GUILTY OF TRESPASSING!
Jann Burner
August 14, 2007
Here's yet another story on how the judicial system can get you, chew you up and spit you out.
When I was a young man, fresh out of college, I worked as a film editor at a major TV network. Being the "new guy", I only got to work vacation relief so my pay check periods had holes. Since there were long periods when I didn't work, I filed for unemployment. This was a normal thing to do. It was expected that you would do fill in work and collect unemployment for the first year and then be up for the first full time vacancy. All went well for my year of partial unemployment. And then one day the police showed up at my door with a warrant for my arrest on a FELONY warrant for defrauding the government!
Turns out that during the course of the year of getting unemployment checks there was one period where I received $90 that I really wasn't entitled to. I said, I wasn't aware of that and I’d just write a check.
I was a Viet Nam vet and had just graduated from college on the GI bill. (I'd never had so much as a traffic ticket in my life!) But no, I was taken downtown and BOOKED as a criminal and all through the process the police would laugh and say, "Gee, we've had guys who do this for a living and have defrauded for up to $10,000 and have never even been arrested!" And then they'd laugh as if the "joke" was certainly on me.
Well, I had to get a lawyer. I had to pay over $1,000 for the initial retainer (this was a long time ago), after all we were going to a jury trail. I had to go to court. On the first day of my arraignment the judge sat up there in his high chair and read charge after charge against people who had committed serious offenses and he tossed out a high percentage as not being worth the City’s time to bring to trial. Finally he came to my case. He took off his glasses, laid down the paper work and looked at the DA who was to be the prosecutor. "Ms So and So, what is this. $90? A joke?"
This woman, this lawyer stood up in open court and with a straight face said, "Your honor, we are proceeding with prosecuting this case."
"But...why?" asked the judge.
"Because this man has been to college your honor and he should be made to suffer."
I about fell out of my chair. My lawyer had to stifle a laugh, The message was clear. It was a percentage game. If I had been on welfare or of color or some other presumed oppressed status then I would have never been there. But because I was "one of them", and they needed a conviction for their monthly stats, I would be made an example of. I would "be made to suffer". (her exact words)
But it gets better. The judge nodded seriously as if it were suddenly brought to his attention that I was, in fact, a serial killer. He then began to apprise me of the severity of my charges. In fact, he told me with much gravitas, that if convicted, I will be guilty of a felony, a serious crime of moral turpitude (his words) I would be no different than a child molester (his words).
For a $90 dollar clerical error and because I knew how to read I could very well be sent to Federal Prison for many years! And still, all along, even the police keep telling me that it just wasn't fair but there was nothing they could do. I was caught in the machine and it was going to eat me up and spit me out!
Finally, on the first day of my trial, just before they started jury selection...the DA came up with a deal. By now I'd been talking to news sources at the TV station and the DA began to sense that they might get bit. So they had a deal. If I pleaded guilty to trespassing on government land they would dismiss the felony charges against me.
"Trespassing!”
Yes, like in that old song from the 60's by Arlo Guthrie called "Alice's Restaurant". I was about to be convicted of a crime as evil as...littering!
So, my choices were clear. Defend my honor and go to trail and hope that a jury of my peers would be sympathetic or plead GUILTY...to trespassing. Yeah, right. Plead guilty and be done with it. Sure, why not, it couldn’t get any weirder than it already was.
So I pleaded guilty and the judge noted my GUILTY plea as if I’d just admitted kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. He warned me of exactly what it was I was pleading guilty too and that should I again be picked up for "trespassing on government land, " I would immediately be sent to prison for a long time, being the obvious, dangerous criminal that I was!
I was placed on a year’s probation. And required to repay the original $90 (which I had offered to repay immediately upon notification of the error in the beginning). On the way out of the court room I asked my lawyer what was up with the trespassing charge.
"Well", he said, "you were trespassing when you picked up the check you weren't entitled to at the government office. You even pleaded guilty to the charge, so technically you were trespassing. And they got their conviction for the month."
