What first began as a completely impossible uphill battle against the system is starting to come around for this untrained amateur attorney taking on the State of New Hampshire. Facing 6 felony counts and up to 30 years in prison, I fought back against a lying county attorney, a disorganized drug task force and a judge that gave the prosecutor far more credit than me.
Since the Motion to Dismiss and the resulting hearing on that motion, so much happened that changed the whole landscape of the case. I lost the motion to dismiss (I will be filing a motion to reconsider soon), but it appears there was a mistake on my part in explaining the facts. I put a sentence in an important pleading that insinuated the first cold text from Drug Task Force Officers came the night they first saw me on the side of the road. The reality was that text came weeks later, not the same night these guys saw me stuck in a snowbank.
At any rate, I won a motion to suppress by submission. The County Attorney admitted with no argument that I never had my rights read to me and that he did not intend to use anything from the day of my arrest as evidence. So he tapped out on that one. I also filed a Motion to Recuse, which was summarily denied, but that will actually work out in my favor.
Next, I filed a motion to compel discovery. I wanted the policies, procedures and training materials regarding the targeting of controlled buy subjects by the Drug Task Force. I also wanted the same materials regarding avoiding entrapment. I have to give all the credit to my standby counsel for suggesting that I ask specifically for "policies and procedures."
It just so happened there was a disastrous raid organized by the state Drug Task Force around 7 years ago that left a police chief dead and a number of other officers wounded. The aftermath of that raid featured a review board put together to examine what went wrong.
The review committee determined that the DTF “is significantly lacking” in proper policies and procedures pertaining to their daily operations, while also lacking proper equipment and tactical training for officers to do their jobs. Further, the review committee concluded, “clear, written policies” are absent, leading to team members who “are granted license to develop their own methods of operation, which exposes the entire organization to unacceptable levels of inconsistency, and therefore risk and liability.”
I included this article in one of my pleadings after being told by the county attorney that he reached out to the DTF and found out they had no such policies and procedures. Well isn't that wonderful? So 7 years have gone by since this organization was first told to develop adequate policies and procedures, and they still have none regarding targeting people for controlled buys and avoiding entrapment? Sounds like a recipe for more than a few lawsuits.
So the bottom line is even when people die and get seriously injured due to this unit's disorganization and lack of training, the state's drug task force can't really figure out how to change for the better. They are still making the same mistakes. Still suffering from the same symptoms of failing leadership.
The motion to compel isn't in the decided column yet, but it should be very soon.
Next came one of the most pathetic flurry of motions I've ever seen. The county attorney sought to exclude: all communications between himself and I; all mention of a prior DTF case where he represented the Town of Gilford as a co-defendant with the DTF; all mention of the raid described above and the resulting review of the DTF; and all mention of the government leaks which compromised the investigation from the jump.
He even sought a motion to continue the trial because his main witness needed more time for paternity leave.
What this attorney does not realize is that it doesn't really matter when this trial is. He's followed a pattern I actually predicted he would follow. Everyone I ever investigated who got caught in lies and cover ups did the same thing. Character is consistent across the board when it comes to attorneys like Livernois. All of them tend to fight too hard for all the wrong reasons when they get cases that have serious weaknesses. I've painted him into a corner on purpose, and he'll destroy himself fighting his way out of it. Since he knows he has no shot at getting a guilty plea out of a jury if they hear all the facts, he's going to try to exclude all the ones that make him look bad. It's just the kind of thing attorneys do that make people hate all attorneys equally.
He'll hang on the "I'm just doing my job" excuse but step all over the honest application of the law while doing it.
I came into this process spitting mad and trying to explain my whole case at the arraignment. Since then I made quite a few adjustments to my attitude and my approach. I'm ready to empanel a jury and move forward, but the prosecutor is now trying to delay things and hide the truth.
