amishfighterpilot:

tilthat:

TIL the city of Dallas, Texas has lost every single one of 82 court cases against the same man, Robert Groden, over several decades.

via ift.tt

Groden sells books, magazines and videos on weekends from a folding table on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza downtown, where President John F. Kennedy was murdered on Nov. 22, 1963. The city has engaged in a decades long war to make Groden go away, repeatedly ticketing and even jailing him.

Yesterday the city was kicked out of court for the same old reason: A municipal judge couldn’t find a municipal law that Groden had broken.

Last April 22, a Friday, when a city code inspector and a cop showed up at Groden’s table, Groden was there with his assistant Marshal Evans. The code inspector and the cop ticketed Evans for erecting an illegal sign.

But — surprise, surprise! — the sign wasn’t illegal. Groden’s attorney Bradley Kizzia explained to me that the ordinance under which the code inspector ticketed Evans didn’t cover temporary banners. Hence, when the ticket finally arrived on the bench of a municipal judge this week, the judge kicked it out of court, saying he had no jurisdiction.

This is the Groden story over and over again. They have ticketed him for selling books and magazines without a license, even though the city ordinance says you don’t have to have a license to sell books and magazines.

They ticketed him once for selling in a park, even though Dealey Plaza isn’t a park. They ticketed him for not having a permit to do what he was doing, even though they don’t issue permits for what he was doing.

Every time — 82 times — the city gets to court and a judge tells them that he or she cannot try Groden for doing something that is not against the law. So they do it again.