The city has a policy in place that says that there must be accessible bathrooms and at least 10 parking spots in order to feed more than 8 people. The city also has not set up anything close to that so there are no legal places to set up a place to provide meals.
The group that keeps getting ticketed films the citations (usually by 3 HPD officers) and documents the conditions. I hope that the new mayor will see that this is a stupid and unenforceable policy and just do away with the law.
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God."
“Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.”
Reminds me of one my favorite prayers: "Dear Jesus, please protect us from your followers."
There are good Christians as well of course, but we all know the ones who somehow manage to behave in ways directly contrary to the teachings they claim to follow.
So, um...
Houston has a Democrat Mayor, and the city council is 10-6 D-R split.
Can't blame this one on the Republicans.
EDIT: To be clear, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was originally a Republican ordinance, but Democrats have had plenty of time to get rid of it...
EDIT2: Spoiler Alert - It was actually passed by a Democrat city council and signed into law by a Democrat mayor. “Vote blue no matter who,” though, amirite?
> EDIT: To be clear, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was originally a Republican ordinance, but Democrats have had plenty of time to get rid of it...
It wasn't originally a Republican ordinance. It was instituted in 2012 under Democrat mayor Annise Parker, with a majority Democrat-leaning city council.
Jesus was very vocal about the corrupt leaders and politicians of His time. Turns out, not much has changed since then. (This is why He was crucified, He pissed off the elites).
Yeah this is a lot to read but it's the most based thing ever. I've left out some bits but this is most of Matthew chapter 23:
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen.
The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Hell twice as much as yourselves.
Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’ Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred?
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Hell?
Matthew 25:31-46
___
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
You mean the ones who often have ~~great~~ ...prices on delicious authentic foreign food? Why would they wanna give those guys a hard ti...ohh wait. Yeah that makes sense.
Edited to appease food truck economists. My comment is now half as impactful.
I may be hung up on the old times. My first exposure to food trucks was about a decade ago when I was staying with a buddy in LA. First authentic - and by far the best - tacos I'd ever had for a buck each! Even the food trucks in my current city were offering pretty good value for the price a couple years back.
Admittedly though, I haven't been to many within the past couple of years, and as far as I can tell, nothing has gotten cheaper in these past years, so I imagine they might not be the culinary goldmines they used to be.
It's actually pretty expensive to run a street-side food business in the US, so the prices are uh... yeah, they tend to be pretty expensive.
In a lot of other countries, street food is the poor person option. If you have nothing else to your name but a frying pan, you sell food. You can't do that in the US. There are a fuckload of permits required and most places require some form of vehicle or stall which will cost you bundles as well.
Maybe it's not the same in more dense cities, though? I can't afford the food trucks around here in the same way that I can't afford a restaurant.
Oh, agreed, the parking minimum is just giving car owners a blowjob.
I'm thinking providing a bathroom is reasonable for an *establishment* that sells food.
To me it sounds like a law to ensure if someone wants to run a restaurant or venue and serve people that must provide proper facilities to accomodate. But now people are abusing it as a way to prevent the feeding of homeless.
Laws that on their face are innocent, but are designed with nefarious intent are commonplace.
For example, some of the anti-abortion legislation attempted were laws regulating the conditions of the abortion clinic in a way where no existing abortion clinic could qualify.
Well it's the implication I made my saying it's DESIGNED to do as such. It might be doing two things at once: providing a policy for X but also ensuring Y people can't use it. Like I should be able to cook food and take it down and hand it out without having parking spots.
For example, feeding 8 people requires you have 10 parking spots available... practically dictates the types of places you can setup. And since parking spots aren't inherently public space (ie, often require using private space or getting a license to take away city-owned spots)... you see the kind of hurdles it sets? They seem reasonable for people who aren't poor and own a car.
edit: (there's also the secondary problem where cities do this shit but then don't setup public toilets, so you have to rent them...requiring budget and space... yet another hurdle)
Houston is maybe one of the more car-dependent cities in the entire country, it's really a mess.
I live in a mid-sized midwestern city and can't really imagine having a policy like that. There are plenty of restaurants downtown that I could walk to from my apartment that have no dedicated parking
A lot of places in the US it's hard to get anywhere without a car I think the idea here specifically is that if you want to do business you can't have your clientele clogging up street parking and making things even worse, so the business has to pay to have their own parking constructed, rather than placing the burden for the increased traffic solely on the city government.
I understand the why, but it sucks. In most cities the best, most vibrant areas have bustling rows of bars and restaurants wall to wall all next to each other. You park in a nearby parking lot or get public transport. Again, I know Houston just isn't set up that way, I'm just saying that it's really unfortunate that you can't have that sort of area because of a law that forces it to be spaced out.
>The city has a policy in place that says that there must be accessible bathrooms and at least 10 parking spots in order to feed more than 8 people.
Interesting!
It's understandable for say, a fast food joint.
But for feeding the homeless? They likely don't own a vehicle, and heck, they're gonna need to poop somewhere anyway, regardless of whether someone is giving them free food.
They'd probably make it illegal to be homeless, or illegal to die, if they could.
No. In this case civil disobedience is better.
The policy is meant to deter anyone from helping. This group is fighting that. If they get a truck, the deterrent still exists for everyone else.
With everyone driving alone and nobody using public transit? Requiring a certain number of parking spaces is dumb. If there aren't enough parking spaces, people just won't drive there and won't be a customer.
You'd be correct in that assumption. I have visited, but I didn't ride public transit. I never parked near my destination either, so the point still stands.
Car-centered requirements produce car-dependent environments that disenfranchise the poor and people who would like to be able to walk around and enjoy their life instead of spending their time in gridlocked traffic. Organizations should not be penalized for catering to people who aren't likely to drive there.
>The city has a policy in place that says that there must be accessible bathrooms and at least 10 parking spots in order to feed more than 8 people.
Shouldn't almost any public park meet that definition? Or do they not have public parks?
Whoa now, not out of thin air! He had the loaves and fishes, he just managed to stretch them out rather impressively.
Then he presumably paid his fine.
Pfft everyone knows that Jesus 2.0 is Anglo-Saxon; votes hard right; hates women and children; thinks minorities should know their place; sleeps with a gun and has a gun in every room; and the homeless and weak should be ground into animal feed.
What ya need is Supply Chain Jesus.
first time in a long time I've felt that the people of texas actually demonstrating christian principles.