"Oh, " I said, "Now it all makes sense..."
When I was a young man, fresh out of college, I worked as a film editor at a major TV network. Being the "new guy", I only got to work vacation relief so my pay check periods had holes. Since there were long periods when I didn't work, I filed for unemployment. This was a normal thing to do. It was expected that you would do fill in work and collect unemployment for the first year and then be up for the first full time vacancy. All went well for my year of partial unemployment. And then one day the police showed up at my door with a warrant for my arrest on a FELONY warrant for defrauding the government!
Turns out that during the course of the year of getting unemployment checks there was one period where I received $90 that I really wasn't entitled to. I said, I wasn't aware of that and I’d just write a check.
I was a Viet Nam vet and had just graduated from college on the GI bill. (I'd never had so much as a traffic ticket in my life!) But no, I was taken downtown and BOOKED as a criminal and all through the process the police would laugh and say, "Gee, we've had guys who do this for a living and have defrauded for up to $10,000 and have never even been arrested!" And then they'd laugh as if the "joke" was certainly on me.
Well, I had to get a lawyer. I had to pay over $1,000 for the initial retainer (this was a long time ago), after all we were going to a jury trail. I had to go to court. On the first day of my arraignment the judge sat up there in his high chair and read charge after charge against people who had committed serious offenses and he tossed out a high percentage as not being worth the City’s time to bring to trial. Finally he came to my case. He took off his glasses, laid down the paper work and looked at the DA who was to be the prosecutor. "Ms So and So, what is this. $90? A joke?"
This woman, this lawyer stood up in open court and with a straight face said, "Your honor, we are proceeding with prosecuting this case."
"But...why?" asked the judge.
"Because this man has been to college your honor and he should be made to suffer."
I about fell out of my chair. My lawyer had to stifle a laugh, The message was clear. It was a percentage game. If I had been on welfare or of color or some other presumed oppressed status then I would have never been there. But because I was "one of them", and they needed a conviction for their monthly stats, I would be made an example of. I would "be made to suffer". (her exact words)
But it gets better. The judge nodded seriously as if it were suddenly brought to his attention that I was, in fact, a serial killer. He then began to apprise me of the severity of my charges. In fact, he told me with much gravitas, that if convicted, I will be guilty of a felony, a serious crime of moral turpitude (his words) I would be no different than a child molester (his words).
For a $90 dollar clerical error and because I knew how to read I could very well be sent to Federal Prison for many years! And still, all along, even the police keep telling me that it just wasn't fair but there was nothing they could do. I was caught in the machine and it was going to eat me up and spit me out!
Finally, on the first day of my trial, just before they started jury selection...the DA came up with a deal. By now I'd been talking to news sources at the TV station and the DA began to sense that they might get bit. So they had a deal. If I pleaded guilty to trespassing on government land they would dismiss the felony charges against me.
"Trespassing!”
Yes, like in that old song from the 60's by Arlo Guthrie called "Alice's Restaurant". I was about to be convicted of a crime as evil as...littering!
So, my choices were clear. Defend my honor and go to trail and hope that a jury of my peers would be sympathetic or plead GUILTY...to trespassing. Yeah, right. Plead guilty and be done with it. Sure, why not, it couldn’t get any weirder than it already was.
So I pleaded guilty and the judge noted my GUILTY plea as if I’d just admitted kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. He warned me of exactly what it was I was pleading guilty too and that should I again be picked up for "trespassing on government land, " I would immediately be sent to prison for a long time, being the obvious, dangerous criminal that I was!
I was placed on a year’s probation. And required to repay the original $90 (which I had offered to repay immediately upon notification of the error in the beginning). On the way out of the court room I asked my lawyer what was up with the trespassing charge.
"Well", he said, "you were trespassing when you picked up the check you weren't entitled to at the government office. You even pleaded guilty to the charge, so technically you were trespassing. And they got their conviction for the month."
"Oh, " I said, "Now it all makes sense..."