OK it's probably time for a tactic for the folks arrested

It's a criminal offense, so demand a jury trial. If they're going to arrest you, clog up their system with jury trials.

nm

Shut it all down so we can start over.
The big banks, the monopolies on everything-
Shop local businesses- stay out of the Gap and all
the other chain stores filled with slave labor merchandise.
The thrift stores and Goodwill shops are filled with
perfectly good stuff!

If people begin to comprehend this power ($$$$$$)
- we WILL WIN.

But we have to boycott all corporate monsters when and where
we can in our lives.

BHN

My mom taught me to sew and I have a book on pattern drafting.

Clothes are very loose now so they are easy to make.

I have three old all-steel electric Singers, one Featherweight and two 401A Slant-o-matics, and they will last forever.

I have an old book from the 1930's called
"Paris Frocks at Home"
I love 30's dresses, so maybe I will dig it out
and give it a try!
BHN

Take used clothing to a laundromat to wash and dry before brining home. Any furniture even all wood furniture carries a significant risk. If its hot outside you can place furniture in dark plastic bags and let them bake in the sun for several days as heat kills bedbugs.

but I never thought about the furniture!
BHN:thumbsup:

Take used clothing to a laundromat to wash and dry before brining home. Any furniture even all wood furniture carries a significant risk. If its hot outside you can place furniture in dark plastic bags and let them bake in the sun for several days as heat kills bedbugs.

bargain, in this case probably only a fine.

Courts don't want minor offense cases clogging up the system, and they'll get rid of them as fast as possible unless the prosecutor has something to gain or there is some sort of personal vendetta being carried out against a certain defendant.

If a defendant chooses to go to trial rather than cop a plea, s/he runs the risk of receiving the maximum sentence for the infraction/crime if found guilty, pretty much a slam dunk in our case here.

If the courts have a backlog of cases of protesters, a group of people that are out to make a mass coordinated statement, and the district has a conservative prosecutor and/or judge, the prosecutor may simply recommend the maximum sentence for the infraction/crime, (most commonly Class B misdemeanor trespass for trespassing arrests made during protests, I think).

Anyway, what they can do to very quickly change people's minds about making a statement through jury trial is to convict the first few protesters that opt for trial and give them a maximum sentence, probably $500, 90 days in jail, and court costs.

After a few of these sentences being handed out, the prosecutor will then once again dangle the plea bargain carrot (via the respective defendant attorneys) to the rest of the people awaiting trial who are trying to make a statement through jury trial. This plea offering would be something like time served and a small fine.

Most folks can't afford the maximum sentence, and being locked up is one of your worst nightmares come true. So the defendants awaiting trial see their compatriots getting slapped with scary max sentences, and they cop a plea rather than do time and pay the heavy fine.

Don't ever trust the justice system. They have coercion and punishment down to an exact science, and naive people that have no experience with the system who still have rosy expectations about the integrity of the American justice system are almost always quickly and painfully disillusioned by the harsh cold reality of how the system actually works.

I make the same point below.

they just can't help themselves, there must be order, and even if there is they will make disorder themselves in order to justify their actions.

At least in NYC. So, there are three levels of offense, as most well know:

LOWEST LEVEL: Violation
MIDDLE LEVEL: Misdemeanor
HIGHEST LEVEL: Felony

In New York, almost all protestors are being issued desk appearance tickets for violations-level charges (disorderly conduct, for example, is a violations-level charge). Violations are adjudicated in special violations courts, and are - in my experience - exclusively bench "trials" (i.e., they are determined by a judge). As far as I could tell in my numerous visits to violations court during the Giuliani crackdown, there is no provision for a jury trial for violations - indeed, there isn't even a space for a jury at the violations court in Queens.

I'm not really convinced that you *could* request a jury trial for a violation - it might default to a bench trial as a matter of law or policy. If you *can* request a jury trial, you'd do so at significant risk. Most violations have penalty structures that heavily incentivize both guilty pleas and payment of fines. So, for something like turnstile jumping, it's something like "$200 or 90 days in jail." Who the fuck would take 90 days in Rikers island rather than scrape together $200? Nobody, that's who. Now, as with misdemeanor and felony trials, opting for the trial itself - and especially a jury trial for a violation, would probably induce a judge to impose the maximum allowable penalty, so supposing jury trials can even be requested for violations-level charges, doing so is a significant risk, if you're going to face 3 months in NYC jails rather than paying $200.