Plaintiffs' Memorandum Continued



ii) SIGNS

Mr. Myers and his subordinates should have known about the First Amendment, because it is well established.

Mr. Myers' letter gives no indication that Thomas' signs violated the size requirements by even one millimeter. The sole reason Mr. Myers offers for his belief that Thomas' signs "do not comply with the regulations" is, "it appears that (Thomas had) constructed a raised platform that is at least six inches off the ground." However,

"an interpretive rule explains an existing requirement, it does
not impose an 'additional' one." Picciotto, at 348.

If the regulation were intended to prohibit the base of a sign from being "raised off the ground," it must say that.

Analogously, the sign regulation cannot specify how high the "base" may, or may not, be "raised above the ground," because it neither mentions any of those words, nor makes any attempt to define a specific configuration to which sign braces must conform. If the regulation had been intended to limit design of sign support systems it needs to say that. It doesn't.

Lacking any articulated REASONABLE time, place and manner


[32 Nor does the regulation forbid people from sitting on sign bases. Nor does Mr. Myers explain why he feels the signs which he finds offensive are any less, or not more, aesthetically pleasing than the signs of which he approves.]

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restrictions, it could seem that defendants may be trying to win the Court over to the dangerous, and therefore impermissible, idea that an agency may interpret its regulations without regard to any

"satisfactory explanation for its action including a 'rational connection
between the facts found and the choice made'." Burlington Truck Lines,
Inc. v. United State, 371 U.S. 156, 168.

If Mr. Myers only "believes" that the sign "failed to conform," this "belief" is not sufficient to qualify as "well established" law required to maintain a claim of official immunity, nor to support a reasonable inference that Mr. Meyers' subordinates "knew" the sign was illegal. See, United States v. Daily, 756 F.2d 1076, 1083-84.

Aside from the signs and flags, however, there is also the "camping" issue. If only because Mr. Myers' letter doesn't mention "camping," this is where Mr. Robbins comes back in.

b. VIOLATIONS OF "CLEARLY ESTABLISHED" RIGHTS

If Mr. Myers' letter indicates anything, it indicates Mr. Robbins is supposed to be responsible, that he knew what was going on, but didn't bother to do anything about it until it was too late, and he had gotten hauled into court.

Defendants do not contest Mr. Robbins' "official capacity," or attempt to show Mr. Robbins exercised his "official" responsibility to insure regulations were not being enforced to abridge plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Defts' Reply, pg. 4. Yet they incorrectly insist,

"Plaintiffs continue to harp on the fact that Mr. Thomas

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complained to Mr. Robbins that Park Police officers told Mr. Thomas
that his signs did not comply with applicable regulations and 'threatened'
to enforce those regulations." Id. 5.

Defendants are slightly mistaken; actually what plaintiffs are harping on is an "affirmative plan or policy ... showing (defendants') authorization or approval of such conduct." Rizzo v. Goode, 432 U.S. 362 (1976) (parentheses substituting). [33]

The complaint alleges that Marcelino Corneil was kicked and jabbed by Officer O'Neill, under color of the camping regulation.

Plaintiffs allege that Officer O'Neill assaulted Marcelino shortly before Marcelino was shot to death. First and Second Declarations of Wade Varner. The Government simply claims,

"demonstrators who Park Officers believe are violating
the camping regulation have been awakened." Opp. TRO
pg. 4, 5.

Maybe Officer O'Neill believes in his heart that he was right, perhaps he honestly thinks he was "doing little more than ... attempt(ing) to enforce the regulations." Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, pg. 1. Nonetheless, assaulting people is still wrong under any law. [34]


[33 It should be recalled that defendants fail to address the 42 USC 1986 allegations in relation to Mr. Robbins' inaction.]

[34 Marcelino was wrong, individually, for chasing Officer O'Neill with a knife, but Officer O'Neill's abuse of police force prefaced Marcelino's wild charge. The second wrong doesn't justify the first.]


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20." Proposed Order to Dismiss as Frivolous, page 8.

Even assuming that Mr. Corneil was actually violating the camping regulation, if the evidence presented at trial establishes that Officer O'Neill kicked and struck Mr. Corneil with a police baton, unless Mr. Robbins, or some other authority, can come up with an official policy to justify kicking and striking Mr. Corneil, it would seem Officer O'Neill ignored due process and committed the criminal act of assault.

Officer O'Neill was able to act as prosecutor, judge, jury, and corporal punisher, which proximately led to an opening for Officer X to play executioner. Officer O'Neill, for whatever reasons, created a little incident with fatal consequences that escalated into the instant "federal test case."

On the other hand, defendants have slid around this issue:


[35 "(T)he government's camping regulation also allows for 'sleeping activities' that are not deemed to constitute use of the area for living accommodation. () According to the Park Service's interpretation of the new regulations, one's participation in a demonstration as a sleeper becomes impermissible 'camping' when it is done within any temporary structure erected as part of the demonstration." Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt, 503 F.2d 587, 589. Motion to Recuse (December 27, 1994), pg. 3, ftn. 2.

"[N]o one of the exemplary indicia (for example, 'sleeping activities') can be considered in isolation, either from the others or from the actual circumstances in which the activity is conducted." United States v. Thomas & Thomas, 864 F.2d at 196 (parentheses in original).]

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that camping is not allowed." See 36 C.F.R. § 7.96(i). [36]

As Thomas noted after AUSA Rider made imprecise blanket reference to "'sleeping' and 'camping'," by virtue of his expertise, and official relationship to the Park Police, Mr. Robbins is the best person to explain if "sleeping" was indeed "well established" as "using the area for living accommodations." Mr. Robbins would also know if Park Police "camping" enforcement policy authorized Officer O'Neill to assault Mr. Corneil. See, Second Declaration of Wade Varner, para. 16.

