OH, God Almighty Make Trump Pay His New York Bond
This is one of my periodic rants that I probably will regret posting.
But if Trump somehow wriggles out of this New York appeal bond, then all bonds for all persons needs to be ended.
Have any of you ever had to post a bond in order to appeal a conviction.? Because I did, and didn’t get two months to raise the bond. I couldn’t leave the courthouse where I was being held and I only had til five pm that day to raise the money. A typical bail bondsmen was out of the question because I’d already been convicted, or I feared it would be. I was permitted only one call and that was monitored by the sheriff. I called a friend and ask her to contact by grandfather to wire her the money on the condition that I would get an auto title loan the following day.
Apparently he had to get a loan himself to send me the $1000 I needed to appeal my conviction. At 4:30, the deputies decided I wasn’t going to get the money and handcuffed me and put shackles around my ankles and were starting to lead me to the police vehicle that was going to drive me to the state prison in Lovelock where I would begin serving my sentence.
That is how long I had to post my bond in order to appeal my conviction (which by the way the appeals judge agreed was erroneous.)
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If you have any interest in the backstory, herein is what occurred.
I had ventured to Reno to visit old acquaintances for a month or so, but decided to earn some money and temporarily drive a cab. One Saturday evening I was dispatched to Stead to Job Corps. I was driving a Plymouth Horizon, but even if I’d had a larger car, the legal limit was five passengers. If I squeezed in three in the backseat I could take four.
There were nine young kids (well I was a young kid myself, barely in my 20’s) who wanted to get in the cab. I said “no” ; they would have to call a second taxi. They thought they would just cancel and call another cab. I told them they could do that, but when the second cab came he would tell them the same thing and not take them all. Furthermore, I added feeling somewhat mean-spirited, they would not send another taxi all the way from Reno when I was already in Stead and I would simply be redispatched (which was true).
There was some discussion about calling the cab company to see if they wouldn’t order me to take them all. “Here’s the radio,” I said, “I’ll connect with dispatch and let you talk to them.” “No, no, just wait, we’ll go call them, ourselves.” “Well if you expect me to wait, I’m turning on the meter and you’ll have to pay my waiting time whether you decide to ride or not.” “Okay, just wait.”
Nearly a half hour later four group, two of the boys and two girls decided to ride with me and the others would take a checker that was going to be dispatched for them.
The trip was pretty contentious, mostly casting asperations on the size of my cojones,and telling me I was a pendejo estúpido que ni la bendita virgen me haría una mamaI
I took them to a Motel Six in Reno and they departed the car and entered the lobby. I received another call immediately and needed to turn left. There was a traffic light, and even though it was at least 1500 feet from the driveway where I needed to exit from, it was backed up and I wouldn’t be able to turn until the light changed to green.
Now this was one of those weird lights where all vehicles in one direction would have a green light to go straight or turn left, and then the other direction would get a green light to do the same while the oncoming traffic would have a red light.
So as the light changed and the traffic began to move and an opportunity to pull out became available, I noticed a gentlemen on a scooter coming from the opposite direction begin to wobble trying to stop for the red light. It was obvious to me he was going to run the light and I hesitated for a fraction of a second, but calculated I still could make my turn without interfering .
He was still in the intersection as I entered it and passed him but I could see he had lost complete control of the scooter and I knew he was going to fall off the scooter. Instead of observing the traffic in front of me, I fixated on my rearview mirror and saw him completely fall. The scooter remained in the intersection but he tumbled into the sidewalk in front of the Denny’s that was between the Motel 6 and the stoplight.
I contemplated I might be needed as a witness, so I decided to pull off to the right at the next intersection and call dispatch to tell them I would not be able to pick up the fare she had given me because I might be needed as a witness to an accident. After contacting dispatch and getting relieved from the fare I was supposed to pick up, I had the option of trying to make a left turn without a signal on one of the busiest streets in Reno at 6 p.m or to get to the next light to make a left turn back onto the street I needed to return north upon, where the accident had occurred ,I needed to go to downtown Reno because there was an intervening valley where the railroad went through and so there were no through roads.
Downtown Reno, on a Saturday night, in those days, was always jammed with traffic as all of the high schoolers wanted to cruise the drag, jam traffic up and it could take ten minutes to traverse a single block. Now I used to cruise on Saturday nights on the base in Guantanamo, and later in small town Indiana, but the idea was to race each other on side streets or meet at drive-ins, not to create traffic jams which seemed the opposite of the freedom we wanted to experience in our cars on Saturday nights and I never quite understood the fascination of the Reno youth’s cruising the downtown.