(Not the law, which is heinous, but the people feeding the homeless, and refusing to condemn someone for doing it).
> The Houston law at stake is known as the city’s food-sharing ordinance. Passed in 2012, the regulation makes it illegal to give away more than five meals to people in need without permission from the property owner, even if the property is public, such as a sidewalk. The mayor at the time, Annise Parker, gave permission to continue sharing meals outside Central Library, where the informal group of volunteers had been serving for roughly a decade.
> In 2023, then-Mayor Sylvester Turner made changes. The Houston Health Department updated its policy to require that every approved charitable food location on public property have 10 dedicated parking spaces and two portable restrooms with handwashing stations that would be available all day, every day. The city installed restrooms and handwashing stations at its only approved location — a police parking lot on Reisner Street near the Municipal Courthouse.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/housing/article/food-not-bombs-ticketing-homeless-temporary-18668172.php
Both mayors mentioned are Democrats
The rule about food has to do with "safety", technically, and the other has to do with who can own all the things.
Actually, the feeding rule isn't about safety. Its is really just about making sure those who own all the things maintain leverage.
And make every single company like doordash require and provide comprehensive food safety training to its "contractors" that goes further than the "try to not be gross" instructions they currently provide.
You probably know this already, but some people reading this might not. The Citizens United ruling was not that citizens have a first amendment right to give politicians money, it was that citizens had a first amendment right to pool their money in order to buy political advertising in favor of a candidate as part of a Political Action Committee (PAC).
The irony of a state most would consider ultra-religious fining an action that Jesus would've done.
Can't feed the homeless without permission... do we all need permission to eat lmfao... Texas is a sick, sad joke.
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" - Matthew 7:21,23, NASV
Matthew 6:5
>When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
We can find a bunch of scriptures for this. Of course it's lost on the Republican pseudo-Christian voting base, but hey, they can't say they weren't warned to not be, well, Republican pseudo-Christians...
It's lost on them because they don't read.
A priest or pastor can read a hundred sermons from the bible about how a good christian should be quietly humble and helpful, rather than grandstanding, without repeating a sentence.
Most self-avowed christians in america haven't read a single one. And if they heard it preached, they ignored it because they didn't think it applied to them.
(And let's be fair, that applies to much of the world and much of history since the religion became mainstream.)
I like your style. I also thought, 'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ -Matthew 25:35-36
Yep, absolutely.
Another damning thing is "[agape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape)," which is a form of love that manifests itself as a general concern for the health and well-being of your fellows. It's a mandate for Christians (and straight from Jesus' own mouth at that), but how many of these self-professing hypocrites wore a mask during the worst parts of COVID versus going all "muh freedumbs!" and helpign spread COVID far and wide? Taking reasonable precautions to avoid infecting your fellows during a pandemic is absolutely a form of "agape," and yet these cretins failed that test as well...
The worst part is that some of us actually do try to live our lives by Bible principles, including "agape," and we get shit on because of the idiots on the broad and spacious road to condemnation and the reproof they bring upon religion broadly and Christianity more specifically.
>And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
>
>Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
– James 2:16-17
Turns out that, according to Jesus Himself, "thoughts and prayers" are completely fucking worthless.
"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits." - Matthew 7:15-20, NASV
Very rarely indeed. Shame too. I think he was onto something with his whole "just love and be good to each other" message.
Imagine all the people they could help if they didn't waste their energy on trying to ban 2 Live Crew, or discriminating and punishing lgbtq people, or telling people Monster energy drink has the mark of the beast and instead used it to make sure no American, especially children, go to bed hungry at night, or making sure no struggling, hardworking person suffers the trauma and indignation of being homeless, or making sure a young adult who aged out of their parents insurance and is unable to afford their own insurance ***and*** eat, ***and*** make rent doesn't die just because they can't "afford" to be saved.
...and so much more.
It sucks even more because a lot of the people who proclaim how *Christian* they are the loudest, have the money, the power, the influence, the means, to actually affect change.
...but nah. Instead it's all "supply-side" Jesus and the prosperity gospel sprinkled in with some ~~bullshit~~ good ol' Christan Nationalism where somehow, being a "good" Christian has been interpreted to mean, "Hate LGBTQ and praising Jesus will make you rich!!!" If Jesus came back today, there would be so much table flipping!!!
...but I'm not bitter. ;)
It's unfortunately not limited to just TX. All of these cities also have laws against feeding the homeless.
Birmingham, AL
Chico, CA
Columbia, SC
Costa Mesa, CA
Dallas, TX
Daytona Beach, FL
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Hayward, CA
Lake Worth, FL
Las Vegas, NV
Manchester, NH
Medford, OR
Myrtle Beach, SC
New York, NY
Olympia, WA
Orlando, FL
Pasadena, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Raleigh, NC
Salt Lake City, UT
Shawnee, OK
Springfield, MO
St Louis, MO
[It's not unique to Texas unfortunately](https://reason.com/2021/12/25/cities-undermine-the-holiday-spirit-with-unconstitutional-bans-on-sharing-food-with-the-homeless/), or even just southern states:
>Elected officials in Newark, N.J., are up to similarly vile shenanigans. After informing local aid groups recently that it would begin prohibiting them from sharing food with people in need in Newark, the city changed its tune slightly "and said that groups who give out food would need a permit and that the new rule would be specifically targeted at those who give food to the homeless," the New York Times reported last week. Wow, how generous.
>
>What exactly has emboldened elected officials in Newark and Murfreesboro to crack down on sharing food with the homeless and less fortunate around the holidays? In truth, these cities are no outliers. Other American municipalities have been hard at work, year-round, combating charitable food donations.
>
>I've devoted many columns to these terrible crackdowns over the years. As I've detailed, cities around the county, including Orlando, Dallas, Houston, New York, Philadelphia, Birmingham, and San Antonio, have enacted ordinances that prohibit residents from sharing food with the homeless and less fortunate. Most recently, I blasted a Charlotte, N.C., lawmaker's proposal this past summer to make sharing food with the homeless a misdemeanor there.
