07/03/2015
As a landscape photographer I tend to expect a bit of leniency when walking past vehicle gates, especially when I'm carrying a large tripod and camera, it's clearly obvious what I'm doing.
As a taxpayer, I would expect a Orange County Sheriff's Department, CA Deputy to hold a landowner ( Rancho Mission Viejo ) to the same letter of the law I'm being subjected to.
As you can plainly see there is no properly posted signage at this gate, (and a very well worn path around the edge of the gate), so by the definition of the law (cpc 602.8) and at the time of the infraction, I was not in violation of any law. There is a sign hanging there, but rarely is it in a position to be legible, so I will have to also subpoena all the constructions workers that used that gate on the day of infraction, so they can state whether it was properly positioned. I have pictures of multiple days where either the backside of the sign is showing or it's flipped over the back of the fence. Now that I'm looking it rarely is posted properly.
I have utmost respect for the job that law enforcement officers do, so when I was walking back to my car and saw the officer I came right up to him and explained I was taking pictures of the moonrise (pointing east to the full moon) and wanted to get a better shot of the sunset, so I told him, instead of walking up the embankment and damaging the ground cover I walked around the edge of the vehicle gate to get above the street lights. It must have been him looking at my record and seeing only a traffic violation in the past 20 years, that he felt he needed to teach me a lesson... He's taught me lessons in trespassing law, which clearly I was not violating.
Which brings to the point of a taxpayer, the citing deputy spent about an hour on site, his partner in a second patrol car spent nearly 40 minutes on scene while I was being detained. Now we add the cost of me going to court, to hopefully get it dismissed, if not then pleading not guilty, then having to come back for a second court date, and subpoena both of the deputies for that date. Then of course I will have to take Rancho Mission Viejo to small claims court to recoup for expense and time lost fighting the improper detainment and citation. How much will this overzealous Deputy end up costing the taxpayers?
And the absurdities continue, I have to post the entire amount of bail ($400) first, then prove my innocence, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Because this pay first scenario states I'm guilty until I prove my innocence...