So I was beginning to feel quite foolish because it was over a half an hour since the accident and I imagined the police had probably come and gone and my witnessing would no longer be relevant. And then just as I was crossing the intersection where the accident had occurred, Judy, our dispatcher, said “Hey, car no. 1, (yes that was my number) are you almost back to Motel 6. The police want your ETA.” “Twenty-seven and a half seconds,” I replied.
What I’ve just written is pretty close to what I wrote above is what I wrote on my police report, because the police did not want my presence as a witness but as the cause of the accident, and they wanted me to write why I had not immediately stopped.
I would say I believe the officer was at least presenting himself as non-prejudicial. He showed me the statements of four people who had “seen” the accident . Would you be surprised to know those four witnesses were the four passengers I had brought from Stead?
As I was reading the statements, there were two commonalities. One was that none mentioned their prior connection with the cab driver they were accusing of having caused the accident. The other was they never exactly stated that they had seen the accident. One wrote, “my friend told me the cab driver hit the man on the scooter”, stuff like that, and those testimonies were never presented at my trial. The best they could do in court was the statement, “I heard the crash and turned around and saw the cab driver had caused the accident.”
I was shown the statement of the gentleman who had fallen, “the victim” so to speak, who talks about buying the scooter just prior to the accident and was driving home. When he saw the light change to red he began having difficulty in slowing the scooter and began to panic when he “slid” into the intersection. {Apparently he was in such a panic he hadn’t even noticed me.} He would not be called at my trial.
The officer said he was quite certain I hadn’t caused an accident, but at best I might have been guilty of not yielding, but he suggested that though he was going to give me a ticket for not yielding the right of way, he thought there was a high probability it would be dismissed by the city attorney. If I didn’t hear from the attorney before then, he gave me a date to report to court.
{Though they had a common driveway in front of the Motel 6 that was set back from the road and extended behind the Denny’s, however the lobby was not behind Denny’s itself, but positioned where it would have been impossible for someone inside Motel 6 to have been able to see the curb in front of Denny’s where the gentlemen had fallen. }
Reporting Date
I had not heard from the city attorney’s office so I duly reported. I didn’t believe the charge was serious enough to warrant hiring attorney, and from what I had gathered from the police officer, it seemed he was unconvinced I would even be charged for the ticket.
I arrived early and one was near the front of the check-in line for traffic court that morning at eight A.M. Upon checking in, I was told to report to one one of the city attorney’s offices.
Upon being admitted to the office, he asked me,”How long do you think your sentence should be?”
“My sentence?”
“This is obviously a case of hit and run, but I could ask the judge to let you spend three months in the county jail if you admit to the crime or if you force me to take you to trial, the I’m going to ask for a maximum sentence of up to five years.”
“Wait a minute here. Wait a minute. Since when is a not yielding ticket a felony offense of five years?”
“No this is a clear case of hit and run.”
I could barely choke out my reply, “But I didn’t hit anyone.”
“You left the scene of an accident, the officers had to request your return and that didn’t occur for close to an hour.
“Not that long.” (inaudible reply).
“I beg your pardon?”
Speaking louder, “Closer to a half hour.”
“Forty two minutes from the time of the report of the accident until you returned to give your statement.”
“I explained that in my statement.”
“And that statement was a bald-faced lie. It does not take forty-two minutes to return one block. Do do you want to admit guilt to the judge and I will ask for leniency or do you want to go the state penitentiary.?”
“No. I did not hit anyone, that’s for sure, and I do not believe I in anyway caused the accident.”
“Fine. I’ll see you in superior court at one p.m. In the meantime since you are a proven flight risk, the sheriff will escort you to the prisoner’s waiting room.”
“Do I get a lawyer for this trial?’
“You’ve had nearly two months to obtain a lawyer, so I presumed you didn’t want one.”
“I presumed I wasn’t charged with a hit and run.”
“You were aware of your crime, and you tried to flee from being found, which indicates knowledge of your guilt. I saw no reason to inform you of what you knew was your real crime.”
“Well I want a lawyer.”
“In that case, I will request a postponement with no bail and you can spend the next three or four months at Parr (Washoe County Jail) until the trial can be rescheduled.”
“Okay, I think I can prove my innocence without a lawyer.”
Trial
The prosecutor had only one witness. The kid who said he had “heard” the accident and “turned around” and saw that I caused the accident.
“And when you turned around what did you observe?’” the city attorney asked.
“I saw the cab driver hit the guy on the bike {it was a scooter} and the bike crashed and the driver fell on the sidewalk.”
