mom, criminal defense atty, housing rights advocate, board game designer, feminist, #chesspunks, polyamorous, 🏳️🌈 pansexual and I'm running for City Council!
Aug 31, 2023 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Surreal scene as the police freeze and stare off into the distance as the star spangled banner plays while they wait for trash trucks to destroy the remaining property of poor people.
@jarin @Just_Glynne And if you go to shelter you’re often required to work for your “free” bed without pay or with sub-minimum wage pay.
Mar 25, 2023 • 31 tweets • 5 min read
In the first years of the Third Reich, the authorities still differentiated between different categories of homeless. Rather than arresting them all indiscriminately, they concentrated on registering and controlling them. 1/
During this period, 'orderly wanderers' were still tolerated, and the hostile attentions of the police were directed above all towards 'disorderly wanderers' or vagrants, who avoided registered accommodation such as the Herbergen zur Heimat, 2/
May 5, 2022 • 23 tweets • 4 min read
Picture a goldfish bowl. Inside contains the homeless
people in the community. It's a big bowl. The ones we see from the outside - pressed up against the glass are the outliers: the chronic homeless, drug using mentally ill. But they aren't representative of the whole. 1/
Those we can see and who are in our face are those who don't know how or choose not to blend. Because of their infirmities we notice them more readily. And because we never see the others we impute unto the whole the characteristics of this sampling. But that would be wrong. 2/
Apr 13, 2022 • 25 tweets • 8 min read
VINDICATION: For 4+ years, City Attorney of San Diego has refused to provide discovery to the homeless persons I defend Pro Bono. Today, the court held the prosecutor violated its Brady obligation by failing to provide discovery and dismissal of case was appropriate remedy. 1/
Short background: My client, a person experiencing homelessness, admitted to covering himself with cardboard in the rain in Balboa Park. For that he was charged with overnight camping, which carries a $280 fine. I agreed to defend him Pro Bono to challenge the law. 2/
Feb 24, 2022 • 26 tweets • 16 min read
@ToddGloria@RTFHSD Hundreds of volunteers, eh? We We’re grouped into teams of four. We had only 4 hours to count the homeless.Only 4. The four of us were handed five incentive cards TOTAL. They told us we probably wouldn’t need more than that and if we did we could return to the staging area. 1/@ToddGloria@RTFHSD Some of the tracts to survey were 5-10 miles away. we only have four hours and now we have to make round trips to staging area after only 5 completed interviews? 2/
Feb 10, 2022 • 299 tweets • >60 min read
TODAY begins the evidence in Dell'Anno vs. City of San Diego for wrongful termination. When I'm available I'll be live tweeting it. #MarleaVCity To tune in remotely call 619-614-4567 Conference ID: 379 345 513# or scroll down to Dept. 2103 at this link: sdcourt.ca.gov/sdcourt/civil2…
9:25 am. Judge tells jury they are an intelligent bunch. He asks whether they want the witness to remove their mask when testifying. Discussion between jurors and judge. I can only hear judge's comments, not the comments of jurors.
Mar 29, 2021 • 23 tweets • 20 min read
@SDUTmcdonald@LAWinkley@LaurynSchroed You all should be proud. As you pointed out, change requires police to admit there is a problem. They aren't there yet. This quote deserves push back. 1/ @SDUTmcdonald@LAWinkley@LaurynSchroed Black persons are over-represented in homeless population more than their representation in both general population and of those in poverty. This disparity more than suggests homelessness is a RESULT of systemic racism by a variety of social institutions including police. 2/
Oct 20, 2020 • 186 tweets • 66 min read
Criminalization of Persons Experiencing Homelessness:
This thread answers:
➡️What is criminalization?
➡️Who are persons experiencing homelessness?
➡️Does it work?
➡️Is it Constitutional?
➡️What does work?