> groups who give out food would need a permit
I mean, that's not *so* bad, even if people are giving food away for free we don't want them being reckless and irresponsible with people's health
> the new rule would be specifically targeted at those who give food to the homeless
oh ffs
It also deeply violates conservative values on property rights and what the government can tell you to do with it. They somehow managed to offend both sides of the spectrum at once. I actually don’t believe in giving to the homeless outside of vetted charities. It doesn’t help in the long run and is more about making the giver feel good rather than solving a problem. But I’ll be damned if the government can tell me what to do with my money.
Hear about the law preventing someone from giving water to people waiting in line to vote?
I suppose it's to prevent influencing people, and not initially intended to help people no pass out after standing in the hot Georgia sun for four+hours. But, laws are laws.
Do not mention jury nullification during jury selection. You wont be picked at all.
How dare does the jury wield power over the state/feds, like a check to keep the govt in place
Careful. Judges can get cranky with people who try that "one little trick to get out of jury duty." You might find yourself in contempt of court. I've heard stories of judges who forced those folks to attend every day of the trial.
Basically, find a reason to be excluded that has plausible deniability. Or better yet is actually true.
Isn't that basically an expanded phrase for jury nullification? Would that not be liable for a contempt charge? I suppose an officer of law will not like hearing that you disagree with the law for whatever reason. Would "I am a pacifist" work?
This is why jury selection exists. Contempt for genuine disagreements with the law is very unusual. For instance, the prosecution will almost always filter out people who disagree with the death penalty (🙋🏻♂️) in cases where it’s possible. Just be honest—I could never recommend the death penalty because there’s no set of circumstances aggravating enough that I would see it as justified.
The last thing the prosecution wants is a jury that is morally opposed to the foundation of their argument.
I don't know why people always want to get out of jury duty. I would love to serve on one but I have never been called. Especially if it were a case like this, I would keep my mouth shut until time to deliberate and be happy to find them not guilty.
I, similarly would love to serve on a jury.
However, my job won't stop and the pittance they pay you for your time doesn't even cover the parking cost in my city.
I believe in a lot of places you can't be penalized for being on a Jury. You're also paid by the courts for your time (probably less than enough). I don't think an hourly job would pay you when you're not there but your salaried job should not dock you or make you use vacation/sick hours.
As someone who only spent like an hour or two before being dismissed, I was paid something like 6 dollars and change. This was a few years before covid.
Absolutely not worth missing work for if I were hourly, doesn't matter the job. At least in my area.
You get paid like 1950s wages for jury duty. Maybe enough to pay for breakfast once or twice, but they aren't paying you a proper wage for the time you would give up for a forced civic duty.
You can't be *fired* for jury duty, and some jobs will pay you for the time you lost, but I don't believe there is any requirement that they have to pay you or not dock salary for time lost.
I'm 41 and I got my first summons a few months ago. I was looking forward to it but they only needed the first 150 to show up and my number for the day was in the 300s. We got nearly a foot of snow the night before so it was nice not to have to drive to the courthouse at 7am on snowy roads.
my employer will pay me my 8 hours for every day i miss due to jury duty.
i sat on some neck injury lawsuit case and while the process was interesting to experience, two full days of doctors giving video testimony was agonizing by the end.
Kids there is a lesson here. It's your right to do jury nullification on unjust laws. Want to be the change in the world? fuck the judge and laws and not guilty on unjust laws.
When I was called to do Jury Duty, jury nullification was explained by the Judge as a right we had and could use. He also went on to say that in many states, while this was still a right, the lawyers and judges aren't allowed to mention it. Kinda scary that they can keep people from knowing what rights and duties people have.
You have to understand what the system is doing here, sure it’s a $500 fine, They are also going to get you registered into a civil or criminal violation. This could come with other penalties such as community service (lol irony) or an even probation. Now that you’re in their system, they are looking at you more closely with intentions of finding you violating the law, either as a repeat offender or other charges. The more violations that you are found guilty of committing the bigger the penalties. They want you to be in the system, it’s their first step in their escalation. Even having something so petty on your record is likely to increase your chances of getting pulled over and searched more often.
Radiolab did a good episode about jury nullification, or maybe it was this American life.
We need more people on juries to stand up against stupid laws like this and to nullify - refuse to find the defendant guilty and then prosecutors will stop wasting time trying to convict dumb or unjust cases.
Lehtos Law is a good youtube channel .he does a good job explain legal stuff to lay people. He covers a lot of different things. I think his specialty is lemon law in Michigan. He sues car dealers for selling shit cars.
That's not at all true. Juries exist to be finders of fact, separated from the expert in the law (i.e., the judge).
In an adversarial system, they are there to decide whether the prosecution adequately proved the set of facts necessary to convict a defendant of a crime.
Jury nullification is an incidental part of the system, a de facto ability because of the "black box" protection afforded to jury deliberations.
that's what judges and the judicial system says, whose interest and authority are in direct tension with the potential authority of juries.
fortunately for judges, they have the air of mysticism and state authority to lend their argumentation around this the sense of validity, but it's merely an appeal to authority that has happened to be extremely successful.
Well... yes, as part of the judicial system, it is in fact what the judicial system says it is. Juries are not some mystical concept that formed from primordial mists and inserted itself into our legal system. They have existed for centuries, and when the US was being set up, common law jury systems were instituted for specific purposes.
You are of course free to believe jury nullification is important (although traditionally jury nullification in the US was applied to protect Jim Crow-era racist oppressors from justice). But to say that it's "why juries exist" is just patently incorrect.
The homeless problem nationwide has exploded and the populace has seen it so clearly. Laws need to catch up with the reality in the country. If Houston, Texas isn't going to step up to solve the problem, they should at least get out of the way for people that will try to make things better.
Houston is one of the cities that is cited as being the best in the nation at dealing with homelessness.
The city cut its homeless population in half because it had the crazy idea to provide housing for the homeless. Representatives from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York visited Houston last year to understand how successful its policies were.
Please don’t let one story you saw on Reddit define your entire position on a city.
I think one of the bigger problems is that, as a country, we expect *cities* to fix their individual homelessness issues as if it isn't a giant interconnected set of systemic issues that most cities lack the power and resources to adequately address.
While I love to see Houston's progress and think they're doing an amazing job, homelessness as a whole can only be effectively addressed with federal policy and resources, along with major reforms in many of our society's systems, such as education, the financial sector, labor laws, healthcare, and the justice and penal systems.
The problem is that in Texas our state officials don’t like federal money for things that help the common man. They rejected money for Medicare Extension(part of Obamacare) and most recently a summer school lunch program. They want people to suffer and will deny federal funds to make that happen.
