{"id":1145,"date":"2013-07-02T20:09:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T20:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2013-07-12T20:10:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T20:10:27","slug":"sunny-fawcett-goes-to-jury-trial-in-monterey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/sunny-fawcett-goes-to-jury-trial-in-monterey\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunny Fawcett Goes to Jury Trial in Monterey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NOTES BY NORSE:\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve interviewed Sunny Fawcett several times on Free Radio\u00a0\u00a0 (most recently, hear her at<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.radiolibre.org\/brb\/brb130620.mp3<\/wbr><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0According to her phone message today, jury selection begins in her case tomorrow morning (July 3) in Monterey Municipal or Superior Court, presumably around 9 AM or so.\u00a0\u00a0 She’s a determined activist insisting that police respect the rights of community members–refreshing in this time of compliance, collusion, and confusion.<\/p>\n

Traffic stop becomes criminal case for homeless woman<\/h1>\n


\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Sunny Fawcett sits on a bench outside the doors to Monterey County Superior Court Judge Albert Maldonado\u2019s courtroom, sandwiched between a friend and her pastor. \u201cShould we pray?\u201d one of them asks. \u201cLet\u2019s pray.\u201d<\/p>\n

They clutch hands, bow their heads and the prayer Fawcett offers is this: Please God, let me get moved to another courtroom with a different judge.<\/p>\n

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By a rough count of the docket sheets Fawcett pulls out of a tote bag, this is about the eighth time since November she has spent hours waiting at the Salinas courthouse. On this day, June 10, she would wait nearly nine hours as Maldonado decides what to do with her, to figure out whether her case could be set for jury trial this week, or put off. Maldonado could easily pass it to another judge or rule on it himself, but chooses to delay, and Fawcett must travel to Salinas regularly to wait.<\/p>\n

Just after midnight last Nov. 19, Fawcett was pulled over for driving her Dodge minivan too slowly down Garden Road. But what should have been a simple catch-and-release traffic violation morphed into a criminal case when Fawcett was cited for a misdemeanor count of delaying a police officer. (That\u2019s what I said: Who knew that one even existed?)<\/p>\n

The slow driving wasn\u2019t the delay. What happened next was.<\/p>\n

Fawcett, a 62-year-old Monterey County resident, pulled over but refused to turn off her car\u2019s engine or open the driver\u2019s side window more than about 2 inches. She asked John Olney, the officer who pulled her over, a lot of questions, along the lines of \u201cWhat was I doing wrong?\u201d and \u201cWhy are you stopping me?\u201d<\/p>\n

She also didn\u2019t have her actual physical driver\u2019s license \u2013 although she had a receipt proving she had just paid to get it renewed \u2013 and she took a while getting that, her vehicle registration and proof of insurance out and handing it to Olney through the small opening.<\/p>\n

To Olney\u2019s credit, he was pretty patient with Fawcett \u2013 a dashcam video of the 20-minute-plus exchange bears that out. When she asked him to call Monterey Police Chief Phil Penko to the scene, the officer explained the chief was probably home and asleep. \u201cThe best I can do is two sergeants,\u201d he told her, after his supervisor and the supervisor\u2019s partner arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for eight years,\u201d Fawcett tells him, \u201cand this is highly irregular.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for 17 years and you\u2019re the first one that\u2019s ever done this,\u201d Olney responds, \u201cso this is<\/em> highly irregular.\u201d<\/p>\n

By \u201cthis,\u201d Fawcett means living in her van. She\u2019s one of the chronically homeless that have been in the news in Monterey the past few months, although you would never guess it to look at her. She takes great pains with her appearance; her clothes are clean, her makeup applied with a deft touch and a decorative flower sits in her long, red hair. In earlier years, she was a mom, a part-time teacher and a community college student. As for how she became homeless, she offers only that a number of family members died in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to raise my daughters to take care of themselves and they help me as they can,\u201d she says, then pauses and adds, \u201cThings are rough for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Olney pulled her over that night, the road was dark and there was little traffic, as evidenced by the video. Fawcett was scared \u2013 any woman pulled over late at night in an unpopulated area is scared.<\/p>\n

Penko says he spent time speaking with Fawcett, including a recent lunch at a local Denny\u2019s, to discuss the case. He says she\u2019s had a number of driving-related encounters with his officers, many of which have gone undocumented. Olney \u201ccould have handcuffed and arrested her,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, she\u2019s been given a number of breaks,\u201d Penko tells me. \u201cBut here\u2019s this poor woman in her 60s who is frightened and can\u2019t grasp the significance of her actions. The only thing that will make this better is to recognize the significance of her actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did she delay Olney? Maybe. She asked a lot of questions and took her time providing her documents. She had been pulled over last year and given a warning for a busted headlight. But there\u2019s no evidence any urgent calls came in during the time Olney had her stopped.<\/p>\n

Now Fawcett faces a trial. She\u2019s asked for a jury, which is her right. If she\u2019s convicted, the fine is a few hundred dollars she doesn\u2019t have and a jail sentence she won\u2019t serve because of overcrowding.<\/p>\n

I watched the deputy public defender assigned to her case as he tried to explain to her why, when you\u2019re driving, you have no inherent right to privacy, and why, if an officer asks to see your license, you\u2019re required to show it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scenario would have been different if you were at your home,\u201d he tells her.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t have a home,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/wbr><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTES BY NORSE:\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve interviewed Sunny Fawcett several times on Free Radio\u00a0\u00a0 (most recently, hear her at http:\/\/www.radiolibre.org\/brb\/brb130620.mp3 \u00a0According to her phone message today, jury selection begins in her case tomorrow morning (July 3) in Monterey Municipal or<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,56],"tags":[4],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1147,"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}