Roughly 90 tickets have been issued since March to volunteers with the loosely organized Food Not Bombs, which serves meals to people in need.
Too many of the potential jurors said that even if the defendant, Elisa Meadows, was guilty, they were unwilling to issue the $500 fine a city attorney was seeking, said Ren Rideauxx, Meadows' attorney.
So much time, effort, and resources wasted towards trying to fine someone $500 for doing something humane. Our "leaders" are out of touch with reality. Can we fine them for wasting our tax dollars on shit that doesn't matter?
Stop telling them this in advance! They can't get at your work material or deliberations. Just give them a general affirmative and go on to nullify that shit.
Also, at the point you can't seat a jury because they're telling you they won't convict there has to be some kind of slaughter rule. To stop wasting the court's time if nothing else. Because at some point you're just letting the prosecutor choose a verdict, not a jury.
So the DA is just allowed to say, "I don't like any of my choices in this jury pool" and that's just okay?? That doesn't sound like a fair trial at all. It's like grabbing the stack of lottery tickets from behind the counter and starting to scratch them off. When somebody comes to make you stop you just say, "it's all good. I'm just trying to find one I like before I decide to play the lottery today."
Put me on the jury. If the city can make a convincing case that permits are needed to ensure safe food handling practices are being followed, and that permits are granted freely when reasonable requirements are met, they'll get their fine (they won't).
When people want to know what anarchism is, it’s this organization. In many places where it operates it isn’t legal, but what good is the law when it stands between people and freely feeding their community.
And if you don’t have a local chapter and want to you can just start your own. There’s like four rules and you don’t need to get approval, from anyone. It’s completely decentralized. Hell you can operate one across the street from another.
The place this group chose to feed people was creating a nuisance and they were asked to move it elsewhere. They were given an acceptable place just a few blocks away, and refused to move. The story has been sensationalized to make it seem Houston is against helping the homeless.