Ivy Walker’s arraignment for yesterday’s arrest took place on the morning of 2009-06-05 at 09:00 in Laconia District Court.

Bill Walker, Bill D., and I showed up right on time, when court opens and we expected the arraignment to happen. Of course, this being the typical court bureaucracy, things got off to a wonderful start: First, the court security officer claimed there was nothing scheduled for the day and that court was closed; then he vaguely remembered there was one arraignment scheduled for something that had happened the day prior. Of course, no judge was available, so they had to go scrounge one up from somewhere.

And, as usual, they were confused over the well-documented proper procedures on videoing in the courtroom; the security officer claimed that only WMUR was allowed to video in court, and held onto the camera until I got permission from the court to bring it in.

It took them almost an hour to get the arraignment underway. They were finally able to procure a judge from their family court division, Lucinda V. Sadler. While waiting for that, Bill went to file the appearance form as her legal counsel while I dealt with the video motion. We then went and waited in the hallway, while the courtroom slowly filled up with bureaucrats.

A bailiff finally came out and told me the judge had approved the video motion, so I could go in and set up the camera—this time, on the witness stand, facing the defense table only. Apparently the prosecutor and judge didn’t want to appear on camera, despite them all being public officials. (This actually turned out to be a good thing, as the audio is vastly improved when the camera is in front of, not behind, the defendants.)

A total of fifteen bureaucrats had assembled in the courtroom: The judge, Lucinda V. Sadler; the court clerk, Diane F. Lane; the prosecutor; Monica Cunningham, a New Hampton police officer; three bailiffs; four sheriffs; and Jim Carroll, the county attorney, with three assistants. Security was ridiculously tight—not only the seven armed guards, but they had the front row of the gallery cordoned off so none of us could sit within reaching distance of the defense table, and the entire roomful of bailiffs jumped at every move that Bill made. After Ivy’s release, she told us that, while awaiting arraignment, she overheard a bailiff on the phone, explaining that because she was a freestater (and by extension an “Ed Brown supporter”), and that her “entourage” was going to show up, she would need to be kept in shackles and security would have to be at its tightest. Pity for them when only three of us showed up. How much money did these paranoid bureaucrats waste on this?

They denied Bill’s motion to appear as Ivy’s legal counsel, because the form wasn’t notarized, and because Ivy hadn’t explicitly granted him power of attorney to do so. The fact that doing so had been impossible, considering that she had been incarcerated since the arrest, and the fact that they wouldn’t let him speak to her in court in order to let her do so then, didn’t matter. Typical bureaucracy.

They brought Ivy in handcuffed and shackled, and clearly not feeling well; the judge told her she could remain seated during the proceeding. The clerk read off the charges: Two counts of violating RSA 262:16, “Counterfeit, Unauthorized or Forged Stickers, or Decals or Facsimile; Altered or Modified Temporary Motor Vehicle Registration Plates,” violation of RSA 261:178, “Suspension of Registration of Vehicle,” and violation of RSA 612:3, the “Form of Demand” statute covering extradition. The complete charge was described as:

After committing a crime in another state, to wit, Rhode Island, for failing to appear in the Providence County Court, for the charge of embezzlement, in violation of the laws of the State of Rhode Island, and is now within the State of New Hampshire, and is liable under the United States Constitution to be delivered on demand of the Governor of Rhode Island and to be removed to the said state.

Ivy said virtually nothing during the arraignment. The judge offered her a court-appointed attorney, to which she explained if she had access to a law library, she could represent herself. The judge still wanted to appoint stand-by counsel, and gave her a week to decide how she wanted to proceed.

The judge explained that because the Rhode Island charges were felonies, she could not enter a plea on Ivy’s behalf; also, oddly, she didn’t even ask for pleas, let alone enter ones on her behalf, on the misdemeanor motor vehicle complaints. These complaints had all been originally charged as class A misdemeanors by the arresting officer, Christopher M. Hogan, but had been downgraded to class B by the officer who appeared in court, Monica Cunningham. Ivy was given personal recognizance bail on these charges, but the judge said she could not grant any sort of bail on the felony fugitive from justice charge—which, as we later discovered, was an entirely incorrect reading of the law.

The extradition hearing and a trial for the New Hampshire charges was scheduled for Monday, 2009-07-06. When the arraignment was over, they took Ivy back to the Belknap County Jail.

• Porc411 call from Jeremy J. Olson, 2009-06-05T10:20.

Vehicle impoundment

After the arraignment, the three of us went over to the impound lot in order to recover the vehicle. The cops had taken the plates, so Bill needed to have the truck towed home. The impound lot let him move the truck to the front after paying the impound fee ($210), so we went back to the restaurant to figure out how to get it towed as cheaply as possible. While we were at the restaurant, the impound lot called Bill and told him that the police were there to search the vehicle, so he wouldn’t be able to pick it up yet.

Some time later, the truck was returned to Bill.

Restaurant raid

Shortly after we left Bristol, the police showed up at the restaurant with a search warrant. They ended up taking Ivy’s laptop and printer, which Bill had taken out of the truck when we went to pick it up at the impound lot.

• Porc411 call from Bill Walker, 2009-06-05 19:09.
• Porc411 call from Bill Walker, 2009-06-05 19:11.
• Ridley Report coverage.

The Rhode Island situation

Ivy’s charges in Rhode Island are detailed on the R.I. court website. The charges she’s facing are obtaining money under false pretenses, greater than $500, which is a felony; false documents to public officials, employees, or agencies, which appears to be a misdemeanor; and welfare fraud greater than $500, the classification of which I was unable to find. Having nothing more than this to go on, my guess is that this is a typical example of a prosecutor “piling on” charges for a single alleged act.

The warrant and extradition proceedings stem from a missed pre-arraignment disposition conference on 2009-05-04, for which the warrant was issued on 2009-05-08. There was also an actual arraignment on 2009-05-11, which she presumably also missed. A pre-trial conference was scheduled for 2009-07-19.