On the 16th of August, 2004, the five of us had our first hearing. Considering how ridiculous the citation was, we were expecting the case would be dropped at that point. The DA handling the case was not present, instead a substituting assistant DA was representing the "people". The court insisted on assigning each one of us a public defender for that hearing.
In stead of being told that the case was dropped, we were surprised with being charged with a brand new charge, not the one we had been cited with. We were charged with Cal. PC sec. 647(a) - Disorderly conduct. Although no longer a sex crime, the bait and switch meant we were no longer prepared with the demurer, which had been targeted for 314.1 PC.
The change of the penal code section is both a blessing and a curse. 314.1 PC is a registerable sex offence on the second conviction, 647(a) is not, making it a far less nasty crime to get convicted of. The curse is that we were not prepared for it, and had to start all over from square one.
We were cited with 314.1 PC, which was clearly frivolous. We can take the SFPD to court for this. This section requires "an overt lewd and lascivious act", terms which are well defined legally, and of which we were clearly not guilty of.
By playing these games, the DA hopes to get a guilty plea from tired, frustrated, and often unrepresented victims. Not being legal experts, we had then made, although not a very consequential, mistake, and plead not guilty to the new charges. Given the citation, we should not have entered a plea at that hearing, as no fair notice of the new charges had been given us at that point.
With more countless hours, and new research, it has become very clear that the new charges are just as frivolous, and the DA's office is just playing games with us.
Penal Code 647. Every person who commits any of the following acts is
guilty of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor:
(a) Who solicits anyone to engage
in or who engages in lewd or dissolute conduct in any public place
or in any place open to the public or exposed to public view.
San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris
415-553-1754 SF DA direct line
415-553-1810 Victoria Baldocky - In charge of the misdemeanor office.
Allison Garbutt reports to her.
415-553-1803 Allison Garbutt (dpt. head) – She is the head of department 14,
which handles our case.
Daniel O. -
contact me
One of the five cited.
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