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Courtesy City of KC<\/p>\n
Three minutes and twenty seconds. That was the duration of the Kansas City vs. Food Not Bombs trial. Or more accurately, the city\u2019s latest attempt to indefinitely side-step the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Almost an entire year of stress, legal fees, and jail time hung in the balance\u2026 until an admission of incompetence that lasted about the length of a pop song set the proceedings back into limbo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On October 7th, Michael and Wolfgang entered the Kansas City Municipal Courthouse to fight the trespassing charge and belligerent arrest from the Kansas City Police. What followed was an ignorant proceeding that left the two volunteers back where they started.<\/p>\n
When the case was called forward, the city prosecutor, Linda Miller, immediately addressed the continuance filed to push the trial for a \u201cspecial setting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City filed this continuance motion virtually the day The Pitch\u2019s article on the farce was published (Sept. 18th), where we implored the public to attend and view the proceedings. <\/p>\n
The motion stated, \u201cIt has come to the City\u2019s attention that there will be multiple potential witnesses and the City believes that this should be a special setting trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge denied that motion on the defense\u2019s objection.<\/p>\n
Doubling down on the filed motion in the courtroom, the prosecution claimed they were unaware the motion had been denied and that the trial was still set for the original date.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it had been granted, but I found out now that I didn\u2019t realize that there was an objection that was filed by the defense counsel,\u201d Miller stated in front of the judge.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the prosecution was unaware of how many witnesses THEY HAD. The city walked into trial unaware of what was happening and oblivious to how many witnesses would be called.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found out that I have five witnesses. The defendant, who has a co-defendant\u2014I\u2019ve been told at least three are going to testify, and there is video.\u201d<\/p>\n
An entire court proceeding halted because the city prosecution assumed the court would grant its absurd continuance motion. The City\u2019s uninformed practices left all five prosecution witnesses absent, with only the defense present. Claire Wyatt, Michael and Wolfgang\u2019s legal representative, reiterated the obtuse nature of the proposed motion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city said they didn\u2019t realize that it was set for today, so she couldn\u2019t have a witness in front of them.\u201d Wyatt also reminded the court that this trial has been going on for almost a year, and its volatile nature has put undue stress on the defendants\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem still remains that my two clients are here now, and I do have an entry of appearance, and a third witness is here. Mr. McConnell (Michael) is a school teacher. It\u2019s hard for him to take off, and everyone is anxious to get this resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though the judge denied the continuance motion two weeks ago, the judge overseeing the case granted the city\u2019s motion in person and has pushed the trial back again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears that it\u2019s unable to be resolved today. Under most circumstances, just as a matter of procedural practice in this court, the city is granted one continuance,\u201d decided the judge. \u201cWhen I receive these cases, I have no idea how many people are going to be involved in this. All I know in these cases are the names of the parties. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the limited information the court has.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exchange between prosecution, defense, and judge lasted three minutes and twenty seconds in total.<\/p>\n
The judge has moved the trial to an indefinite date, with a future scheduling conference set for Oct. 19th. During the trial, the date proposed was Friday afternoon, Dec. 18th, the week before Christmas. This\u2014for obvious reasons\u2014created a scheduling conflict, especially for Michael, who feared he might have educational responsibilities, saying, \u201cI may have conferences around that time, since it\u2019s the end of the semester.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the trial potentially going into December or even 2027, it is hard not to see the injustice and double standard set before the court. Over a year of legal fees, jail fines, and time off work has amounted to constant misdirection and apathy from the court system. While Michael and Wolfgang are kept awake by the stress of testifying and fear of a guilty verdict in a broken system, the city lawyers sleep peacefully, ignorant of the pressure they put on these volunteers. They are rewarded for \u201cnot seeing a motion denial\u201d or not realizing they have five witnesses, while the defense appears every time, well dressed and prepared to make their case.<\/p>\n
Michael, Wolfgang, and Wyatt walk out of the courtroom, dejected, facing another hill to climb and another boulder to push.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that was a whole bunch of nothing,\u201d Michael says immediately after leaving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mission and momentum of Food Not Bombs has not changed, and the two volunteers have no plans to stop serving Kansas Citians with hot soup and fresh meals. <\/p>\n
The longer the city drags this sham out, it only serves to bring more support to the cause. In that way, Linda Miller\u2019s inability to get her shit together should be celebrated as a public service.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For updates about the case and the new trial date, follow The Pitch.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Courtesy City of KC Three minutes and twenty seconds. That was the duration of the Kansas City vs. Food Not Bombs trial. Or more accurately, the city\u2019s latest attempt to indefinitely side-step the issue.\u00a0 Almost an entire year of stress, legal fees, and jail time hung in the balance\u2026 until an admission of incompetence that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[36571,36572,17904,5022,5020,5018,5021,5019,36573,36574,36575,36576],"class_list":["post-47304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas","tag-claire-wyatt","tag-coninuance","tag-food-not-bombs","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-dining","tag-kansas-food","tag-kansas-grocery-stores","tag-kansas-restaurants","tag-kcpd","tag-linda-miller","tag-municipal-trial","tag-trespassing"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117407518910626151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}