The Short and Ridiculous Trial of a Protester Arrested in an Inflatable Penis Costume

I was thinking the same thing. Seems like that city attorney has taken a big ol'soak in a tub of reputational harm.

He can probably expect a promotion to the Trump administration any day now though. They seem to revel in hiring incompetent lawyers.

Long read here, but the story illustrates how the city attorney was scrambling less just to convict her than preempt a lawsuit she's likely to file against the city. Doesn't directly answer your question, but the context makes this clear that there were some desperation moves here.

Municipal court has slightly different rules, I think. At any rate, the defense objected and that would make it appeal-able post-conviction.

I mean, this court is set up for you to argue with the traffic cop as to how fast you were going. Calling witnesses usually isn’t a part of it.

My understanding is that calling someone not in the list is rare but not completely disallowed. You'd need some heavy justification and how the other side doesn't object with better justification. I didn't read the pay-walled article but the summary in the post made it seem very lackadaisical how it was handled. That would be very concerning.

As I understand it, litigators have pretty wide latitude to call whomever they want to provide factual testimony in support of their case. At worst, in some jurisdictions the opposing council has a right to be prepared and can ask for a recess while they do so.

And AFAIK states that grant spousal privilege limit that to private conservations, not overt acts or utterances made to a third party.

Typically you can invoke your 5th amendment right for spouses as well but you don't have to.

I believe that the prosecution cannot call witnesses not on the list, but that the defense has more leeway?

And you know that everybody in his mother would send money

Um... Did you by any chance use automated dictation to write your comment?

"I'm not trying to violate your free speech" is not a magic phrase to to turn infringements on free speech into non-infringements.

Yeah they lied and said she was a traffic hazard, that it had nothing to do with the costume. They lied about calling for backup. They lied about escalating the situation. They threw her to the ground and squeezed the cuffs on her (arthritic) hands tightly so she cried out. She’s an ASL interpreter, her hands are her business.

I hope she sues the fuck out of them.

how she would explain it to his kids

It's a play on words. Dick-Tator. Get it?

Same energy as "No offense but [extremely offensive thing]"

Do these stupid fucks really think kids don’t know what a penis is? Roughly half of humans have one!

“Dick is another name for penis” is not a difficult explanation lmao

I wonder how this cop would explain to his kids why he was trying to undress a woman in broad daylight- a woman he didn’t person know.

To undermine her as a sympathetic victim. The city prosecutor was trying to head off the civil suit, so he's trying to set it up like her action were intentional provocation. If it was all a devious plan to provoke the cops to get paid, then maybe the jury in that case would not award her any money.

Instead, it fell flat on it's face immediately and made it clear just who the villains are. People carrying around bail money because the local cops are so unhinged is not a winning answer for him at all.

Seems like he's implying that she was asking for it therefore she deserved to be arrested.

Genuinely curious, what's the angle here?

Fully upright I think?

The angle is that she knew she was "committing a crime"

Turns out her husband is pretty fucking awesome, too!

WE LOVE YOU AUNTY TIFA

and trying to prosecute mee-maw.

The full monty!

Why do you write this like it's surprising. I'm so sick of the left acting like "WHY DID THEY BEAT US UP ARE YOU NOT SHOCKED LOOK AT ME I'M DISGUSTING"

How about figuring out a way to protest that doesn't let them make these arrests so easy. The right figured out you can drive massive trucks into the streets to overwhelm the city's ability to arrest people. If you mass arrest people they leave behind lots of vehicles and there's only so many trucks that can remove them and only so much space in impound lots and this creates a situation that fucks the police over. The left on the other hand dresses in penis costumes and stands around until a cop kicks their head in. What the fuck are we doing

She could really start a t-shirt business to fund more protests.

"I support Aunt Tifa"

Ironically it's also the amount that makes possession of cash suspicious and subject to seizure.