For anybody somewhat new, I'm fighting a lawsuit over corrupt, biased, illegal and racist CCW policies in Contra Costa County, California.
After dropping my suit against my city and police department (Richmond, CA) I am REAL pleased to report they've got a LOT of permits chugging through the system, not just mine. Mine was delayed due to a paperwork screwup at DOJ that wrongly labeled me a felon, just yesterday I got final, official confirmation that at least to the point of an "instacheck", I'm now clear. I've still got to wait about 8ish weeks for the "full tilt check" but...oh well. At least there's progress.
My Sheriff is still "holding fast to his principles" which mostly seem to consist of the "principle" of collecting $21,532 (found so far) in campaign contributions from his small stable of permitholders (236 current permits, 410 permitholders total over the course of his tenure). Less than two weeks after I filed suit he published a CCW Policies and Procedures manual; I finally scored a copy via discovery and low and behold "everyone has the right to get the blank application forms and apply".
THAT'S new. Prior, he universally denied people the blank apps, giving them out only to those he already planned to issue to. The opposition didn't think I'd be able to prove that and of course, they've conveniently "disposed of" all previous policy manuals and statements.
No problemo, 'cuz in April of '97 a lawyer filed an FOI request and scored the policy statements that very clearly say "we don't give out blank forms to anyone except those we predict will qualify and of the forms given out, all applied and were granted".
Whoops. Prior to 1/1/99 the legality of that was questionable; after AB2022 took effect it became absolutely no-BS guaranteed illegal...and I can prove I was verbally denied on 3/9/99 *and* I can prove that was policy, not accident.
But that's just an appetizer.
The "main course" is the rest of the policy manual. It's got so much illegal BS going on you wouldn't believe; I've got a motion I'm about to file asking the judge to declare it garbage that I had help fine-tuning: Don Kates. the grizzled old courtroom veteran lawyer who ripped up most of Roberti Roos at the California Supreme Court helped tweak the motion.
You can see an HTML version UNLINKED FROM THE REST OF MY SITE at:
http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/motion4w.html (NOTE: this has some major changes from the earlier "motion1" version previously mentioned online.)
Anyways. This is WORTH DOING. My legal bills to date have been peanuts, so don't view this as a beg letter. Go take a look at what I'm up to and if you're in *any* of the discretionary permit states (esp. Calif) consider a copycat.
It's a BLAST. Kates said something that just cracks me up: so long as you get a GOOD judge, there can be two advantages to a non-lawyer pulling a Pro Per: the judge may let you get away with stuff that a real attorney would get sanctioned for, plus the other side with a real attorney never knows WHAT the FOOK you're gonna do next
. We're talking major "wildcard" effect.
Anyways...it's a hoot!
Jim March
Equal Rights for CCW Home Page
http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw
After dropping my suit against my city and police department (Richmond, CA) I am REAL pleased to report they've got a LOT of permits chugging through the system, not just mine. Mine was delayed due to a paperwork screwup at DOJ that wrongly labeled me a felon, just yesterday I got final, official confirmation that at least to the point of an "instacheck", I'm now clear. I've still got to wait about 8ish weeks for the "full tilt check" but...oh well. At least there's progress.
My Sheriff is still "holding fast to his principles" which mostly seem to consist of the "principle" of collecting $21,532 (found so far) in campaign contributions from his small stable of permitholders (236 current permits, 410 permitholders total over the course of his tenure). Less than two weeks after I filed suit he published a CCW Policies and Procedures manual; I finally scored a copy via discovery and low and behold "everyone has the right to get the blank application forms and apply".
THAT'S new. Prior, he universally denied people the blank apps, giving them out only to those he already planned to issue to. The opposition didn't think I'd be able to prove that and of course, they've conveniently "disposed of" all previous policy manuals and statements.
No problemo, 'cuz in April of '97 a lawyer filed an FOI request and scored the policy statements that very clearly say "we don't give out blank forms to anyone except those we predict will qualify and of the forms given out, all applied and were granted".
Whoops. Prior to 1/1/99 the legality of that was questionable; after AB2022 took effect it became absolutely no-BS guaranteed illegal...and I can prove I was verbally denied on 3/9/99 *and* I can prove that was policy, not accident.
But that's just an appetizer.
The "main course" is the rest of the policy manual. It's got so much illegal BS going on you wouldn't believe; I've got a motion I'm about to file asking the judge to declare it garbage that I had help fine-tuning: Don Kates. the grizzled old courtroom veteran lawyer who ripped up most of Roberti Roos at the California Supreme Court helped tweak the motion.
You can see an HTML version UNLINKED FROM THE REST OF MY SITE at:
http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/motion4w.html (NOTE: this has some major changes from the earlier "motion1" version previously mentioned online.)
Anyways. This is WORTH DOING. My legal bills to date have been peanuts, so don't view this as a beg letter. Go take a look at what I'm up to and if you're in *any* of the discretionary permit states (esp. Calif) consider a copycat.
It's a BLAST. Kates said something that just cracks me up: so long as you get a GOOD judge, there can be two advantages to a non-lawyer pulling a Pro Per: the judge may let you get away with stuff that a real attorney would get sanctioned for, plus the other side with a real attorney never knows WHAT the FOOK you're gonna do next
. We're talking major "wildcard" effect.Anyways...it's a hoot!
Jim March
Equal Rights for CCW Home Page
http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw
