The “State” of NH v. Peter Eyre

November 10, 2011 by Pete Eyre 18 Comments

UPDATE 2011.11.13
The memo submitted by Greg Muller per William Lyon’s advisement is now uploaded. So too is the raw footage from court (*it’s currently processing but should be viewable shortly). Special thanks to our friends at FreeKeene for hosting the video on their YouTube channel.
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Some men with guns allege that on June 4th when at a pro-police accountability rally outside the Manchester Police Department I was “disorderly.” Twice in fact. Failure to appear as they ordered (on Oct. 24th to Manchester District Court) would cause more men with guns “just following orders” to kidnap and levy against me additional threats.

I went to clear my name.

In total “the State” (acting through prosecutor Greg Muller) called three people – John Patti, Dana Langton and Thomas Gonzales. After questions posed by Muller and myself, and some follow-up by William Lyons who oversaw the proceeding, about 2 1/2hours had passed.

I don’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of these processes – no one can, they’re so arbitrary. But I know I don’t need to go to school for three years to learn how to tell the truth. Or for that matter, what’s right and wrong.

I’ve already sent to Lyons the requested memo (below). And ultimately, I know I did no harm to person or property on June 4th, so whatever happens, I can hold my head high.

More:
http://copblock.org/chalk – the meta-post from this incident, linking to all related posts and videos
http://copblock.org/manchesterdocuments – scanned/uploaded documents related to Manchester 8, including search warrants, discovery, motions, 91A request, and more

Eyre Memo of Law Final

Manch Memo Muller

Pete Eyre

Pete Eyre is co-founder of CopBlock.org. As an advocate of peaceful, consensual interactions, he seeks to inject a message of complete liberty and self-government into the conversation of police accountability.

Eyre went to undergrad and grad school for law enforcement, then spent time in DC as an intern at the Cato Institute, a Koch Fellow at the Drug Policy Alliance, Directer of Campus Outreach at the Institute for Humane Studies, Crasher-in-Chief at Bureaucrash, and as a contractor for the Future of Freedom Foundation.

In 2009 he left the belly of the beast and hit the road with Motorhome Diaries and later co-founded Liberty On Tour. He spent time in New Hampshire home, and was involved with Free Keene, the Free State Project and The Daily Decrypt.

Anthony Will

Great trial Pete like always. You guys are true patriots for standing up for what is right. Cheers from Phoenix, Arizona
Bob

Interesting – the first time I have seen any court proceedings live. The only question I have is how many questions were edited out? You made the comment that it took 2 1/2hours for the questioning and the video was only 14 minutes or so. A lot of things can be left out and make a video look a certain way. I am not saying the video looked good or bad for Pete and would have to see all that was left out to say so.
PSOSGT

Graffiti – is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. IN ANY MANNER.. Yep, chalk would be included.

Here’s my question. You were asked to leave, you didn’t. You were arrested. Only question that I need answered, is that did the cop have the legal authority to tell you to leave. If so, charge is good. Since you were writing on the walls of a building, according to my understanding of the english language and the dictionary, you are graffiti’n the building. And.. someone most likely was going to have to clean it off, or spray it down with water. Which would mean they were most likely being paid, meaning there is a “loss” or “cost” to your chalking. Same thing IMO, if you used paint, and someone later had to paint over your spray paint.

I personally don’t see how ANYONE could think writing on any building would be OK, regardless of what they used.

Also, my daughter uses chalk in the driveway, yeah it comes out, but after several rainy day’s. It may not be perminate, but it surely sticks for a while.
Cris

Any reason this is not a jury trial?
Matt

The title of this article reminded me of these:

http://www.two–four.net/comments.php?id=P2028_0_1_0

http://www.two–four.net/comments.php?id=P431_0_1_0

http://www.two–four.net/comments.php?id=P4775_0_1_0

“The State of…” presumes to include everyone within some arbitrary line on a map. The accused are forced to finance their own prosecution.
andrew cook

Was anyone charged with vandalism? Or did they just hit everyone with a disorderly conduct charge?
Pete Eyre

Appreciate it Anthony.

Bob, good question. Most of what was cut was more questions along the same vein as was depicted, Lyons teasing out objections and asking me or Muller for additional justification as to why our objection was relevant, and generally just not as honed questioning from me as could be the case were I to have more experience in the court (something I’m not looking to for). I’ll upload the raw to FreeKeene’s YouTube channel (since it’s grandfathered in and therefore will accept clips over 15min). I’ll put a link to the raw here as a comment when it’s done.

PSOSGT, just a point of clarification – I actually never touched a piece of chalk on June 4th. Again, lots of individuals present, each with a different outreach method. I chose to try to engage in conversation those with badges.

Cris, my charges were classified as Misdemeanor B, which doesn’t give me that opportunity per their rules. Those at A or felony-level would have jury trials.

Andrew, the people/charges are below (from http://copblock.org/mancnpd). Note that some of us were given additional charges after the post went live (I got a second disorderly, Kate got another charge, Ademo now has four charges, etc.):

Ademo Freeman – criminal mischief and resisting
Charles Nachtrieb – disorderly
Garret Ean – disorderly
Kate Ager – disorderly and resisting
Mike Segal – disorderly
Neal Connor – criminal mischief
Pete Eyre – disorderly
Wes Gilreath – criminal mischief and false report
andrew cook

So who actually chalked the building?
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Pete Eyre

Bob, in case you didn’t yet see, the raw video from trial, as well as Muller’s Memo have been added to this post.

I guess the trial time in total was closer to 2hrs, not 2 1/2 hrs as I originally posted, since the raw video is ~96min.
andrew cook

I would love to see any of these guys state at trial that they chalked the building and that it is their first amendment rights as tax payers.
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Pete Eyre

GRAPHIC IS CLICKABLE TO REFLECTIVE CB SITE