, there are some tough broads on the Mercedesshop forum! Neither you nor Mistress take any legal crap from anybody. If you remember correctly she took a contractor to court last year and one, AND she collected from him, too!

Good for you.

Of course, you had my admiration for having the chutzpah to buy a car, sight unseen, and drive it all the way across the country.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

Revenue makers... That's all they are these days.

I bet most memebrs here are too young to remember when you felt safe in the presence of an officer of the law.

Now it's a sense of 'whats this going to cost me'.

It was an interesting experience.
I had to select a jury, give jury instructions-after the prosecutor and I agreed on them-, opening statements, cross exams, question my witnesses, rebutal if needed after the prosecutor crossed, present video evidence, closing statement.
All without anyone at my table. The witnesses were sequestered so no witnesses were allowed in the courtroom unless they were testifying.

It was nerve wracking but in the end I was sure that I wasn't guilty so it made things easier.

I still don't want to have to do that again. It's the first time in 4 years of owning a bar that I've been in trouble. Other bartenders and the DH have gone through this but this is a first (and only) time for me.

The prosecutor doesn't get to do many jury trials. His job is really to get people to plead guilty of a lessor charge when they do wrong. The day I had to show up to court to get pre-trial and trial dates there were 30+ people in the court waiting to ultimately plead guilty. 4 were for 6 point speeding violations-going 60+ in 40 zones. Each one spoke in priave to the prosecutor and came back pleading guilty to a lessor 4 point charge. They paid their fine and left.
It is a revenue making scheme. . .

HOPEFULLY in the future (we have beat him in the past, just 3 weeks ago-The Back Room-2, City Prosecutor-0) he will think twice before pursuing the bar for stupid stuff. And I'm hoping the cops will stop writing us citations for stupid stuff.

Yeah, I know but a girl can dream!

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Ginny in Denver-ish
78 300SD, 265K (mine)

As someone who worked in a Courtroom for over 20 years as a Judge's clerk, I am mightily impressed with what you did.

The system is HORRIBLY, nee IMPOSSIBLY stacked against people who come in from outside it to be their own lawyers.

Usually, in chambers the Judges and other attorneys are laughing at you.

I bet you *really* did better than you thought.

It is NOT easy to settle jury instructions if you are a lay person, for instance...

Nor question prospective jurors.

What I think helped you was that the JURORS were not forced to abandon common sense when they walked inside the door.

They saw through this BS.

I hope the Department wakes up.

Now, how about the time and aggravation and expense all this cost you:


Go look up "Malicious Prosecution" and see if you can sue the freakling pants off those guys. (For that you will need a lawyer.)

You beat the bad rap, and I wonder if you could walk away with a HUGE sum of dollars for that; they need to be sent a message LOUD AND CLEAR not to do that to people.

There is going to be a mandatory settlement conference if you sued; likely the city will at LEAST offer you a settlement as a "Nuisance plaintiff" to make it go away.

Meanwhile the media will have a field day.

And your bar will be swamped with curious new customers

(By the way, are you related
to Lorena Bobbitt by any chance?}

__________________
1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

my grandfather was a judge for 30 yrs he had a lot of common sense. but now I think city just uses courts to produce revenue. I used to get along with the cops(perhaps because gf was on the bench.) but now a few are only in it for the gov. wages and benafits(thats only people that can afford retirement and health care) and of course the power of a badge and gun. remember when airline stews were cute, and cops were tough? now with affirmative action we have pant loads doing both. we have guys with 10'biceps or woman cops trying to break up bar fights. they have no muscle,so out with the mace,tazers or guns(nyc cops shot unarmed guy 50 times)then if a bar reports too many incidents they say its a public nuisance and want to close it down. lowered limit to .08(was .15 in the 70's) these madd people won't be happy till prohibition is back

we had a case where a waitress accused a guy of touching her breast. turns out her daddy was 2nd in command at the cops, mommy worked at the prosecutors office' then both sat in court while still on the payroll( feeding at the public through) and glared at the jury, (got impression if not convicted he'd be after us for dui)followed us to lunch to see if we discussed case. turns out the cops went to his house at 11pm, woke him up while secretly recording him.(the dash cam has audio as well as video and has a big range) since not under arrest at the time evidently this is legal. he admitted to brushing against her, so tech. he was guilty. so now he's a registerd sex offender and the taxpayers got to spend more $$.so beware if talking to a cop you are recorded. but if they do anything wrong they lose the tape

Its a bar, people talk loudy in them? Wow I think they were reaching bringing you into that.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I'm just glad we had cameras. Three views that showed the two guys not liking each other.
Both of the prosecutions witnesses lied and I proved it with video.
No video and I'd have no chance.

