Can a Municipality Issue a Trespass Ban for City Hall
My question involves civil rights in the State of: WV,
City Hall put a No Trespass order on a juvenile, an incident occurred at the city park involving 5 juveniles but only three received this order banning them from the park, city hall and 2 other public places, with no expiration date! The kids have not been charged with any crime yet,This order was given without any due process. The Mayor signed the order, The only thing that concerns me is the police dept. and traffic court is also located in the city hall building. Can they legally ban someone indefinitely from city hall?
Re: City Hall and Juvenile No Trespass
They can TRY to ban someone from public property, but it's not going to be easy to do. Ultimately they will have to go before a judge for the order to be enforced. However, even if this is not a legally enforceable order, the involved juveniles should stay away from the listed places unless their parents are prepared to pay for attorneys to fight possible criminal trespass charges or to fight a restraining order in court. They made a decision to create an "incident" that sufficiently pissed off the city fathers to get the mayor to ban them from public property. That should be a wake up call.
Perhaps the parents of the children can go in and talk to the mayor and ask about what can be done to allow them access to the parks again. Also, why does it concern you that these kids do not have access to the police department or the traffic court?? I doubt you have anything to worry about there ... if the police arrest the kid and bring him there, that's on them. And if he has to go to traffic court then that should also be an exception. Hopefully he's not that big of a troublemaker. But, maybe he is.
Re: City Hall and Juvenile No Trespass
Actually they went to the park to play ball and some bullies from school was there, they defended themselves. My concern about the other departments in the building is because this no trespass has no expiration date. I don't know about you, but I have gotten stop speeding a time or two and i am certainly not a trouble maker. I feel they were done wrong because only certain kids was given this, I can understand the park but not the other places? So now if these kids need to go to the police dept for help they wont because they are afraid they will be arrested. What ever happened to due process?
Re: City Hall and Juvenile No Trespass
There is due process. If they want to contest the no trespassing order, the kids can go to court to ask the court to issue an injunction against the city enforcing the ban. Be prepared to spend several thousand dollars in legal fees doing that. I cannot guarantee your kid would win that. Perhaps the court would uphold the ban but with some modifications to ensure that he can access city property for real needs, like going to court, etc., and limiting the ban to some specific period of time.