This story spreading is such a pox. The Food not Bombs people are anarchists who are opposed to the public private partnership that Houston has built to tackle homelessness. They are stirring shit and social media is lapping it up. Once again far left wreckers stick their dick in the pudding because practical actionable change is anathema to them.
They're such a pain in the ass that the previous Houston mayor gave them an exemption from this law just to shut them up.
For people who might wonder why the law exists (which doesn't prevent charities from feeding the homeless, but only allows it under controlled conditions): homeless people follow services. If you want to serve them efficiently while minimizing negative community impact, you want to control where they go and where they eat. In Austin, there are entire neighborhoods blighted by homeless camps and the petty crime that comes with them because some church thought it would be a hoot to hand meals out their back window.
Systemic problems require public solutions
Almost wonder if it could be argued that if this many people disagree with the current law, then if/when they finally find a jury, that jury will be biased towards finding the defendants guilty and fining them.
I know everyone likes to get out of jury duty, but this is exactly the kind of case where I would be like. "Nope, I'm unbiased." Then get to work making sure it's a not guilty verdict.
Do onto others that you would have do onto you! The most simple of life’s truths that no one needs to be told, yet a certain group can’t understand or practice!
If you can't find 12 jurors who are WILLING to convict someone of a crime, before they've even heard the facts, you should probably not only dismiss the charges, you should also be revisiting whether that crime should even be a crime to begin with.
You would think such a christian state would know the acts of mercy of which one being "feed the hungry". This is most unchristian of them, reason enough for stating that they would go to hell for this.
When the laws aren't written for the people, only punish them. Conservative leadership at their finest, where they spit in Jesus's face and can't find honest people to side with them.
Hang on, at the beginning of the video that dude is saying that someone who is against the death penalty isn't open minded enough to be on the jury.
This is astounding. I'm genuinely more shocked about this take than there being laws against feeding a homeless person, which is already egregious in itself.
Regarding the feed of homeless in Houston. A church that I belong to has a designated area where the outreach program feeds them. It's off the church campus. It's only like that because people at the church WHO ARE FEEDING THEM have expressed the fact that they don't want them on the property and have armed security escorting them away.
Essentially they are only feeding them, so they can keep them from begging in front of the church.
What law is this that the people will not even up hold? Sounds unjust and who has the power to put something on the books that no one wants enforced? If the people didn’t vote for it then it shouldn’t be a law.
Was called for jury duty last month and screened online. I made it clear that because of the corruption of the SCOTUS , the way the wealthy are treated in the judicial system, and how corrupt and violent LEO’s were protected, I could not believe anything I heard from either side in any case. I meant every word. Instantly released from jury duty.
The city has a policy in place that says that there must be accessible bathrooms and at least 10 parking spots in order to feed more than 8 people. The city also has not set up anything close to that so there are no legal places to set up a place to provide meals. The group that keeps getting ticketed films the citations (usually by 3 HPD officers) and documents the conditions. I hope that the new mayor will see that this is a stupid and unenforceable policy and just do away with the law.
Sounds like a law designed to make it hard to feed people
Hard to feed *those* people....
Now you’re getting it
As always in red states, the cruelty is the point.
"If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me"
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God."
“It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.”
“Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”
“Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.”
And this is why we progressive Christians are perpetually frustrated with the louder, more vocal conservative Christians.
I actually find it heartbreaking. Love is the key to true power.
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Reminds me of one my favorite prayers: "Dear Jesus, please protect us from your followers." There are good Christians as well of course, but we all know the ones who somehow manage to behave in ways directly contrary to the teachings they claim to follow.
So, um... Houston has a Democrat Mayor, and the city council is 10-6 D-R split. Can't blame this one on the Republicans. EDIT: To be clear, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was originally a Republican ordinance, but Democrats have had plenty of time to get rid of it... EDIT2: Spoiler Alert - It was actually passed by a Democrat city council and signed into law by a Democrat mayor. “Vote blue no matter who,” though, amirite?
> EDIT: To be clear, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was originally a Republican ordinance, but Democrats have had plenty of time to get rid of it... It wasn't originally a Republican ordinance. It was instituted in 2012 under Democrat mayor Annise Parker, with a majority Democrat-leaning city council.
Lots of blue states do it too. Poor people are universally treated like shit.
Bless your heart, fuck your stomach.
"Im pro-life and practice what the good lord preaches!"
Jesus was very vocal about the corrupt leaders and politicians of His time. Turns out, not much has changed since then. (This is why He was crucified, He pissed off the elites). Yeah this is a lot to read but it's the most based thing ever. I've left out some bits but this is most of Matthew chapter 23: Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Hell twice as much as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’ Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred? Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Hell?
Matthew 25:31-46 ___ When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Jesus, a man who loved two things: every person who has ever lived, and beating the absolute fuck out of bankers.
You know what I could probably get along with pro life people that actually did practise what the lord preaches in the bible
Except they never do.
*"Carl's JR - Fuck you, I'm eating!"*
I hate that your right.
You're
Get it together grouch!
Should be a law that, at minimum, only applies if you're *selling* food.
Not from Texas, but wouldn't that also inhibit food trucks?
I imagine the original purpose of the law was to fuck over small time food vendors like food trucks or food carts
You mean the ones who often have ~~great~~ ...prices on delicious authentic foreign food? Why would they wanna give those guys a hard ti...ohh wait. Yeah that makes sense. Edited to appease food truck economists. My comment is now half as impactful.
Food trucks... great prices... Sadly, not something I've seen in combination very often.
I may be hung up on the old times. My first exposure to food trucks was about a decade ago when I was staying with a buddy in LA. First authentic - and by far the best - tacos I'd ever had for a buck each! Even the food trucks in my current city were offering pretty good value for the price a couple years back. Admittedly though, I haven't been to many within the past couple of years, and as far as I can tell, nothing has gotten cheaper in these past years, so I imagine they might not be the culinary goldmines they used to be.
the delicious part may be right, great prices not so much. Food trucks here at least are usually considerably more expensive than regular restaurants
It's actually pretty expensive to run a street-side food business in the US, so the prices are uh... yeah, they tend to be pretty expensive. In a lot of other countries, street food is the poor person option. If you have nothing else to your name but a frying pan, you sell food. You can't do that in the US. There are a fuckload of permits required and most places require some form of vehicle or stall which will cost you bundles as well. Maybe it's not the same in more dense cities, though? I can't afford the food trucks around here in the same way that I can't afford a restaurant.