➡️Why do they do what they do? (They = those who criminalize)
1/
Poor people are human beings, all of whom have implicit worth and dignity. A human being was inside tent being disposed of by sanitation crew in San Diego and not discovered until tent in garbage truck and hydraulic compactor about to activate. 2/ sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/…
Sep 24, 2020 • 47 tweets • 32 min read
@dark0ne23@ToddGloria The City was sued because of the Vehicle Habitation law in federal court and court issued an injunction preventing its enforcement. The law is clearly unconstitutional under federal precedent. But unconstitutional laws are also handy enforcement tools for the police. 1/@dark0ne23@ToddGloria Mara Elliott defended the lawsuit by repealing the law and then turning around and imposing a new one, equally as unconstitutional but not yet the subject of the federal lawsuit. But whenever the cases under the new law get to court, she dismisses. This way, ... 2/
Jun 16, 2020 • 126 tweets • 110 min read
I've got 99 problems with the Criminal Justice System and 99 solutions.
If you're a protester wanting reforms to champion, if you're an ally seeking greater understanding, if you're a leader who wants specific solutions to move us past the rhetoric, this thread is for you.
What's in a number, anyway? Why not 5? Because that's not enough. There are hundreds of changes that need to be implemented. These injustices are systemic. You can't just change the tires of a car in disrepair and hope that they'll be enough to propel it down the road. 2/
Jun 13, 2020 • 86 tweets • 19 min read
There are three ways that prosecutors hide and protect bad cops while systemically disadvantaging blacks: plea bargaining, diversion and absence of oversight in traffic court. A short thread on the hows and what-the-hells.
Plea bargaining. Those who support the status quo will tell you that plea bargaining advantages the criminal. It does not. 95% of cases plead guilty. Those who like to believe the system is fair think this evidences how most people arrested are guilty. It does not. 2/
Jan 21, 2020 • 26 tweets • 13 min read
BE AWARE and SHARE San Diego: Go outside. Look up at the streetlights. See any with these three spidery looking legs dangling from the apparatus? How many do you see? Reply here with the zip code and a photo of one of them.
I’ll start. This one is on 30th Street in North Park situated to spy and surveil the playground of St Patrick catholic school kids and the North Park health clinic across the street who treats those with low income. And listen to their conversations. And see inside their windows.
Jan 10, 2020 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
The GHOSTS of HERE and NOW: A logic problem for the earthly bound:
There are some ghosts in the kingdom of Here who have been put on the endangered spirits list. Ghosts are of two types: RATIONALS and PREDATORS. 1/
Some ghosts have reasoned that scaring the wits out of the living, while perhaps amusing, is not the proper way for a civilized spirit to behave. These ghosts prefer to live in harmony with the living. They are known as RATIONALS. 2/
Sep 30, 2019 • 43 tweets • 24 min read
As a member of the New York state bar, @RudyGiuliani has certain professional responsibilities. Let's examine these further. @RudyGiuliani "A lawyer should further the public’s understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the
justice system because, in a constitutional democracy, legal institutions depend on popular participation and
support to maintain their authority." Rudy undermines this purpose.
Sep 9, 2019 • 22 tweets • 10 min read
.@CityofSanDiego Needs to adopt a Housing First strategy with homeless persons instead of forcing people to solve all their problems while living on the streets. The cities criminalization first strategy is directly contrary to CA legislative findings and policy objectives. 1/@CityofSanDiego "People experiencing chronic homelessness are trapped in a cycle of homelessness and trauma. Traditional approaches attempt to address people’s trauma first and use housing as a reward for complying with treatment; such approaches fail" - 2/
Aug 2, 2019 • 32 tweets • 5 min read
Two brothers, teenage boys with severe intellectual disabilities, were falsely convicted for the rape and murder of an 11 year old girl in 1983. The brothers spent 31 years in prison and on death row before they were exonerated based on DNA evidence inculpating another man. 1/
11 year old Sabrina Buie went missing in Red Springs, North Carolina. It was September 24, 1983. Two days later her body was discovered in a soybean field. 2/
Jul 12, 2019 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
When an attorney knows that a client or witness intends to commit perjury & learns of this through information provided through attorney-client relationship, has to go through, what is known as "perjury dance." That is what DOJ attorneys recently did, signaling perjury to come.
An attorney has competing ethical obligations. (1) owed to the court and society not to suborn perjury; and (2) owed to client to maintain confidences. What happens when these conflict? The Perjury Dance.