Libertarian and Green Party Candidates Arrested

[Flyboy]

Audio of Service Attempt

The audio recording of the attempt at service at the CPD's DC office has been posted; I listened to it, and CPD clearly knew that they were being served, and refused to accept it. Here's a copy of the tape:

 

[Flyboy]

Grrr...trying again

Dumb thing didn't attach. Grab it from http://badnarik.org/newsfromthetrail.php?p=1346 instead; it's down at the bottom.

 

[WYO]

Serving papers is everyday stuff that doesn’t require fanfare. Entities are usually served through their designated agent for service of process. The agents are usually companies that specialize in acting as agent for service of process and they routinely accept service. In some instances you can mail the process. There is almost never a need to go out and hunt down someone to serve unless you are dealing with an individual. Even then, if someone ducks service, the courts routinely appoint someone to accept service for the duck. There is no need to breach the peace, and I would venture to say that, in most places, trespass and/or breach of the peace are not permitted to serve process. There is no doubt in my mind that the attempt to personally serve papers was nothing more than a grandstanding attempt to gain some free publicity.

Oh, and a citation is not an arrest, but that's been covered by others.

 

[Justin]

Not exactly.

Ever had a speeding ticket?

Were you arrested?

Were you free to go, however, during the traffic stop?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that by virtue of signing the traffic ticket you were agreeing to either

A)Pay the fine within a certain time limit.

or

B)Appear in court.

Failure to sign a traffic ticket results in being detained and booked down at the police station, doesn't it? Isn't the point of instituting something like this basically a way for the state to say "Yes, you've committed a crime, but it's a minor deal, and we have bigger fish to fry, so we're going to let you go if you agree to do the stuff stipulated on this bit of paper here."

 

[Flyboy]

No, a citation is not an arrest. Being taken to jail in a police van is an arrest. As detailed on the site, "[h]e is reported to be at some medium-security lockup at 7600 North Hall Street....He said that after he and Mr. Cobb were arrested, they were placed in a police van - then there was some delay as they threw some students in the van with them. The stories from two of them are posted in the prior two entries of this posting. Mr. Badnarik says that they sat in a cell for one to one and a half hours. He reported that the fingerprinting process was not as thorough as he had expected."

As to how they chose to serve papers: again, as detailed on Badnarik's site, this was the fourth time they'd attempted service. They attempted by FAX, e-mail, and personal service in DC (as noted above, with an audio recording of said attempt). Those attempts were rebuffed. On the site, they also explain why they didn't use a process server or sheriff.

Does anybody ever read the articles? Did I go to Slashdot by mistake?

 

[tyme]

Going to slashdot is always a mistake.

 

[Coronach]

Mr Crowley,

You are taking things out of context. What is fascinating is that, if one goes to the link you provided and finds the text you quoted, one will see that it has a footnote referenced. Looking at the footnote, one will see

1. A brief investigatory stop based upon reasonably articulable suspicion is not an arrest. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968).

Now, while this clearly is not what happened to Badnarik, it is clear that there is indeed a distinction between a brief detention to investigate or issue a cite or summons.

Justin:

yes, you're quite correct. However, every time you are pulled over you are NOT arrested, just because you CAN be if you refuse to sign the ticket. Different jurisdictions will differ on the exact details...in some places it may be considered an arrest on the spot. Most places, however, it is not. You're issued a cite in lieu of an arrest, and the arrest is only done if you fail to comply with the procedure to be cited.

Witness, for instance, the flap over the candybar chewing woman on the DC metro. AFAIK, she was detained briefly to be issued a cite, and she chose to storm off, thus turning a detention (for the purpose of issuing a citation) into an arrest.

Mike

 

[Coronach]

Well, if he was cuffed, stuffed and removed from the scene, he was arrested. He was then, apparently, later released on a summons.

As always, gotta love how news reports vary from one to the other.

Mike

 

[c_yeager]

I believe the debate was held on the campus of Washington University, ie public property. The rules for tresspass are a bit different.

When a private entity rents a public building (technically paying money into the general fund and thus to the taxpayers) that building becomes private property for the duration of the agreed upon rental term. This is the same principle that keeps your landlord from storing his old engine parts in your apartment.

 

[Flyboy]

Except that CPD isn't renting the building; ASU is covering the costs, to the tune of about $2 million. In fact, that's the whole basis for the complaint. And the suit concerns the third debate, at ASU, not the second; Badnarik attempted to serve the CPD at the second, but that's not what the suit was over.

 

[tyme]

They should have a case for the previous two debates as well.

The CPD is a 501 (c)(3) and therefore must be non-partisan. I don't think their 15%-in-the-polls requirement is enough. They don't pay taxes, and the consequence is that they do not get to do whatever they want.

 

[Evil_Ed]

This isn't the first time something like this has happened either. The police were used in a previous presidential election to deny access to a conference room rented by the LP for a press conference in the same complex as a previous debate and the LP was denied access to the rooms they had PAID FOR and in fact arrested when they insisted that they be allowed in by showing the paperwork showing their right to be in the building. This is a long standing policy of descrimination under color of law by the CPD.