Unlike John Roy Simpers, who was charged with assault and told to meet his public defender at the library by the judge in his case earlier this month, I showed up to court last Wednesday.
Where was Mr. Simpers? And why are we, as a community, so willingly turning our trillion dollar library into an insane asylum?
I’m not writing this post because John Simpers did what I expected him to do by NOT showing up for his hearing. I’m writing this post because John Simpers is just one of MANY unwell people shuffling through the revolving doors between Court Cuckoo and our public library.
To help make my argument, here’s an email I just got from someone I wrote about asking me to remove this three year old post:
After looking closely at my post and the Missoulian article that I was reacting to, in which the man named above was NOT named, I determined that more context was needed before I responded to his request. That’s when I found a court document, written by Municipal judge, Eli Parker, explaining why he tried punting this to District Court, a legal move that ultimately blew up the viability of the criminal charge.
Here are some highlights from Judge Parker describing the original incident, which occurred in the library, where the defendant was allegedly in possession of several knives:
In my original post from three years ago I was criticized in the comments for focusing on the Municipal judge by retired lawyer, Kevin Hunt, who defended the inexperienced judge’s punt with this:
Judge Parker was trying to protect both the suspect and the public. It isn’t constitutional to keep a person waiting for an aid & assist evualuation longer than the maximum sentence for the charged offense; nor is it constitutional to incarcerate mentally ill persons without treating them. It also is absurd that the municipal court would have exclusive jurisdiction over misdemeanor offenses allegedly committed within the city, rather than the muni and district courts having overlapping concurrent misdemeanor jurisdiction. If you want to find a scapegoat, how about the cop (whom I agree deserves credit for using non-lethal tactics!) for citing the guy for a misdemeanor instead of a felony? Oh, wait, there is this other absurdity in the system here by which the guy wouldn’t be charged by Pabst’s office, held, and arraigned on an Information of Felony pending grand jury indictment, but instead released pending grand jury action. It’s a goofy process and it demands remedial legislation. Don’t forget that the state hospital is a joke, is underfunded, and cannot evaluate criminal defendants in a constitutionally reasonable period of time.
The turd does not belong in Judge Parker’s pocket but rather in the legislature’s, which rejected Gov. Gianforte’s request for funding of dozens more public defenders, instead approving only two.
Too many crazy people and not enough publicly-funded lawyers to defend them? Is that the problem?
If anyone spends any time sitting in court, like I did for 2 hours last Wednesday waiting for my case to be called, the problem becomes obvious: the multi-jurisdictional criminal justice system is totally dysfunctional, and it’s being fed by poorly vetted civil processes compounding general societal problems, like drug and alcohol abuse.
Near the end of my 2 hour wait a young women who had previously had her moment in front of the judge came back into court with black smears of mascara running down her cheeks. She had just learned the harsh fact that the restraining order someone had taken out against her didn’t stop that person (known as the petitioner) from contacting her, either directly or through third party contacts, to harass her, and if she responded to those contacts in any way, then she would be in violation and criminally charged.
Just wait until she learns that petitioner’s can go so far as to make FALSE REPORTS in an attempt to destroy your life as effectively as possible and they will face ZERO consequences from city and county prosecutors, regardless of how much time and energy is being taken away from REAL crimes to vet claims that go un-prosecuted.
For those involved in lying about my conduct over the past 3 years, one of their collective successes are the 4 exclusion zones I am forbidden to enter, which includes the public library. That means I can no longer accompany my daughter into this dangerous asylum where I’ve found and documented drugs in the bathroom, along with delving into meeting notes in my most recent post in order to better understand the kind of people this “progressive” community is catering to, and who my daughter will be in weekly proximity to as she feeds her voracious appetite for reading.
One of the biggest ironies about the case against me is how my time spent homeless myself, living in my box truck, has been used against me. I guess going through a divorce and becoming financially destitute after blowing the divorce money by traveling FAR AWAY from the people intent on making good on their threats isn’t something worthy of consideration of city and county prosecutors.
How did I get the vibe wrong? Was it the Lego Meth Lab? Or maybe it was how eager I was to turn the trashing of my own life into a creative metaphor of narrative alchemy, where I advocated for a tweaker-clean-team to keep the streets and parks clean.
Coming up this week I’ll be writing about the Stop Nick Shirley Act with a unique tie-in to Montana, the spread of the TIF sickness to Great Falls, and other stuff that emerges as the week progresses, like an AI Summit I can’t physically attend to report on because it’s on campus.
If you would like to help support a truly independent and provably local (just ask Misty at pre-trial) citizen journalism, please consider donating to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.
Thanks for reading!