Particularly in places where defendants are forced to rely on so many "IF's" (e.g., Motion to Dismiss, Memo (January 11, 1994, pg. 8), Mr. Robbins is the man to see. He's the one who wrote the regulation, [37] and he's the man who knows about the "well-established" nature of Agency Enforcement Policy. Lacking, as we presently do, any clearly articulated Government policy to condone his assaultive tactics, unless this complaint and (in Marcelino's case) human life are frivolous, some questions deserve sober thought. [38]

"Inquiry into subjective intent unrelated to knowledge of


[36 Mr. Myers' letter doesn't even mention "camping," so defendants can't even begin to pretend that the letter might substitute for testimony and cross examination. ]

[37 Federal Register, Vol. 47 No. 108, pg. 24299, 2nd col., June 4, 1992, 3rd col, last sentence.]

[38 True, plaintiffs had made similar claims of abusive enforcement practices in the past (e.g., Exhibit 6, pg. 42), but the factual aspects of those claims still remain unresolved, and it is precisely those unresolved questions that permitted Officer O'Neill to mistakenly believe he could kick somebody if he thought the person might be "camping." ]


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the law is permissible where the constitutional violation
turns on an unconstitutional motive." Siegert v. Gilley,
895 F.2d 797, 802 (D.C. Cir, 1990).

Hardly anybody would believe defendants didn't know that police officers are not vested with the "discretionary function" of administering corporal punishment to persons suspected of violating a petty regulation, or that a reasonable person would not recognize a vigil, signs and flags as "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow supra.

Defendants' immunity claims lack a plausible explanation for why defendants pursued a pattern of violating plaintiffs' well- established, though modest, constitutional rights.

Mr. Robbins knew the "camping regulation" was "intended not to stifle First Amendment expression" (Federal Register, Vol.47, No. 108, 24299, 24301, June 4, 1982), so one might easily infer defendants knew the application of the "camping regulation" against their "continuous vigil" would be

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unconstitutional. [39]

The "camping regulation" allegedly utilized by Officer O'Neill to torment Marcelino Corneil, is the very same "camping regulation" [40] which plaintiffs claim Park Police officers have regularly used as a pretext to "awaken" people who aren't even asleep. Second Declaration of Wade Varner, paras. 6 & 10; Second Declaration of Concepcion Picciotto (February 24, 1995); (First) Declaration of Ellen Thomas (December 22, 1994). [41]

It should be considered that, even though plaintiffs do


[39 With all due respect, it should also be noted that before it became "well established," our Circuit Court repeatedly called the camping regulation "bad law." Community for Creative Non- Violence v. Watt, 730 F.2d 600, 605 J. Ginsburg, J. Edwards' concurring, id., 601; J. Mikva, concurring separately. ]

[40 Defendants incorrectly represent, "Mr. Corneil is not a plaintiff and the plaintiffs obviously have no standing to raise a claim relating to Mr. Corneil." Deft's Reply pg. 10. Plaintiffs do not attempt to make claims on behalf of Mr. Corneil. Plaintiffs merely assert that the harassment of Mr. Corneil prior to his death is routine, albeit impermissible, police policy, and it is the same type of harassment, at the hands of the same agents, to which plaintiffs, similarly situated to Mr. Corneil, are routinely subjected. That Mr. Corneil erupted and died as a result of this incident of police abuse, is of proximate concern to plaintiffs. Supra, ftn. 39. ]

[41 Even more coincidentally this is the very same "camping regulation" Magistrate Burnett identified as the one plaintiffs claimed various officers had used as a pretext for assaulting them. Motion to Recuse (January 9, 1995), Exhibit 3, pgs. 9, 10. As if that weren't coincidental enough, the "Officer Haines" accused of using the same regulation as a pretext for assaulting plaintiffs on a separate occasion (id. pgs. 11, 12), is the same Officer Haines pointedly criticized by Judge Green in reference to the same "camping regulation." Exhibit 3, hereto, pg. "1021."

If that's not sufficiently coincidental, it also happens that Mr. Robbins was in the same supervisory capacity throughout.]

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not challenge the validity of the "camping" regulation, respected authorities have raised significant factual and practical questions pertaining to the wisdom of the rule.

In sum, plaintiffs complain defendants are making up the "law" and/or enforcing it unkindly at whim. As stare decisis shows (supra), this claim is a malingering one. Once again, defendants urge the Court to ignore the obvious, downplay the more lethal aspects of the complaint, and merely trust, without examining any facts, that they are just "doing little more than attempting to enforce the regulations..

In haggling over piddling distinctions between "permissible sleep" v. "impermissible sleep," whether or not a flag may or may not be attached to a sign, or whether or not the base of a sign may or may not be raised 12 inches off the ground we are reminded of Judge Bryant's observation, this is "a piddling case, but really it is a bedeviling case." Exhibit 1, pg. 4.

The bedeviling fact is that the rule of law is at stake.

CONCLUSION

Plaintiffs feel there is little purpose in expending further time or paper in discussion of these most basic of issues.

Having held this complaint is "not frivolous," if the Court is nonetheless of the opinion that plaintiffs are not entitled to a hearing on their complaint, please let us have that decision so this case may either proceed within the traditional channels, or

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seek another, perhaps more technologically adept (hence "civilized"?) truth-seeking forum.

Respectfully submitted this ____ day of March, 1995,

______________________
William Thomas
2817 11th Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

202-462-0757

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