Hearing? What hearing?

07:30. Miller T. and I drove up to Bristol to pick up Bill Walker, to head over to court at 09:00—Miller with the car, I with the video camera and a stack of blank A/V motion forms. From the previous day’s happenings, Bill was under the impression that there was a “strong probability” that there was some sort of hearing this morning.

There wasn’t. When we arrived at the restaurant, he informed us they hadn’t scheduled anything (Conflicting information coming from the bureaucracies? You don’t say!), and his previously filed bail motion, since it wasn’t marked “immediate,” would be held for ten days before they acted on it.

We waited around a bit while Bill filled out the necessary paperwork to schedule an immediate bail hearing, then finished up the custody motions which he planned to file later in the day. Then it was off to a Staples to make some copies, then back and forth to the courts to file the paperwork.

Open-carry incident at Staples

While making copies at Staples, a clerk/manager approached Miller, who was open carrying both a handgun and knife, and told him that the store has a no-firearms policy. Miller went and stood outside while Bill waited over ten minutes for the single apathetic clerk to finish processing a package for another customer, and come over to make copies for him—customer service one expects at a court clerk’s window, not a private business. While waiting outside, a police officer arrived and questioned Miller. The cop was reasonably cool and said he was a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, that he knew open carrying was legal, and that he had only come out because the store had called.

That’s Staples, 75 Laconia Road, #300, Tilton, NH, 03276. +1.603.286.9301. Someone just earned an entry on dontpatronize.info.

Laconia District Court

Next stop, Laconia District Court, to file the additional bail reconsideration hearing motions. Surprisingly, this was uneventful, and a bail hearing was scheduled for 2009-06-11 at 13:00. Apparently we’re starting to do something right here!

Plymouth Family Division

Finally, we all trekked up to Plymouth Family Division so Bill could file the motion to intervene as an interested party in the custody dispute. Again, the clerk told Bill that the paperwork that he was going to file would be held in limbo for ten days, this time in order to notify the other party and give them a chance to respond.

Or not. The grandparents had used the expedited ex parte process (“without the other party” in legalese) in order to enable them to snatch Peter immediately and without advance notification to either Bill or Ivy. Bill asked the clerk how to do the same, and she gave him an additional form to fill out to convert his motion into an ex parte motion. She said he needed to notify the other party that the motion was taking place, which he did promptly by leaving them a voice mail message—more than they’d done for he or Ivy.

Paperwork filed, the hearing was scheduled for 2009-06-15 at 15:00.

Custody notes

Bill was able to acquire a copy of the “petition for guardianship of minor (person only) (pursuant to RSA 490-D:2, VIII)” that Peter’s grandparents had filed.

Of particular interest were lines #18 and #19, the lines justifying custody transfer itself and ex parte relief. Among other things, they tried to claim that Ivy’s refusal to trust mainstream medicine or send Peter to government schools makes her potentially unfit to be a mother. Outrageously, they went further, claiming that Bill’s ownership of firearms at this juncture—“an AK, SKS, and other guns”—is justification that Bill would be dangerous around Peter.

But this one took the cake: “The mother and boyfriend belong to the Free State Project and could move Peter into the underground where we will not be able to locate him in the future.” So freestaters are unfit to be parents?

Wrap-up

Miller and I headed out around 16:00, planning to return the next day for the bail reconsideration hearing.

• Porc411 call from Jeremy J. Olson, 2009-06-10T13:46.