Mar 04, 2014 9:05 AM

The Nanaimo Three - Political Prisoners in Canada The latest update on Dave Lange, Dave Smith and Andrew Simpson, looks like they cut some kind of deal, i guess they ran out of ideas or thoughts on the case and/or just got scared ? i dunno.... Postby Burnaby49 � Tue Mar 04, 2014 6:44 am So, on to my day in court. I was there at 9:30 prior to our heroes being escorted into the courtroom. When they came in Lange was in a red prison jumpsuit and Smith in the suit he was wearing when he was tossed into the pit Friday afternoon. Smith gave his magic incantation as he crossed through the remand doorway into the court then gave me a cheery wave before sitting down. The first thing Crown counsel did was inform the court that Lange wanted to talk to the duty counsel, essentially legal aid. However issues over that. If he'd had the sense to want duty counsel assistance last Friday there would have been no problem. An astute young lawyer was right there in our court ready and willing to take on the job. But today there were difficulties, it was List Day. That was a new term to me, turned out to be the processing of all the miscreants arrested over the weekend and now facing a judge on Monday morning. Duty counsel had to be there to help represent them. Since Lange was a "regular" prisoner being held during the term of a trial he was at the end of the line behind the List Day mob so our trial would have to wait for his services unless the judge ordered a priority in which case duty counsel would dump the List Day riff-raff and hurry on over.

Judge asked the Crown what they wanted to do. Crown counsel said she had a non-controversial initial witness who could be put on while waiting for the duty counsel. The two Daves were good with it so we got at least one witness in before their capitulation.

The Crown started by recapping events leading to arrest. Our heroes trying to enter the courts in November and December 2012 under the guise of being Peace Officers and their attempts to get a metal shop to make them a bunch of phony Peace Officer's badges.

Then it was time for the witness, a woman from Victoria who was a supervisor in the Victoria court Sheriff service. (A note here - I copied her name down when she said it on the stand but wasn't sure if I got it right so I quizzed her in the lobby after testimony. However for some reason she refused to give it to a scruffy old stranger badgering her for personal information at a high security trial with a bunch of defendants known for harassing court officials. After thinking it over I realized she had a point, her name is irrelevant to the accurate recording of events so I'll leave it out). She was just proving some documents. All she did was hand over documents into evidence after identifying them as documents given to her by her staff after having received them from the defendants in November and December 2012. I think they were the fake Peace Officer certificates purportedly notarized by the Chief. Lange cross examined her first. Just asked her if she had personally seen him serving the documents on the Sheriffs. Not in November but in the December incident she was present and saw him pressing the documents on the Sheriffs. Then Smith's turn and he went Full Freeman right out the gate;

Smith - Do you work for the province of British Columbia? Witness - Yes. Smith - Are you aware that the province of British Columbia is a bankrupt corporation? Witness - Huh? Don't understand what you are talking about. Smith - Are you aware that the Province of British Columbia is a bankrupt corporation owned by (I think he said) the American government or treasury?

The witness was apparently confused as to what this had to do with some documents she'd entered into evidence. Judge told her to just answer yes or no to the question whether she worked for a corporation. So, no. I work for the province of British Columbia. Then Smith asked (I think, poor audio) if she had to follow corporate policies. Judge - answer yes, no, or I don't know.

Smith - When you were made a sheriff did you take a statutory oath to the corporation of British Columbia? Witness - I took an oath for the province of British Columbia Smith - Are you sure? Witness - Yes.

After this nonsense was done duty counsel still MIA. Crown counsel said that the next witness was an RCMP officer specializing in Freemen who would give factual evidence about events so it might be a good idea to have a lawyer for Lange if he planned to continue with counsel. So at 10:30 Court adjourned until they could round up duty counsel. At that point I assumed that Lange was bailing and wanted a lawyer to help negotiate a deal. Since his "Special appearance" bullshit on Friday, far from being a magic pass out of trouble, had resulted in the judge ordering a week in jail I thought that maybe Lange was reconsidering. Maybe his wife had talked some sense into him on the weekend. Just guesses on my part.