The city is small and the council doesn't like bars. They're fine(not really but they have to put up) with the likes of Chilis and restaurants with small bars in them, but we free standing bars are under fire.

Our city has a Liquor Authority. It's a body of people (7) who hear citations on a civil basis and determine if the bar should be closed or fined under the citation. My case is one of three that happened in a two month period. Sounds like a lot, but we had no citations for 18 months before that. Guess they decided they needed to see us more often.

First one was overserving (serving persons prohibited). Overserving is when the bartender serves someone who is visibly intoxicated. The law states that the police must SEE you serve someone who is drunk-but tha's never stopped the cops from just writing a ticket if they do a walk through and see someone who is drunk. The drunk person could have water sitting in front of them, but since they are at a bar AND drunk, to the cops, it means we served them after they had too much.

Second was mine.

Third is a case that even the city prosecutor dismissed. A patron has a few beers (4 in two hours but he weights 260+) and decides he wants to pick up food from Chilis. Calls Chilis, orders and is told his food would be ready in 20. He leaves our place in 20, gets in his car (he's fine at the time he leaves us) and drives across the street to Chilis. From there he's going to drive home. Bartender at Chili's calls the cops and tells them there is a drink guy at his bar. Cops come but wait OUTSIDE for patron to come out, put his food in his car then get into the drivers side and insert the key. Suddenly 4 cops surround him, get him out of the car. He refuses to blow or do a Field's in the parking lot at Chili's (with diners watching through the windows) so they haul him into the shop and he allows blood to be taken. Slap him with a DUI. Then a few WEEKS later they come over and serve US with a Serving Persons Prohibited ticket. By then our video has looped (digital) so we have no way of proving he was fine looking when he left.

Now, the Liquor Authority is not the City Court. LA is a different body and answers to no one. If the Mayor sat in on the monthly meetings and didn't agree with the LA there is nothing he could do. So they have absolute power. There's is like Civil Court. They don't send someone to jail, but they can and do shut down your biz for as long as they want.

Last Thursday in March we sat in fron of them on the first overserving case and we had clear cut video showing the girl was perfectly fine and dancing at her last service. She was on a broth diet that she didn't tell anyone about and about 20 minutes after her last service she passed out. BUT at the time of last service, she was perfectly fine. Criminal case, we won. Civil (LA) case, we lost. Even with video evidence.
We also sat on the Failure To Report A Disturbance (mine-not yet heard criminallyat that time) and they found against us then too. Same video that we used in yesterday's trial, but the LA said I should have called anyway.

Monday we will go again to present evidence about the Chili's thing.
After they find us guilty on that one, they will tell us how long we will be closed for.
Could be 60 days. Could put us out of biz.

And that's what they want in the first place.

If I ever own a bar again (yeah, right) it will be in an unincorporated part of town with only the understaffed Sheriff's office to respond. I know that has it's risks, but I'll take the chance over what I have now.

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Ginny in Denver-ish
78 300SD, 265K (mine)

We USED to be really cooperative with the cops if they came in a responded to a call we made. If they wanted to look at video we let them right then without looking first, we'd hand over tabs when asked for them.

NO LONGER!!

No more free video looks. No more tabs handed over and we will always record conversations with police. Recorder sitting right in front of cop with cop knowing full well. I'm tired of them lying on police reports.

No more Mz Nice Girl.

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Ginny in Denver-ish
78 300SD, 265K (mine)

Wish me luck tomorrow.
We stand in front of the Liquor Authority at 7PM.

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Ginny in Denver-ish
78 300SD, 265K (mine)