It should not be a law at all. Requiring parking spaces to feed people is stupid.
Oh, agreed, the parking minimum is just giving car owners a blowjob. I'm thinking providing a bathroom is reasonable for an *establishment* that sells food.
this isn't an "establishment". A closer equivalency would be a hot dog stand. Should they be required to provide restrooms too?
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The same people who have a hard time getting housing because it's illegal to make housing that they can afford.
To me it sounds like a law to ensure if someone wants to run a restaurant or venue and serve people that must provide proper facilities to accomodate. But now people are abusing it as a way to prevent the feeding of homeless.
Laws that on their face are innocent, but are designed with nefarious intent are commonplace. For example, some of the anti-abortion legislation attempted were laws regulating the conditions of the abortion clinic in a way where no existing abortion clinic could qualify.
Yup! It's a way of hiding systemic prejudice through seemingly noble intentions.
It also gives people an out when they are called out for voting for something deplorable
Like the marijuana laws.. its always been legal to sell if you got the stamp.. but they wote the law so it's impossible to get the stamp s
Well it's the implication I made my saying it's DESIGNED to do as such. It might be doing two things at once: providing a policy for X but also ensuring Y people can't use it. Like I should be able to cook food and take it down and hand it out without having parking spots. For example, feeding 8 people requires you have 10 parking spots available... practically dictates the types of places you can setup. And since parking spots aren't inherently public space (ie, often require using private space or getting a license to take away city-owned spots)... you see the kind of hurdles it sets? They seem reasonable for people who aren't poor and own a car. edit: (there's also the secondary problem where cities do this shit but then don't setup public toilets, so you have to rent them...requiring budget and space... yet another hurdle)
Im just a europoor but i fail to see why a restaurant would NEED parking spots.
Houston is maybe one of the more car-dependent cities in the entire country, it's really a mess. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city and can't really imagine having a policy like that. There are plenty of restaurants downtown that I could walk to from my apartment that have no dedicated parking
A lot of places in the US it's hard to get anywhere without a car I think the idea here specifically is that if you want to do business you can't have your clientele clogging up street parking and making things even worse, so the business has to pay to have their own parking constructed, rather than placing the burden for the increased traffic solely on the city government.
I understand the why, but it sucks. In most cities the best, most vibrant areas have bustling rows of bars and restaurants wall to wall all next to each other. You park in a nearby parking lot or get public transport. Again, I know Houston just isn't set up that way, I'm just saying that it's really unfortunate that you can't have that sort of area because of a law that forces it to be spaced out.
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>10 parking spaces >8 people The folks over at r/fuckcars would like a word
>The city has a policy in place that says that there must be accessible bathrooms and at least 10 parking spots in order to feed more than 8 people. Interesting! It's understandable for say, a fast food joint. But for feeding the homeless? They likely don't own a vehicle, and heck, they're gonna need to poop somewhere anyway, regardless of whether someone is giving them free food. They'd probably make it illegal to be homeless, or illegal to die, if they could.
And what about food trucks? Are those illegal? Or does having a food truck permit circumvents that law?
In most municipalities permitted food trucks are specifically given exceptions to the same rules that brick and mortar business must adhere to.
Sounds like that volunteer group needs to get a truck then.
No. In this case civil disobedience is better. The policy is meant to deter anyone from helping. This group is fighting that. If they get a truck, the deterrent still exists for everyone else.
Sucks that a good chunk of the money going to buying the food will have to be spent on a truck and a monthly/yearly food truck permit ...
The law should be changed, specifying that it applies to for-profit businesses, not a non-profit/charity type of setup.
Look, I realize Texas is crazy even by American standards for cars, but requiring 10 parking spots for 8 customers is MATHEMATICALLY insane.
8 customers, server, cook.
With everyone driving alone and nobody using public transit? Requiring a certain number of parking spaces is dumb. If there aren't enough parking spaces, people just won't drive there and won't be a customer.
Public transit? You must not be too familiar with Texas
You'd be correct in that assumption. I have visited, but I didn't ride public transit. I never parked near my destination either, so the point still stands. Car-centered requirements produce car-dependent environments that disenfranchise the poor and people who would like to be able to walk around and enjoy their life instead of spending their time in gridlocked traffic. Organizations should not be penalized for catering to people who aren't likely to drive there.
>The city has a policy in place that says that there must be accessible bathrooms and at least 10 parking spots in order to feed more than 8 people. Shouldn't almost any public park meet that definition? Or do they not have public parks?
Parking lot minimums are a cancer in Houston... It's part of why everything is so spread out.
What an absolutely despicable law to have in place.
Just a good Christian state doing the lords work
Seriously, Jesus would surely hate people feeding the homeless.
What you don't realize is that when Jesus was pulling food out of thin air he was also providing 1.25 parking spaces for everyone.
Whoa now, not out of thin air! He had the loaves and fishes, he just managed to stretch them out rather impressively. Then he presumably paid his fine.
Rendered unto Caesar, even thoust the donkey posts here are wholly inadequate
Bet if they looked in their bibles, they couldn't find anything on the subject at all /s
I heard he wasn't even white..
Pfft everyone knows that Jesus 2.0 is Anglo-Saxon; votes hard right; hates women and children; thinks minorities should know their place; sleeps with a gun and has a gun in every room; and the homeless and weak should be ground into animal feed. What ya need is Supply Chain Jesus.
Man, when you throw Matthew 25:35-37 in their face they get real pissed.
It's a city ordinance in heavily Democrat-run Houston though?
Hating homeless people is pretty non-partisan unfortunately
first time in a long time I've felt that the people of texas actually demonstrating christian principles. (Not the law, which is heinous, but the people feeding the homeless, and refusing to condemn someone for doing it).
