Probation Offered to Homeless Woman Over Prosecutor’s Objection

Over a prosecutor’s objections, a Superior Court judge on Wednesday offered probation to a 66-year-old homeless woman who is staging a legal challenge to Buena Park’s ordinance against sleeping in public.

Diane Grue, arrested in November for the sixth time in two years on homeless-related charges, now must accept the judge’s offer or demand her day in court. If she goes to court and loses, she risks 15 days in the Orange County Jail.

Her attorney, Jon Alexander, said Grue planned to sleep on it Wednesday night and let Judge James Marion at the North Justice Center in Fullerton know her decision this morning.

Buena Park city prosecutor Greg Palmer had offered Grue a 15-day jail sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. She refused, making hers the first case to go to trial under Buena Park’s ordinance directed at keeping the homeless from sleeping in public.

Wednesday, Palmer refused to back down on the 15 jail days, so the judge did it for him. The offer includes 10 hours of community service and an agreement by Grue to cooperate with probation department attempts to find her a shelter or other type of assistance.

Alexander said the decision will not be easy for his client: “She’s afraid of jail, but she also has a fear of shelters.”

Grue has missed several court appointments because of illness and did not appear Wednesday.

Alexander had told the judge she would be there Wednesday to respond to the offer. Instead, neither Alexander nor Grue showed up. Alexander said later that Grue, who is living at his house in Dana Point temporarily, could not get ready in time.

Grue said she lives in cheap motels the first two weeks of the month but then is homeless after her government checks run out.

Wiley Drake Takes the Bully Pulpit

Grue’s chief supporter in this case, the Rev. Wiley Drake, was in the courtroom and made clear that he hopes Grue will stick by her original decision to challenge Buena Park’s homeless law.

“It is unconscionable to put a woman her age in jail because she has no place to sleep,” Drake said.

Drake was not without his own courtroom drama for the day. While broadcasting his daily radio show on the Internet from a courtroom hallway, he was approached by two deputy sheriffs who ordered him to appear in Judge Gregg L. Prickett’s courtroom. Prickett had heard that Drake was denigrating the court system in front of potential jurors for a case in Prickett’s courtroom, and the judge wanted Drake to stop.

Two years ago, Prickett presided over the trial in which Drake was found guilty of misdemeanor counts related to housing too many homeless people at his First Baptist Church of Buena Park. In his Wednesday broadcast, Drake singled out Prickett for criticism, which some of the potential jurors did hear.

Prickett said later that he will issue a written order today related to Drake’s broadcasts. Drake’s response was that Prickett “is a short little shrimp who doesn’t know the law.”

But Drake said he will broadcast today from the courthouse steps instead of the hallway, to avoid any appearance that he is trying to influence jurors.

Drake also engaged in a biting exchange with prosecutor Palmer, who said Drake does not want to see the Grue case resolved because “every time there is a delay, . . . it gives Wiley Drake a chance to wax poetic about one of his causes.”

Drake agreed. “I believe in the bully pulpit,” he said.