What happens when a homeless campsite went to the test?

From Marisa KendallCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Wickey Two Hands was sitting at the defense table on a recent Thursday morning, holding the red baseball cap in his lap, which he outpaced from respect for the judge.

The 77-year-old homeless man was supposed to be the first person to judge in court under an ordinance, which was adopted last year, which made a crime to camp in all public places. In the last six months he spent hours in a courtroom, arriving early for each hearing. He had packed and moved his campsite repeatedly, trying to understand spots where he could avoid his arrest again.

But instead of sending the case to two hands to the jurors, the judge – in the daily process had to begin – he rejected all the accusations. The reason? The city waited too long to pursue.

The case with two hands is a holy spotlight observed around the state in recent months. California Cities pass regulations left and Precisely who allow police to arrest or quote people who are not camping on the streets and sidewalks, or in their parks. Police arrest. But when it comes to pursuit, experience or condemnation of people to violate these regulations, some cities have failed to follow. In many cases, prosecutors do not charge. If people are accused, their deeds are often fired quickly. The two -hand case was rare about how close it came to a test. But in the end, he was thrown away.

This has some wonders: what is the point of arresting people at all?

The two -handed case was identified as a bell to see if the ban on Freen’s camping – under which police had already made several hundred arrests – it would stay before the jurors. The city and the county – as well as the lawyer, activists and even local journalists on two hands – investigated a significant amount of resources in the case before they were eventually rejected last week without a process or any public hearing on his merits.

“They wereted a lot of time and money, following this case,” says Ron Hochbaum, a law professor at the University of Pacific, who specializes in the Law on Homelessness and Poverty. “When you think about all the people who participated, from the police to the city prosecutor’s office to judges and court officials, etc.

Calmatters analyzes the resources that have gone through the pursuit of the two -handed case:

At 8:40 on October 14, 2024, two Fresho police officers came across two hands and his belongings on the side of the road and arrested him for camping in a public place and illegally owned a shopping cart.

Over the next six months, two hands attended four hearing in three different courtrooms. Before each hearing, he dropped his belongings at a friend’s house and then grabbed the bus to the court in the center of Freen, sometimes arriving so much an hour earlier so that nothing would miss anything. After the court, a lawyer sometimes took him back to his campsite. On April 10, on the day his trial had to start, he missed work to attend the court, skipping his planned shift in a destructive yard and with him his chance of making money for food and other needs for the day.

Urban and district resources also entered each hearing. Public funds paid for the presence of a judge, bailiff and employees of the City Prosecutor’s Office. The city led out of law firm Manning Cas to help pursue the case.

Kevin Little, a private lawyer who specializes in civil rights disputes, has signed to defend two hands Pro Bono. He spent between 100 and 150 hours in the case of two hands. He had two additional employees who helped him and they scored another 50 to 100 hours. The week the case was supposed to go to the ordeal, Little said he had spent a few nights in his office until 3 in the morning

“They wereted a lot of time and money, pursuing this case.”

Ron Hochbaum, Professor of Law, University of Pacific

Another lawyer, Milod’s patience, was also in court on April 10. She was there to represent Pablo Orihuela, a journalist of Freshnland who was Covering the case of two hands and received a summons on behalf of the prosecution. Lawyer Carl Olson stood to compete for a summons issued to the Fresno Bee Thaddeus Miller reporter, According to to the bee.

In addition to Oihuela and Miller, Calmatters and ABC30 journalists were there to cover the process.

About two dozen activists and members of the local community also appeared at the Court of Justice-some arriving at 7 o’clock in the morning, despite duties to work and care for children-to support two hands on the day his test had to begin. Activist Wes White was driving for two and a half hours from Salinas to be there.

After all this, Judge Brian Alvarez rejected the case. He found that the process was supposed to start by March 6 and the passing of that date would violate the right of two hands to a quick process. The supporters of two hands filed from the courtroom and filled the corridor, applauded until the bailiff asked them to keep it.

“I am really shocked by how much money and resources they put into this,” said lawyer Des Martinez, who recently helped two hands to enter a shelter. “There was so much money used in this to make sense because they did not want to lose a case. It just worries me that they used this (many resources) and finance to punish Wickey instead of doing what I did: to sit down and talk to him, to find out why he didn’t want to go inside.”

Initially, the trial was due to start on February 20, but the city demanded a delay provided by Judge Carlos Cabrera. Judge Alvarez does not seem to agree with this decision.

The city accused the team of two hands for the case being thrown away. The request for the defense of the defense forced the city to review a rich amount of documents, which took extra time, said Deputy City Prosecutor Daniel Sassos before the court. The city had also tried to prevent the case from going to the test by offering a two -handed deal with a legal basis, which said it would come with a shelter bed. Two hands refused, instead, they decided to try to clear his name through a test.

“The city’s position is to continue to offer agreements on the legal basis of the defendants who accept housing and services offered by the city,” the City Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement by email from NOEMI Schwartz. “It is a pity that this defendant refused the services and dwellings offered by City in a congregated shelter at Travel Inn and will probably be back on the street without shelter and help.”

New Fresh Camping Ordinance came into force In September, which makes a violation to sit, lie, sleep or camp in public. But most arrested are not persecuted and even less close to the trial. Freshno police have committed 322 arrests under this Ordinance from October 2024 to January 2025. During this time, the City Prosecutor’s Office has indicted only 132 cases of camping. The defendant failed to appear in court by more than half of the cases on which he was charged. Just one more case, in addition to two hands, was referred to as a directed test.

This is a similar situation in other cities, from the bay area to South California. Police in Los Angeles carried out 238 arrests at a campsite last year, and the city prosecutor’s office declined to charge two -thirds of these cases. In San Francisco, nearly four of five illegal accommodation arrests made since August 2024 have not led to charges, according to San Francisco ChronicleS

“Cities and district attorneys are not interested in pursuing cases because they know they do not have enough space in prison and prisons to make everyone who are experiencing homelessness,” Hochbaum said. And they know that the slap of someone with a fine will not prevent them from sleeping outside, he said.

Instead, he said, many cities use the threat of arrest to force people to move when they want to clear a camp.

So far, two hands are sleeping after five years on the street. Martinez said she had received a 90-day stay in a shelter in the city-without assistance from the City Prosecutor’s Office.

“(This is) a pretty good day in my life,” said two hands outside the Court of Justice after his case was rejected. “The 77 seasons I’ve been here, you know, I think I deserve it.”

As two hands hesitated to accept a shelter bed at the beginning, Martinez said, after spending months talking to him, getting to know him and appearing on his side at the court’s dates, she won his confidence. She promised to continue fighting to get two hands into a permanent home, sign him for social security, help him gain access to healthcare and get him everything else he needs.

“Not that he wants to stay out,” Martinez said. “He’s tired. He doesn’t want to die on the sidewalk. He didn’t want something to be given and to be taken away.”

Fresno has not yet tried everyone to sleep outside, but that can change. Little is another person who has not been arrested for camping – and plans to bring this case to court.

“I hope the message the city receives,” Little said, “is to leave the inaccurate alone.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.