Does the sixth amendment entitle me to know who called the county on me for a code violation? Is my accuser the person who petitioned the county to investigate a code violation?
The Sixth Amendment states that &quot;In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy... the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him&quot;. You are not being criminally prosecuted, so the Sixth Amendment simply does not apply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confrontation_Clause
The potential problem is if there is a form which you had to sign which says "I am a US citizen", and you signed the form (who reads the fine print, anyhow?). Unfortunately, that statement is false, and there are consequences for making a false statement. However, that law penalizes false statements with the intent to deceive, not mistaken statements. Nevertheless, this is a matter that a professional really needs to deal with. If there was no form and they didn't verbally ask you to assert that you are a citizen, then there is less of a problem (for you), but still one needs to be extremely cautious in dealing with the court. [Addendum] It is highly likely that the form contained wording like "swear" or "certify" and mentions "perjury", so the error would be in the ballpark of perjury. Perjury is making "a false statement under oath or swears to the truth of a false statement previously made and the statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath". Aggravated perjury is perjury which "is made during or in connection with an official proceeding and is material". The term "material" means "matters; is not inconsequential". The consequence of a non-citizen improperly serving on a jury is that a mistrial has occurred, which is not inconsequential. Aggravated felony is a third degree felony. The penal code says that An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years. (b) In addition to imprisonment, an individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree may be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000. I must emphasize that an essential element is "intent to deceive and with knowledge of the statement's meaning", an element that cannot be present if there is no awareness of such a statement. Thus an innocent mistake could be legally excused. When you become aware that a statement made under oath was false (assuming such a statement was made), then in maintaining the falsehood, that would be intentional deceit. This is why it is necessary to consult with a lawyer. On the Houston form, you would have to check the "are a US citizen" box. The Fort Bend county form has you certify and sign on the front page: it does not require you to certify that you are a US citizen, only to certify (and sign) if you are not – so if you failed to read the back side, that isn't a literally false statement. I can't locate an online form for Tarrant county, so dunno if that out is available.
It is the job of the judge to instruct the jury about the law. If Texas had pattern instructions I'd look up what the instruction is for this matter, but you don't, so I don't know what the judge would say. But it is the judge's sole prerogative to instruct the jury in the law. If the question is a "commitment question", then it is an improper question and should be disallowed, see Stendefer v. State. The question "Would you presume someone guilty if he or she refused a breath test on their refusal alone?" is such a commitment question, and is disallowed. Similarly, "If the evidence, in a hypothetical case, showed that a person was arrested and they had a crack pipe in their pocket, and they had a residue amount in it, and it could be measured, and it could be seen, is there anyone who could not convict a person, based on that" (Atkins v. State, 951 S.W.2d 787). An improper commitment question could be of the type "could you refrain...": Let us assume that you are considering in the penalty phase of any capital murder case, okay? And some of the evidence that has come in shows that the victim's family was greatly impacted and terribly grieved and greatly harmed by the facts․Can you assure us that the knowledge of those facts would not prevent you or substantially impair you in considering a life sentence in such a case (Penry v. State, 903 S.W.2d 715). One way in which a commitment question can be legal is if it asks basically "can you uphold the law?", for example "can you consider probation in a murder case?", or "are you willing to consider mitigating circumstances". The wrong answer to those questions will lead to a for-cause dismissal. The third question is flagrantly improper, the first is rather improper, and the second probably is. If the question can be framed in terms of a candidate's willingness to follow the law, then it should be legal.
You can report that said clerk to the Monitoring Information System called SIWASMARI. Please don't bribe them as you will not change our criminal justice system. You can also send some mail to the Monitoring Court Body located in Kepala Badan Pengawasan MA RI Jl. Jend. Ahmad Yani Kav. 58 By Pass Cempaka Putih Timur Jakarta Pusat – 13011 You have to be active and keep contacting the clerk. Tell them that you will report them to the Monitoring Court Body.
I don't know of any law requiring schools to proactively disclose the results of these sweeps, but if you asked for them, the Michigan Freedom of Information Act would likely require both the police and the school to release records that would give you an accurate picture of what happened. At the very least, I would expect the police department to write up the results of its sweeps in a report to send up the chain of command. I would also expect that those results would be communicated in writing to the school district. The police should also maintain a log of all property they have seized; if they seized anything from the school, it should show up there, as well.
The location of your residence entrance is irrelevant for the law, what matters most is your "street address", i.e. mailing address. That is the address (therefore city) that you use for voter registration, and basically how you identify "where I live". If you lives 5 miles out in the country in an unincorporated area, you'd still use Needles (e.g.) as you mailing address: but you would not be able to vote for a mayor of Needles, just based on your mailing address. Both municipalities might claim jurisdiction based on the physical location of the property, especially for matters of building code. It should not be possible for both municipalities to tax the full value of your property, but they could split the assessment proportionally. The cities themselves are not collecting the tax, the county is (though property straddling a county line raises an interesting question).
No, you are not obligated to provide the requested information. You're out of trial court and into the court of appeals, where the civil discovery rules have basically no effect. If the case gets kicked back to the trial court, you would likely be required to respond truthfully. To cover your bases and look responsible, the most proper thing to do would probably be to respond to the discovery requests, but answer with nothing but an objection to the requests on the basis that the Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply after the case has been dismissed. At that point, the burden is on the other party to make a motion to compel, which he probably won't do. And if he does, I'd expect the court to deny it summarily based on the dismissal.
This is pretty solid fair use territory. The court will consider how much you copied and whether you needed to, but I don't think they'd think you crossed the line with these facts. Even if they did, that's just one of four factors, and the others generally work in your favor. For a similar case in a New Hampshire governor's race, check out Keep Thomson Governor Comm. v. Citizens for Gallen Comm., 457 F.Supp. 957 (D. N.H., 1978).