Chalk case ends in whimper

"Twenty-nine."

We all remember the irritating radio ads for Value City in which a baby kept saying, "Twenty-nine." The unruly infant must have been referring to how many dollars the city of Cincinnati would get in return after squandering more than 3 weeks and an untold amount of taxpayer dough on my sidewalk chalk case.

My trial for using sidewalk chalk as part of an Occupy Cincinnati protest took place this morn, and the outcome was better for me than what I thought I could reasonably hope for. Some folks thought I should have surrendered by pleading no contest at the arraignment a couple weeks back. But once again, fighting back paid off. Some people just don't seem to realize that the 2012 Tim can't be intimidated.

I guess the prosecution didn't realize it either. I did my homework on this case, and I had no fear whatsoever about acting as my own attorney. The city called my bluff and got only $29 for its troubles.

I got to court early today and sat through 2 hours of tearful testimonies by defendants in the other trials that were on the docket. It became obvious during these hearings that the prosecution enjoyed dropping the hammer on unsuspecting defendants. The prosecuting attorney resembled Patricia Richardson with Mr. Hooper glasses, and her demeanor only drove home the point that there's an entire system in place that's stacked against us.

My trial was brief, and the only witness was for the prosecution. The witness was part of a downtown cleaning crew, and she brang in her digital camera that held the evidence of the chalkings.

That's all fine and dandy, of course, because I wasn't denying the facts of the case. My primary defense was that the case involved only sidewalk chalk - not spray paint. Yet the prosecution repeatedly referred to my art as "graffiti" that was "egregious."

I don't think the judge was buying the prosecution's demagoguery, but I had to remind myself of the limits of the law. Even when the judge acknowledged his own interest in constitutional rights, what do constitutional rights mean? Courts had already narrowed the scope of basic rights well past the permissible level, so the foundation was set for the city's case. The judge also gave a brief speech about balancing individual rights with the public good (which these days means pretty much whatever the city says it means).

But the prosecution expected me to give up - like a sheep. In thinking this, they stumbled - and badly. I had made sure that even if I got the maximum sentence, it wasn't going to be without a fight.

My punishment for the sidewalk chalk episode? The judge remitted the real fine and required me to pay a grand total of only $29 - which includes $23 for the main court costs plus $6 for the subpoena for the witness.

For all the effort the city put into throwing the book at me, it got only $29. They sicced professional attorneys on a backyard amateur like me who doesn't even have a college degree (and barely made it out of high school), and still they got only $29.

Twenty-nine dollars. That's got to be absolutely humiliating for them.

If I'd pleaded no contest, it would have been almost $200 including court costs. By fighting back, I saved myself a 3-figure sum. Was it really worth it for the city to keep the case alive all the way to its end? If some other Occupy denizen breaks out the sidewalk chalk in the future, maybe the city will think twice before ticketing them.

This was Cincinnati's version of the Scopes trial. Although John Scopes was convicted, the case hurt the creationist cause. Today's sidewalk chalk trial absolutely demolished the 1% cause.