LF: Evil in a small place (Delaware)–harassment and selective prosecution by New Castle County (Coons)

Title: Evil in a small place (Delaware)–harassment and selective prosecution by New Castle County (Coons)
Source: Green Delaware
URL Source: http://greendel.org/?p=9732
Published: Sep 20, 2010
Author: Green Delaware
Post Date: 2010-09-20 17:56:37 by Hondo68
Keywords: Malicious Prosecutions, Warlock, Evil of Coons
Views: 5643
Comments: 6

This is about evil. It could be a lot worse. It is not about people being dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night and tortured. It's not about being locked up in a Delaware prison and murdered through denial of medical care. One can live with it and I've been doing so since about 2001.

But it's evil enough in it's own little way and the person currently causing our problems, New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, wants to be a United States Senator and apparently has the support of many people who don't know what he really is.

A key point I want to make is that Coons, a rich boy with a law degree and a Master's in Ethics from Yale Divinity School, is actually a much nastier, more manipulative, more dangerous, more special-interest-serving person than his thuggish predecessor Tom Gordon. Coons was elected County Executive in 2004, in a campaign that signalled total subservience to development interests. Coons served the developers so well that the Republican's didn't even put up a candidate against him in 2008. He has the amiability of a professional pol and access to lots of money. Now he wants to be a Senator-running against Mike Castle.

Courts are supposed to provide relief, or at least the opportunity of relief, from the actions of misbehaving officials.

Few things are more destructive to the integrity of a place than using the courts to harass activists and poor people. Than criminalizing freedom of speech. Governor Markell, as I see it, knowingly endorsed these activities when he renominated Alan Davis as Chief Magistrate of Delaware's Justice of the Peace Courts.

This is not to exempt the County Council-one of whom is a Presbyterian minister-from responsibility. Nor is it to blame ordinary county employees, most of whom are honorable and helpful.

"Land use," mostly a county function, is a key environmental issue, so what Delaware's counties do matters a lot.

Green Delaware has often criticized New Castle County and things around it. This is easy to do. New Castle County has a long history of corruption and scumbaggery. We have often-but not any more!-testified at County Council meetings and suchlike. Here are a few examples:

But we also did something stupid in the circumstances: Bought a historic house threatened with demolition. This opened us up to unending harassment. The harassment would not be such a problem, of course, if Delaware had courts of justice. But Delaware doesn't, at least where New Castle County is concerned. Thus, about 35 criminal charges have been brought against us over the years. Numerous warrants have apparently been issued for my arrest-it is hard to know the details because the JP courts will not provide copies. Conviction is automatic according to what the County wants. A real defense is not allowed. Unlike traffic and other minor cases, they can't be transferred to a higher court. Appeal is impractical. So there is no real judicial check on county abuses.

At first, under previous, indicted officials Tom Gordon and Sherry Freebery, the pattern was that we would be charged with parking on grass, having loose caulk in windowpanes, etc. Now, they charge us ten or twelve times for the same "offence," and we are convicted for each "offense." See, for example, this one:

We never know when more charges will arrive in the mail. We never know when warrants will be issued for my arrest. I have a criminal "rap sheet" pages and pages long. This is the reward for being an activist in Delaware in these times. This is the reward for restoring an historic property in New Castle County. Need I say that New Castle County, which says it supports historic preservation, has never done anything helpful? Here are some samples of our relationship to New Castle County:

One might think that at $3751 fine would be enough even for Coons. After all, we aren't challenging the County any more. But no, they are after us again. This time, Coon's people accuse us of not having a proper permit for repairing our roof. So, they bring at least TEN separate charges for the same alleged offense. They allege one per month for at least ten months. (It's hard to tell as the documents are so confusing and innacurate.) Read the charges here.

The county ordinance apparently allows bringing a separate charge every day. So the county could charge a person 365 times for having a cracked windowpane and then deliver these charges all at once, without prior notice, and demand a fine for each "violation." A minimum fine of $100 is prescribed for each "violation" and
"the court shall not suspend the sentence of any person..." Welcome to Delaware!

Abuse of code enforcement power has often been used to harass people. Since, obviously, every property has some technical code violation, anyone could be harassed. While the evil of Coons in abusing these laws is obvious, it is also obvious that the Delaware General Assembly has itself done a great evil by passing such laws for the County, and by failing to maintain the integrity of Delaware's courts.

SELECTIVE PROSECUTION

To establish a claim of selective prosecution, establish at least prima facie:

(1) that while others similarly situated have not generally been proceeded against because of conduct of the type forming the basis of the charge against him, he has been singled out for prosecution, and

(2) that the government's discriminatory selection of him has been invidious or in bad faith, i.e., based upon impermissible considerations as race, religion, or the desire to prevent the exercise of his constitutional rights.'

See: United States v. Sammons, 918 F.2d 592, 600 (6th Cir. 1990) (quoting United States v. Hazel, 696 F.2d 473, 474 (6th Cir. 1983)) (emphasis in Hazel); see also United States v. Anderson, 923 F.2d 450, 453 (6th Cir. 1991); United States v. Bustamante, 805 F.2d 201, 202 (6th Cir. 1986); accord Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608-09 and n. 10 (1985).

Green Delaware doesn't have legal resources. Anyone want to help?

Trial is set for March 23, 2010 at 1:00 in JP Court 15.

Coons wants to save the planet, by stomping out environmentalists, and bringing in the developer's buldozers?

O'Donnell's the choice for ecologically aware folks like me. Save the planet, reject evil Coons!

Can you point out the passage in the article in which there is a description of the situation out of which these accusations arose?