I'm the last person anyone should try to hide the truth from. I know just where to find it. I know from experience that the truth always shines through in the end. I'll continue to fight to expose the truth while they perpetrate their lies, and we'll let a jury decide. Stay tuned.
Since the Motion to Dismiss and the resulting hearing on that motion, so much happened that changed the whole landscape of the case. I lost the motion to dismiss (I will be filing a motion to reconsider soon), but it appears there was a mistake on my part in explaining the facts. I put a sentence in an important pleading that insinuated the first cold text from Drug Task Force Officers came the night they first saw me on the side of the road. The reality was that text came weeks later, not the same night these guys saw me stuck in a snowbank.
At any rate, I won a motion to suppress by submission. The County Attorney admitted with no argument that I never had my rights read to me and that he did not intend to use anything from the day of my arrest as evidence. So he tapped out on that one. I also filed a Motion to Recuse, which was summarily denied, but that will actually work out in my favor.
Next, I filed a motion to compel discovery. I wanted the policies, procedures and training materials regarding the targeting of controlled buy subjects by the Drug Task Force. I also wanted the same materials regarding avoiding entrapment. I have to give all the credit to my standby counsel for suggesting that I ask specifically for "policies and procedures."
It just so happened there was a disastrous raid organized by the state Drug Task Force around 7 years ago that left a police chief dead and a number of other officers wounded. The aftermath of that raid featured a review board put together to examine what went wrong.
The review committee determined that the DTF “is significantly lacking” in proper policies and procedures pertaining to their daily operations, while also lacking proper equipment and tactical training for officers to do their jobs. Further, the review committee concluded, “clear, written policies” are absent, leading to team members who “are granted license to develop their own methods of operation, which exposes the entire organization to unacceptable levels of inconsistency, and therefore risk and liability.”
I included this article in one of my pleadings after being told by the county attorney that he reached out to the DTF and found out they had no such policies and procedures. Well isn't that wonderful? So 7 years have gone by since this organization was first told to develop adequate policies and procedures, and they still have none regarding targeting people for controlled buys and avoiding entrapment? Sounds like a recipe for more than a few lawsuits.
So the bottom line is even when people die and get seriously injured due to this unit's disorganization and lack of training, the state's drug task force can't really figure out how to change for the better. They are still making the same mistakes. Still suffering from the same symptoms of failing leadership.
The motion to compel isn't in the decided column yet, but it should be very soon.
Next came one of the most pathetic flurry of motions I've ever seen. The county attorney sought to exclude: all communications between himself and I; all mention of a prior DTF case where he represented the Town of Gilford as a co-defendant with the DTF; all mention of the raid described above and the resulting review of the DTF; and all mention of the government leaks which compromised the investigation from the jump.
He even sought a motion to continue the trial because his main witness needed more time for paternity leave.
What this attorney does not realize is that it doesn't really matter when this trial is. He's followed a pattern I actually predicted he would follow. Everyone I ever investigated who got caught in lies and cover ups did the same thing. Character is consistent across the board when it comes to attorneys like Livernois. All of them tend to fight too hard for all the wrong reasons when they get cases that have serious weaknesses. I've painted him into a corner on purpose, and he'll destroy himself fighting his way out of it. Since he knows he has no shot at getting a guilty plea out of a jury if they hear all the facts, he's going to try to exclude all the ones that make him look bad. It's just the kind of thing attorneys do that make people hate all attorneys equally.
He'll hang on the "I'm just doing my job" excuse but step all over the honest application of the law while doing it.
I came into this process spitting mad and trying to explain my whole case at the arraignment. Since then I made quite a few adjustments to my attitude and my approach. I'm ready to empanel a jury and move forward, but the prosecutor is now trying to delay things and hide the truth.
I'm the last person anyone should try to hide the truth from. I know just where to find it. I know from experience that the truth always shines through in the end. I'll continue to fight to expose the truth while they perpetrate their lies, and we'll let a jury decide. Stay tuned.
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