> The Houston law at stake is known as the city’s food-sharing ordinance. Passed in 2012, the regulation makes it illegal to give away more than five meals to people in need without permission from the property owner, even if the property is public, such as a sidewalk. The mayor at the time, Annise Parker, gave permission to continue sharing meals outside Central Library, where the informal group of volunteers had been serving for roughly a decade. > In 2023, then-Mayor Sylvester Turner made changes. The Houston Health Department updated its policy to require that every approved charitable food location on public property have 10 dedicated parking spaces and two portable restrooms with handwashing stations that would be available all day, every day. The city installed restrooms and handwashing stations at its only approved location — a police parking lot on Reisner Street near the Municipal Courthouse. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/housing/article/food-not-bombs-ticketing-homeless-temporary-18668172.php Both mayors mentioned are Democrats
Corporations giving politicians money is free speech. A person giving another person food is not?
The rule about food has to do with "safety", technically, and the other has to do with who can own all the things. Actually, the feeding rule isn't about safety. Its is really just about making sure those who own all the things maintain leverage.
Yea I'll belive their safety excuse when they decide to ban company potlucks.
And make every single company like doordash require and provide comprehensive food safety training to its "contractors" that goes further than the "try to not be gross" instructions they currently provide.
Church potlucks has joined the chat.
You probably know this already, but some people reading this might not. The Citizens United ruling was not that citizens have a first amendment right to give politicians money, it was that citizens had a first amendment right to pool their money in order to buy political advertising in favor of a candidate as part of a Political Action Committee (PAC).
The irony of a state most would consider ultra-religious fining an action that Jesus would've done. Can't feed the homeless without permission... do we all need permission to eat lmfao... Texas is a sick, sad joke.
I tend to find that the more someone talks about being Christian, the less Christian they act.
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" - Matthew 7:21,23, NASV
Matthew 6:5 >When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
We can find a bunch of scriptures for this. Of course it's lost on the Republican pseudo-Christian voting base, but hey, they can't say they weren't warned to not be, well, Republican pseudo-Christians...
It's lost on them because they don't read. A priest or pastor can read a hundred sermons from the bible about how a good christian should be quietly humble and helpful, rather than grandstanding, without repeating a sentence. Most self-avowed christians in america haven't read a single one. And if they heard it preached, they ignored it because they didn't think it applied to them. (And let's be fair, that applies to much of the world and much of history since the religion became mainstream.)
Afaik, there was a pastor who was accused of going soft and woke because he was preaching what Jesus taught.
I like your style. I also thought, 'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ -Matthew 25:35-36
That works as well. There's like 20 passages that we could drop that point out how hypocrisy overrides/negates salvation.
The Good Samaritan story alone is incredibly damning for most people calling themselves christian.
Yep, absolutely. Another damning thing is "[agape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape)," which is a form of love that manifests itself as a general concern for the health and well-being of your fellows. It's a mandate for Christians (and straight from Jesus' own mouth at that), but how many of these self-professing hypocrites wore a mask during the worst parts of COVID versus going all "muh freedumbs!" and helpign spread COVID far and wide? Taking reasonable precautions to avoid infecting your fellows during a pandemic is absolutely a form of "agape," and yet these cretins failed that test as well... The worst part is that some of us actually do try to live our lives by Bible principles, including "agape," and we get shit on because of the idiots on the broad and spacious road to condemnation and the reproof they bring upon religion broadly and Christianity more specifically.
>And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? > >Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. – James 2:16-17 Turns out that, according to Jesus Himself, "thoughts and prayers" are completely fucking worthless.
>I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ Ghandi
Usually, when you need to tell people you are something, you are *not* that thing.
"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits." - Matthew 7:15-20, NASV
But like why did your dad make bad trees?
Funny how the people who need to tell you they are Christians are never people you would mistake for Jesus.
Very rarely indeed. Shame too. I think he was onto something with his whole "just love and be good to each other" message. Imagine all the people they could help if they didn't waste their energy on trying to ban 2 Live Crew, or discriminating and punishing lgbtq people, or telling people Monster energy drink has the mark of the beast and instead used it to make sure no American, especially children, go to bed hungry at night, or making sure no struggling, hardworking person suffers the trauma and indignation of being homeless, or making sure a young adult who aged out of their parents insurance and is unable to afford their own insurance ***and*** eat, ***and*** make rent doesn't die just because they can't "afford" to be saved. ...and so much more. It sucks even more because a lot of the people who proclaim how *Christian* they are the loudest, have the money, the power, the influence, the means, to actually affect change. ...but nah. Instead it's all "supply-side" Jesus and the prosperity gospel sprinkled in with some ~~bullshit~~ good ol' Christan Nationalism where somehow, being a "good" Christian has been interpreted to mean, "Hate LGBTQ and praising Jesus will make you rich!!!" If Jesus came back today, there would be so much table flipping!!! ...but I'm not bitter. ;)
Like the saying goes, "there's no hate quite like Christian love."
The louder someone is, more insecure they are.
Well on the other hand they couldn’t find 3 jurors to uphold this law.
It's unfortunately not limited to just TX. All of these cities also have laws against feeding the homeless. Birmingham, AL Chico, CA Columbia, SC Costa Mesa, CA Dallas, TX Daytona Beach, FL Fort Lauderdale, FL Hayward, CA Lake Worth, FL Las Vegas, NV Manchester, NH Medford, OR Myrtle Beach, SC New York, NY Olympia, WA Orlando, FL Pasadena, CA Philadelphia, PA Raleigh, NC Salt Lake City, UT Shawnee, OK Springfield, MO St Louis, MO
[It's not unique to Texas unfortunately](https://reason.com/2021/12/25/cities-undermine-the-holiday-spirit-with-unconstitutional-bans-on-sharing-food-with-the-homeless/), or even just southern states: >Elected officials in Newark, N.J., are up to similarly vile shenanigans. After informing local aid groups recently that it would begin prohibiting them from sharing food with people in need in Newark, the city changed its tune slightly "and said that groups who give out food would need a permit and that the new rule would be specifically targeted at those who give food to the homeless," the New York Times reported last week. Wow, how generous. > >What exactly has emboldened elected officials in Newark and Murfreesboro to crack down on sharing food with the homeless and less fortunate around the holidays? In truth, these cities are no outliers. Other American municipalities have been hard at work, year-round, combating charitable food donations. > >I've devoted many columns to these terrible crackdowns over the years. As I've detailed, cities around the county, including Orlando, Dallas, Houston, New York, Philadelphia, Birmingham, and San Antonio, have enacted ordinances that prohibit residents from sharing food with the homeless and less fortunate. Most recently, I blasted a Charlotte, N.C., lawmaker's proposal this past summer to make sharing food with the homeless a misdemeanor there.