“Do you have any idea of how long after you witnessed the occurrence of the accident before the cab driver returned to the scene of the accident?”
“No , I wasn’t no more there. But a long time. I tried to see if the guy who fell was alright, the waited for the cops to tell them what I saw.”
“No more questions of the witness your honor, but I have submitted the time the call came into dispatch and also the time the police officer has submitted his report as the time the driver returned to be interviewed.”
The Judge to me: “Do you have anything to ask the witness?
“Uh, yes your honor sir. “
“Proceed.”
“Where were you located when you heard the accident?”
“Oh I was on the sidewalk passing by.”
“You say you heard the accident and then turned around and saw the accident?”
“Yeah, that’s what I saw.”
“After you heard the accident?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask how you can see something occur behind your back that you heard occur? If you heard it happen, wouldn’t it have happened already before you turned and saw it?
City Attorney, “Objection!”
Judge, “Sustained.”
Me: “Why I can’t ask that?”
Judge: It’s not a question, you’re just arguing with the witness.”
Me: “Okay thank you, Judge, your honor.” To the witness, “How did you get to the location where you witnessed the accident?
“I don’t remember. Just kind of passing by, kind of strolling around, you know how it is, just kind of being around at the time.”
“Weren’t you around because I drove you to Motel Six and you were inside the lobby checking into the motel when you heard the accident occur?’
City attorney: Nothing of that is in evidence and there is no foundation established.”
Judge: “Sustained.”
Me: Come on man, didn’t we have an argument over how many passengers I could take and you were angry with me and the only thing you saw was an opportunity to get vengeance in your mood of anger?”
Witness,”No.”
Me: You’re absolutely lying and you know I took you to Motel Six.”
Judge (to me): “I’m giving you a warning. You can neither ask questions on a subject I have already ruled are off-limits, and your attitude is bordering on contempt for this court. Now I’m going to give you a moment to get yourself composed and you can proceed only within the bounds of what the witness testified to in direct by the city attorney. So if you have yourself under control, you can proceed.”
“Well I don’t know what I can ask. And I’m sorry your honor, I apologize to you.”
The Sentence.
One thousand dollars in restitution, a ten year suspension of all driving privileges, two years in a state facility , with each day counting as two (which I supposed meant one year).
The Appeal.
I hired a lawyer. He filed a brief on my behalf that included my initial report to dispatch. When accidents are reported, the dispatcher was required to announce all other radio traffic suspended until she chronicled the report with a the time and date and if the cab was involved she would need to get details of the accident. Since I had said I had only witnessed an accident, Judy just wrote WITNESS. The document showed I had contacted her three minutes before the accident report was entered into the police emergency log, so my call shows that I had indicated my intention to return.
My lawyer also included my initial dispatched call to pick up in Stead, and a recording of the contentious call that the office had seen as possibly liable and had recorded because the passengers were trying to get dispatch to order me to take all nine of them. It also included a photostat of my trip sheet showing that I had dropped off at Motel 6 just prior to the accident, and the statements of the other three witnesses that indicated they “heard” the accident from inside the motel lobby and stepped outside to see what they had heard happen.
The appeal also suggested the prosecuting attorney should have informed me prior to my appearance at the courthouse that day that he was going to charge me with a felony which of itself was misconduct on the city attorney’s part, but that misconduct was doubly compounded when I had asked for a lawyer and been threatened with jail if I didn’t proceed immediately to trial.
Furthermore, the brief suggested, since I was uninformed I was going to be charged with a felony and forced into an immediate trial I had had no opportunity to prepare a defense that would provide the evidence necessary to impeach the prosecution witness and that is why my attempt to cross-examine the witness was improper, and why he thought providing the documents that should have aided in my defense were relevant to be included in my appeal.
Judgement Day-Before the Judge
On the day of the appeals hearing before the Washoe County appellate judge, my lawyer asked if I would like him to pick me up and go to the hearing with him. He told me that he was pretty certain we would win on appeal, and that attending the hearing would illustrate my willingness to be cooperative and if the case were remanded as my lawyer suspected it might be, the judge might be willing to allow me to return to Indiana until the retrial.
Of course, I wanted to go, because I would be pacing the floor anyway until I heard the results from my lawyer.
When we arrived at the county courthouse that day in the anteroom to the judge’s suite I was surprised to see the gentleman who had fallen off his bike. I was surprised I’d even recognized him because he hadn’t been at my trial. When he saw us enter, he came over and apologized to me for all the trouble I’d been through and that he didn’t believe I had caused the accident, that he’d had a foolish notion to buy a scooter and he never rode it again. I thanked him and returned his apology for nevertheless not being able to assist him, and told him the first time I’d try to ride a scooter , I gunned it so much upon starting it took off and left me on the ground.