I hung around in the lobby and chatted with the 77 year old commissionaire at the information desk about the trial and he asked who the judge was. I said I didn't know so he pulled out the list to look it up. This was when I found out why I couldn't locate the courtroom on Friday. While this was not an in camera hearing it was apparently a super-secret unlisted hearing not on the daily docket. Even the registrar didn't have it. I was just lucky I'd seen Smith wandering by.

At noon we were told to come back at 2:00. Something was obviously up. Back at two but we just sat around in the courtroom until three with no defendants or judge. When duty counsel showed up and our two boys were brought in the duty counsel conferred with both of them so it looked like Smith was onboard for representation too. Turned out they had both cut a deal with the Crown during the break and were changing their pleas to guilty. Duty Counsel said he had reviewed it, seemed ok to him, and then he hurried off to be with his first love, List Day. Crown said that they had made identical plea bargain agreements and the terms were;

1 - All charges except impersonating Peace Officers dropped. They were to plead guilty to that.

2 - Each defendant to get 21 day jail term. Smith off on time already served. Lange 8 days short.

3 - Twelve Months unsupervised probation. Agreed terms of probation were; - No contact or communication with any other member of the Fabulous Fighting Five Freemen. - No contact or communication with the person who signed the Peace Officer's Oath as a claimed notary (hi Chief!) - Keep the peace (A loaded term!) and be of good behavior during term of probation - Not possess badges, cards, letters or certificates that might give them the appearance of being Peace Officers - not attend any court sessions except their own. If they were involved in any court sessions they were to identify themselves properly and conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to the courts. Crown counsel said they put this provision in because of Smith's Friday hissy-fit.

Judge was willing to accept the agreement and asked both defendants if they agreed to these terms. Yes except for a slight quibble by both. They were fine with the no-contact with the Chief, Ream, Simpson and Valliant but wanted to be able to associate with each other. Apparently they worked together from time to time in the plumbing/heating business and wanted to continue. Crown agreed. Judge then asked Crown if a fine would be preferable to the eight days to be served by Lange. Crown didn't seem happy with idea but it didn't matter because when the judge offered Lange the choice of jail or a $1,500 fine he picked jail. Since Lange worked, or was trying to get work, judge allowed sentence to be served on weekends. Judge also waived Victim Surcharge fine. When all this done judge asked our defendants once again if the agreed to the deal. Yes. Did they have anything to say before final sentencing. No.

When he read out the terms he phrased the no contact with the Chief as "no contact or communication, directly or indirectly, with the individual purportedly a 'notary' going under the names of Sino General and/or Chief Rock and/or Hajistahenhway." Judge had problems with the pronunciation of Hajistahenhway. Crown counsel of no help with that one. So we finally got down to business at three and everything concluded by four. As a result I was saved from viewing a parade of witnesses droning on for the rest of the week. Works for me. As always, I forgot to mention something. Probably a couple more of these to come yet. Crown Counsel gave a short song and dance at sentencing about why our felonious freemen should get the book thrown at them (21 times greater jail sentence than Simpson!). They brought up the fact that the "Fighting For Us All" Freeman Five (I'm being generous here on my interpretation of the Crown's position on their capabilities) seemed to be somewhat more or less organized and with the apparent ability to occasionally actually act in concert. A somewhat unique event in Canadian Freemanistan considering that most of them seem incapable of organizing a one-man pub crawl. I'll go out on a limb and say that I think if I gave Menard $50 he could handle at least that.

One piece of evidence that the Crown gave as proof of their professional expertise in being able to act together as an organized team in pursuit of a common goal was the series of videos that Mowe linked to and now, sadly, deleted. You remember; the ones taken in happier, more optimistic times, when they showed the world graphic proof that they could all get into one vehicle together and drive to a location entirely different than the one the video started at. No wonder the Crown fears their latent capabilities!