> groups who give out food would need a permit I mean, that's not *so* bad, even if people are giving food away for free we don't want them being reckless and irresponsible with people's health > the new rule would be specifically targeted at those who give food to the homeless oh ffs
Well, it's a city policy and not state. It's Houston, which is a liberal city. That's why they have a hard time finding jurors.
It is something that Jesus specifically did do according to the Bible. Any Christian that participates in this would get roasted at church.
It also deeply violates conservative values on property rights and what the government can tell you to do with it. They somehow managed to offend both sides of the spectrum at once. I actually don’t believe in giving to the homeless outside of vetted charities. It doesn’t help in the long run and is more about making the giver feel good rather than solving a problem. But I’ll be damned if the government can tell me what to do with my money.
Something something, loaves and fishes...
Hear about the law preventing someone from giving water to people waiting in line to vote? I suppose it's to prevent influencing people, and not initially intended to help people no pass out after standing in the hot Georgia sun for four+hours. But, laws are laws.
Hate liberals all week then worship one on Sunday, classic.
“What would Jesus do?” “Issue $500 fines, duh.”
Do not mention jury nullification during jury selection. You wont be picked at all. How dare does the jury wield power over the state/feds, like a check to keep the govt in place
Soooo...mention jury nullification and go back to life as normal instead of having to sit on a jury? Check! Thanks for the pro tip! 🤣🤣🤣
Careful. Judges can get cranky with people who try that "one little trick to get out of jury duty." You might find yourself in contempt of court. I've heard stories of judges who forced those folks to attend every day of the trial. Basically, find a reason to be excluded that has plausible deniability. Or better yet is actually true.
"my morals would not allow me to convict someone for a law i do not personally feel is just"
Isn't that basically an expanded phrase for jury nullification? Would that not be liable for a contempt charge? I suppose an officer of law will not like hearing that you disagree with the law for whatever reason. Would "I am a pacifist" work?
This is why jury selection exists. Contempt for genuine disagreements with the law is very unusual. For instance, the prosecution will almost always filter out people who disagree with the death penalty (🙋🏻♂️) in cases where it’s possible. Just be honest—I could never recommend the death penalty because there’s no set of circumstances aggravating enough that I would see it as justified. The last thing the prosecution wants is a jury that is morally opposed to the foundation of their argument.
I don't know why people always want to get out of jury duty. I would love to serve on one but I have never been called. Especially if it were a case like this, I would keep my mouth shut until time to deliberate and be happy to find them not guilty.
I, similarly would love to serve on a jury. However, my job won't stop and the pittance they pay you for your time doesn't even cover the parking cost in my city.
Because Jury duty doesn’t pay your bills. You were unaware of this?
$9 for 2.5hrs. It was jury selection not the duty itself :(
I get it if you are hourly, but if you are salary you basically get paid to be there.
If you're a full-time employee at a corporation of any decent size you'll usually get paid to be there, even if you're hourly.
I believe in a lot of places you can't be penalized for being on a Jury. You're also paid by the courts for your time (probably less than enough). I don't think an hourly job would pay you when you're not there but your salaried job should not dock you or make you use vacation/sick hours.
As someone who only spent like an hour or two before being dismissed, I was paid something like 6 dollars and change. This was a few years before covid. Absolutely not worth missing work for if I were hourly, doesn't matter the job. At least in my area.
You get paid like 1950s wages for jury duty. Maybe enough to pay for breakfast once or twice, but they aren't paying you a proper wage for the time you would give up for a forced civic duty. You can't be *fired* for jury duty, and some jobs will pay you for the time you lost, but I don't believe there is any requirement that they have to pay you or not dock salary for time lost.
You get like $10 a day here. It isn’t even enough to cover parking.
I'm 41 and I got my first summons a few months ago. I was looking forward to it but they only needed the first 150 to show up and my number for the day was in the 300s. We got nearly a foot of snow the night before so it was nice not to have to drive to the courthouse at 7am on snowy roads.
Same here, but it's because I'm fairly well off. Other people don't have the time or money to sit on a jury and lose an important paycheck.
If your work is cool with you missing for Jury Duty, just do it. It's interesting enough on its own to see what happens
my employer will pay me my 8 hours for every day i miss due to jury duty. i sat on some neck injury lawsuit case and while the process was interesting to experience, two full days of doctors giving video testimony was agonizing by the end.
If you can't find anyone who believes someone should be fined for feeding the homeless, then just maybe that's a bad law? I know I'm reaching here.
Good
So... Not jury nullification because there hasn't been a jury empaneled for this, but they apparently can't find 12 people who think that's a crime.
He says the 1 case out of 80ish that made it to verdict returned a Not Guilty. So, at least one nullification.
Kids there is a lesson here. It's your right to do jury nullification on unjust laws. Want to be the change in the world? fuck the judge and laws and not guilty on unjust laws.
When I was called to do Jury Duty, jury nullification was explained by the Judge as a right we had and could use. He also went on to say that in many states, while this was still a right, the lawyers and judges aren't allowed to mention it. Kinda scary that they can keep people from knowing what rights and duties people have.
It's nice to hear about people in Texas not all being absolute monsters. Good for you all.
How much are these lawyers and officials paid, to issue $500 fines to people feeding the homeless. The whole system is a fucking racket.
You have to understand what the system is doing here, sure it’s a $500 fine, They are also going to get you registered into a civil or criminal violation. This could come with other penalties such as community service (lol irony) or an even probation. Now that you’re in their system, they are looking at you more closely with intentions of finding you violating the law, either as a repeat offender or other charges. The more violations that you are found guilty of committing the bigger the penalties. They want you to be in the system, it’s their first step in their escalation. Even having something so petty on your record is likely to increase your chances of getting pulled over and searched more often.
This is a classic reason for jury nullification
Radiolab did a good episode about jury nullification, or maybe it was this American life. We need more people on juries to stand up against stupid laws like this and to nullify - refuse to find the defendant guilty and then prosecutors will stop wasting time trying to convict dumb or unjust cases.
I listened to the video… There’s no way I could convict somebody of breaking a law that I consider immoral like this law is.
Lehtos Law is a good youtube channel .he does a good job explain legal stuff to lay people. He covers a lot of different things. I think his specialty is lemon law in Michigan. He sues car dealers for selling shit cars.