The gentlemen who had fallen was called into the judge’s chamber first and probably was not in the office for more than five minutes. Then my lawyer was called in. I thought the world was going to end before the discussion ended’; my mental time seemed to be racing eons ahead of the moment. And the longer he was conversing with the judge the more I was convinced I was heading to prison.
And then the judge’s clerk, or secretary (I’m unsure) came out and asked if I would care to step in and speak with the judge.
The judge’s appearance was the cinematic caricature of Charles Laughton that I’d once seen in an old movie portrait as a southern bigoted lawyer; even to the unjacketed attire, sitting in rolled up white sleeves, and the loosened tie with a fan on the desk blowing in his face, and the accented voice that confronted me with, “Are you afraid of going to prison?”
If any part of me had any optimism left, it fled beyond the exosphere.
I attempted to eke out a feeble, “I don’t want to go to prison.”
“What? Speak up?”
“No sir, your honor, I do not want to go to prison.”
“Well I wouldn’t want to go either, and today, neither of us will be going.
“I spoke briefly with the gentlemen whom you supposedly hit a few moments ago and he tells me you did not hit him and he feels totally responsible for what has happened in this instance and so I’m going ton take him at his word.
“I have also spoken at length with your lawyer and he has presented me with an impressive array of misconduct by the prosecution in his filings on your behalf.
“Your lawyer has told me he suggested to you I might remand this case for a retrial. Do you know what a remand is?”
“Yes sir, I believe it means to do the trial over again.”
“Yes, more or less that’s what it would mean in this case. But I’m not going to do that. Can I tell you why I’m not going to do that?”
“Yes sir, judge, your honor judge, you can tell me.”
“I’m not going to do that because I don’t find any crime to be retried. Clearly there was an accident and someone was injured, but the person injured in the accident claims he alone was liable for the accident. Do you know what liable means?
“Responsibility.”
“Yes, so if he alone is liable and there only is an accident that you were not in any way liable for, and bear no responsibility for, as you suggest, the only crime I can see is in the prosecutor's fancy. Do you believe you committed any kind of crime?’
“Well no sir, judge, your honor judge, I think maybe I should not have pulled out when I did, but I think he would have fallen anyway. But maybe if I hadn’t pulled out, maybe I could have assisted him in some way.”
“Well that’s a good thought. If you learned that from this ordeal, then perhaps you might have benefited from it. Nevertheless it is an ordeal you should have not had to go through. Now may I ask you one more question?”
“Yes sir, your honor, judge, your honor” {I don’t know why I kept addressing the judge in that manner, but I did, probably I was severely nervous.}
“How much did you pay your lawyer?”
“Huh, I paid fifty dollars already, but he said we can work out the rest depending on the outcome of the case. He was very kind because I lost my job when they suspended my license.”
“Okay, this is what I conveyed to your lawyer. He can keep the $50 you already paid, or not, as you say, he was very kind and did a considerable amount of work on your behalf for very little. But as for any balance I am going to order the city to reimburse your lawyer on the condition you sign a release on your way out to not hold the city to any further suit. You could have the right to sue but your ordeal would probably garner less reward that what the city might have to pay your lawyer. But it’s up to you, I want to strike a fair balance and you can inform the clerks on your way out, so need to tell me of your choice. “
“Yes sir judge, thank you very much your honor, judge.”
“Just one more thing I want to inform you, as I informed your lawyer here, that I’m going to send a very strong letter of censure to the prosecutor in this case whose conduct I have found extremely egregious. Now do you have any questions for me before you leave?”
“Uh, yes sir, I was wondering, your honor, judge, I was kind of wondering your honor, if I would be able to get my driver’s license back and when I might be able to leave the state.”
“As to the first question, upon my order today, your license will be restored, but it could take a few days to process, so I would suggest waiting at least two weeks before going to the DMV and ask for a new copy of your license . As to the second question, upon filling out some paperwork downstairs and leaving this building you are free to go wherever you like”.
And upon leaving the building I stuck out my thumb within a few blocks. Got a new license in Indiana and totally forgot about trying to get back my bond.
Charles Laughton turned out to be a greater lawgiver than Charleton Heston.
Several years later, but prior to returning to Nevada to reside these last years, I received a check for my bond that included several years of accumulated interest.
BUT DAMMIT IT ALL TO HELL IF DONALD TRUMP WEASELS OUT OF THIS BOND….
”