Bail reconsideration hearing

Miller T. and I headed up to Bristol to pick up Bill Walker for Ivy’s bail reconsideration hearing, scheduled for 13:00 at Laconia District Court. We waited around for Bill to complete all the paperwork for the hearing that he was working on; we didn’t leave until after 12:30 and ended up arriving at court a few minutes late.

I’d called the court while we were on the way, letting them know we’d be late, and Ivy told the court clerk that she’d accidentally told Bill—who had now been accepted as Ivy’s legal counsel—that the hearing was at 13:30, so they ended up waiting for us.

We arrived to find Ivy already in court—now in prison uniform, and still in handcuffs and shackles—and the same insane level of security as before: Five sheriffs this time, three bailiffs, and the same group of lackeys from the county attorney’s office. The county attorney himself wasn’t there. The prosecutor—a “Mr. Libby” according to the judge, identity not confirmed yet—and a male police officer sat at the prosecution table. Finally, a plainclothes detective also arrived to watch the show.

I showed the bailiff the video motion form, approved by Judge Sadler, and simply asked him where to set up. Of course, nothing would be that simple. He had to go check with the judge, because “it’s a different judge,” first. Fine. Two minutes later, he was back, and I set up the camera on the witness stand.

Bill conferred with Ivy at the defense table, then went to sit in the gallery in the front row (which was still cordoned off from the rest of us plebes). The judge, David O. Huot (pronounced like Hewitt), arrived, and the case got underway.

Huot, after a brief bit of confusion between Ivy’s actual and “legal” last name—Walker vs. Ankrom—asked Ivy if she accepted Bill as her counsel, then allowed him to join her at the defense table.

After explaining that he had no idea what went on during the arraignment (I don’t think the arraigning judge did, either), he began to explain the extradition procedure to her, told her she had the right to be represented by a “trained attorney,” and reiterated that she also had the right to a court-appointed attorney. Ivy returned that she wanted to be represented by no one but herself or her chosen counsel, her husband.

Ivy and the judge got into an argument over the meaning of RSA 612:13, and the meaning of flee and fugitive. Citing Black’s Law Dictionary definitions; the Fourteenth Amendment; Part I, Articles 5 and 14 of the New Hampshire Constitution; Simon v. Craft, 182 U.S. 427 (1901); and The Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819); Ivy explained that she hadn’t fled with the intent to avoid arrest, and that since the notification of the Rhode Island court dates had been mailed to her parents, not her last known address, she had no way of knowing about the charges to begin with. She explained that “in the ordinary course of human life” she had relocated to New Hampshire, and had been openly residing here since August of 2007. The charges weren’t filed until 2009-04-14, the pre-arraignment disposition conference was not held until 2009-05-04, and the warrant not issued until 2009-05-08, Rhode Island’s claim was “ex post facto and void on its face.”

The judge dismissed her argument, claiming she was “confusing procedure with substance.” He went on to further explain that it’s up to the governor to make the determination as to whether or not she’s a fugitive, based on Rhode Island’s claims, and that she’s not accused of committing a crime in New Hampshire. If the governor determines that she’s a fugitive, he would issue a warrant, whereupon she would be surrendered to the authorities in Rhode Island to answer charges there.

Huot explained they have the right to hold her for up to thirty days, to allow Rhode Island to get their act together. If that doesn’t happen, New Hampshire has a right to hold her for an additional sixty days, after a hearing, provided the county attorney can prove that there was a good reason Rhode Island didn’t act. The judge confusingly explained that the way he works things, he’d schedule a second hearing thirty days after the first hearing, and if she was still being held then, she’d then be released on bail. Finally, thirty days later, if still nothing had happened, she’d simply be released.

The way he described it, it sounded like they were planning to hold her for sixty whole days(!) before even considering bail. He then went on to address bail, stating plainly, “This is a bailable offense,” and turned to the prosecutor to get an explanation as to what her case was all about.

The prosecutor tried to claim that proper notice had been sent, and that clearly she knew about it because she cited the Rhode Island court dates in her own testimony. Ivy again explained that Rhode Island mailed the notification to the wrong address, and that she could prove they had her current one, as she receives other mail from them there, and that she only knew about all the court dates because Bill had done the research after her arrest.

Huot explained to the prosecutor that there was a problem because the indictment only described the crime as “obtaining money under false pretenses, greater than $500,” and didn’t include the specific amount. After the prosecutor was unable to provide the particulars and became defensive, the judge went on to say, “This is certainly a bailable offense.”

Things were starting to look good.

The prosecutor tried another tack: “I don’t mean to cast any aspersions on their political beliefs, but [they] seem to indicate a lack of belief in the system, when it works against them.” Ivy objected, explained that she’s a legal representative of another defendant in “the system” and that not everyone in whatever group the prosecutor was referencing believes the same thing. The judge rejected the prosecutor’s argument, explaining that there was simply no evidence to back it up.

Finally, the prosecutor tried to bring up her New Hampshire misdemeanors; Huot interrupted him: “[They’re] class B. They’re non-jailable offenses.” The prosecutor’s final answer: “I just got dragged into this today, your honor.”

After more discussion with Ivy over her pledge to go back to Rhode Island and handle the charges herself, Judge Huot set bail at $500, based entirely on the fact that the indictment “only talk[ed] about $500.” Finally, he set the extradition hearing for 2009-07-06 at 13:00, and Ivy was taken back to jail while Bill and the rest of us went to deal with bailing her out.

In search of bail

Of course, nothing is simple when dealing with the bureaucracies.

We headed over to the Belknap County Jail to talk to the bail bondsman on hand about posting bail, but his company wouldn’t post bail for anything under $1,000.

Bill asked the desk clerk at the jail for a list of other bondsmen, several of whom he called, and none of whom would deal with bails as small as $500. (We also noticed that the list of bail bondsmen that Bill had to ask for had a notice on the bottom, stating that jails shall post this sheet of paper in a conspicuous location. By not doing so, Belknap County Jail was apparently in violation of RSA 598-A:3.) While dealing with this mess, we could see Ivy in a holding cell behind the control room in which the desk clerk and several security personnel sat.

We ended up having to go over to a bank to get the whole $500 (and the $40 “bail commissioner fee”), whereupon, after dealing with one more bureaucrat—the bail commissioner—Ivy was released.

After seven days in jail due to arraigning judge Lucinda V. Sadler’s misreading of New Hampshire extradition law, and the incompetent extradition filings of the county attorney, Ivy was free.

• Porc411 call from Jeremy J. Olson, 2009-06-11T16:24.
• Ridley Report coverage.