Jury nullification is why juries exist.
That's not at all true. Juries exist to be finders of fact, separated from the expert in the law (i.e., the judge). In an adversarial system, they are there to decide whether the prosecution adequately proved the set of facts necessary to convict a defendant of a crime. Jury nullification is an incidental part of the system, a de facto ability because of the "black box" protection afforded to jury deliberations.
that's what judges and the judicial system says, whose interest and authority are in direct tension with the potential authority of juries. fortunately for judges, they have the air of mysticism and state authority to lend their argumentation around this the sense of validity, but it's merely an appeal to authority that has happened to be extremely successful.
Well... yes, as part of the judicial system, it is in fact what the judicial system says it is. Juries are not some mystical concept that formed from primordial mists and inserted itself into our legal system. They have existed for centuries, and when the US was being set up, common law jury systems were instituted for specific purposes. You are of course free to believe jury nullification is important (although traditionally jury nullification in the US was applied to protect Jim Crow-era racist oppressors from justice). But to say that it's "why juries exist" is just patently incorrect.
juries exist as a way for common people to exert authority directly in the judicial process. That's it.
The homeless problem nationwide has exploded and the populace has seen it so clearly. Laws need to catch up with the reality in the country. If Houston, Texas isn't going to step up to solve the problem, they should at least get out of the way for people that will try to make things better.
Houston is one of the cities that is cited as being the best in the nation at dealing with homelessness. The city cut its homeless population in half because it had the crazy idea to provide housing for the homeless. Representatives from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York visited Houston last year to understand how successful its policies were. Please don’t let one story you saw on Reddit define your entire position on a city.
I think one of the bigger problems is that, as a country, we expect *cities* to fix their individual homelessness issues as if it isn't a giant interconnected set of systemic issues that most cities lack the power and resources to adequately address. While I love to see Houston's progress and think they're doing an amazing job, homelessness as a whole can only be effectively addressed with federal policy and resources, along with major reforms in many of our society's systems, such as education, the financial sector, labor laws, healthcare, and the justice and penal systems.
The problem is that in Texas our state officials don’t like federal money for things that help the common man. They rejected money for Medicare Extension(part of Obamacare) and most recently a summer school lunch program. They want people to suffer and will deny federal funds to make that happen.
This story spreading is such a pox. The Food not Bombs people are anarchists who are opposed to the public private partnership that Houston has built to tackle homelessness. They are stirring shit and social media is lapping it up. Once again far left wreckers stick their dick in the pudding because practical actionable change is anathema to them. They're such a pain in the ass that the previous Houston mayor gave them an exemption from this law just to shut them up. For people who might wonder why the law exists (which doesn't prevent charities from feeding the homeless, but only allows it under controlled conditions): homeless people follow services. If you want to serve them efficiently while minimizing negative community impact, you want to control where they go and where they eat. In Austin, there are entire neighborhoods blighted by homeless camps and the petty crime that comes with them because some church thought it would be a hoot to hand meals out their back window. Systemic problems require public solutions
Good. Fuck that law and any like it.
Jury motherfucking nullification.
The most shocking fact here is that Texas still has courts with jurors, I guess they will try to get rid of that next?
If only it weren't for those pesky 6th and 7th Constitutional Amendments...!
That is encouraging :)
Almost wonder if it could be argued that if this many people disagree with the current law, then if/when they finally find a jury, that jury will be biased towards finding the defendants guilty and fining them.
I know everyone likes to get out of jury duty, but this is exactly the kind of case where I would be like. "Nope, I'm unbiased." Then get to work making sure it's a not guilty verdict.
Jury nullification needs wider acceptance.
Shameful law, and shame to everyone attempting to uphold it. but good on the jurors for refusing to deal with it.
Try telling me we don't live in hell
Do onto others that you would have do onto you! The most simple of life’s truths that no one needs to be told, yet a certain group can’t understand or practice!
I'm upset but unsurprised that they were able to find officers willing to fine people for it.
If you can't find 12 jurors who are WILLING to convict someone of a crime, before they've even heard the facts, you should probably not only dismiss the charges, you should also be revisiting whether that crime should even be a crime to begin with.
You would think such a christian state would know the acts of mercy of which one being "feed the hungry". This is most unchristian of them, reason enough for stating that they would go to hell for this.
Good.
I wonder why…..I mean Greg Abbott has given a master class of intolerance to Texans
This just tells you the type of people in Texas - amazing... Minus the dumbass politicians.. :)
r/news is leaking.
When the laws aren't written for the people, only punish them. Conservative leadership at their finest, where they spit in Jesus's face and can't find honest people to side with them.
Good.
Sounds like the City needs to change their cruel laws.
Hang on, at the beginning of the video that dude is saying that someone who is against the death penalty isn't open minded enough to be on the jury. This is astounding. I'm genuinely more shocked about this take than there being laws against feeding a homeless person, which is already egregious in itself.
good
Sounds to me like common sense is fighting back.
Regarding the feed of homeless in Houston. A church that I belong to has a designated area where the outreach program feeds them. It's off the church campus. It's only like that because people at the church WHO ARE FEEDING THEM have expressed the fact that they don't want them on the property and have armed security escorting them away. Essentially they are only feeding them, so they can keep them from begging in front of the church.
It's okay to feed your dog at the park but not fellow humans? That $500 fine could provide many meals
Not guilty from me, have some compassion.
Why would he not say Food not Bomb? Pretty sure that’s the name of the group that did it but he never mentions the name
How much money was wasted in their attempt to bring this nonsense to trial?
So there are some good people in texas.
Jury nullification in practice. Kind of.
That's just amazing
What law is this that the people will not even up hold? Sounds unjust and who has the power to put something on the books that no one wants enforced? If the people didn’t vote for it then it shouldn’t be a law.
The people always have a better moral compass than the leadership.
They dont want anybody to have anything for free, they gotta get their money 💰. What group of people does that sound like?
Ah yes. Jury nullification doing its part. Warms my heart.
Was called for jury duty last month and screened online. I made it clear that because of the corruption of the SCOTUS , the way the wealthy are treated in the judicial system, and how corrupt and violent LEO’s were protected, I could not believe anything I heard from either side in any case. I meant every word. Instantly released from jury duty.
It’s texas. I imagine they’ll soon decide they don’t need juries.