How does one prove they were not breaking a city ordinance?

This judge sounds like he has aspirations of being a god. Obviously I was not in court so I do not have all the facts, so in all fairness I would get a good lawyer and let the fists fly in the courtroom.

On a more humorous note, I would have to have large banners made in the form of pictures of the offending sofa, chairs and the other dangerous furniture and place these banners on my porch at busy times just to get a rise out of the code enforcement folks, whom must be horrendously over worked.

First, she needs to take pictures of her porch in its' current state. Second, she needs an attorney. The key word in the ordinance you cited is " accumulation. " And the judge is dead wrong. It is not even close to reasonable to think that anybody in the entire world would have a porch 100% clear of everything, at all times. When she moved into the home, did her household goods magically fly into her house, or were they moved in a piece at a time, like it happens everywhere else in the entire world. The pictures she takes will show that she is clearly in compliance with the ordinance. As for furniture being moved into, or out of the house, that can not reasonably be considered a violation of the ordinance, unless the building inspector can prove that they were there for a certain period of time. We'll get to that in a minute. As for the packages of Depends, she can't be held responsible for packages delivered while she is away from home. Now, back to that set amount of time. If the city ordinance doesn't specifically set forth a definition of accumulation, then the entire ordinance can be ruled too vague for enforcement. And then, of course, we come to the rights of private property owners. If the city has an anti-loitering ordinance, and she has guests for the holidays, and they remain on her porch for too long, can they be arrested? No. Again, she needs an attorney. She also needs to consider selling the home, and moving somewhere else, where a property owner doesn't lose his or her rights to privacy. ( It wouldn't hurt her to call the building inspector's office, and threaten a harrassment lawsuit. )

Frequently, when it's a matter of property upkeep, they just want the situation fixed. If that's the case here, she could take a new picture of her porch and bring that in to court, tell the judge the situation has been fixed. Throw herself on the mercy of the court. Say that from now on the deliveries will be brought in immediately and that any furniture moving in or out will NOT be left on the porch. The judge may be pleased and let it go.

If they're trying to fine her, then she could be in for a fight. One consideration is to bring in a receipt for the Depends delivery, proving it's delivered frequently, that it wasn't the same box.

First thing is that this man or woman needs to figure out is if this city ordinance applies to them.

Find the definition of the term "person" in the city ordinances.

I guarantee you that nowhere in the definition of the term person will it say anything about a man or Woman.

It will however state something like this,

"Person" includes a natural person, firm, copartnership,

Association, limited liability company, or corporation. Be that as it may, The term “Person” includes six items in the definition of the word person:

1)natural person, 2)firm, 3)copartnership, 4)association, 5)limited liability company, 6)corporation.

To the casual reader it will seem clear that items (2) through (6) are artificial entities and it is will likewise seem clear to the casual reader, that number (1) is intended to refer to real live flesh and blood men and women, but number (1) does not clearly indicate such to be the case. To the casual reader it would seem the intention of the statutory definition of "person" is to legally establish that real live flesh and blood men and women are not any different from corporations like Walmart. However, the more astute reader will recall that we were all taught in grammar school that the definition of a word will never ever include the word being defined in its own definition. That is, a word cannot be used to define itself, so, when the word "person" is included in the definition of the word "person" such inclusion is either an unacceptable grammatical error or, more likely, the word "natural", coupled with the word "person", somehow modifies the word "person" so that the inclusion of the word "person" in the definition of itself does not constitute a grammatical error.

There can be no doubt that the legislators who created this statute were well aware of the words "men" and "women" which might seem to have been more appropriately used in the definition of "person", that is, if it was the actual intent of the Legislature to legally equate real live flesh and blood men and women with Walmart., So, Reason will indicate that the legislature’s use instead, of the term "natural person", was clearly intentional; that is, the legislators intentionally avoided the use of the words "men" and "women" because to use those words would have actually created a grammatical error, and would have been otherwise undesirable because the term "natural person" is also a reference to an artificial entity, as I shall explain as I go along. I contend that everything ever written by any legislature is, if nothing else, always grammatically correct. So then, how does the word "natural" modify the word "person" in order to avoid a grammatical error?

Another question here is "What could have been the reason for the Legislature’s inclusion of five clearly artificial entities in the definition of the word "person" if the purpose of the definition of the word "person" was to indicate that such word was intended to refer to or include real live flesh and blood men and women? Clearly such was not the purpose! So, in order to discern the purpose we must examine the similarities of these four artificial items as they relate to each other and then examine and determine how these similarities apply or relate to the term "natural person", the first item in the definition of "person", in order to avoid grammatical incorrectness?

The first discernment will be to conclude, in order for the definition to be grammatically correct, that

the term (1)"natural person", as included in the definition of the word "person" in the ordinance is intended to be and is also an artificial entity, similar in every significant aspect to its definition mates, such mates being; (2)"firms", (3)"copartnerships", (4)"associations," (5)" limited liability company " and(6)”corporations”. That is, all six of these artificial entities numbered herein are

(a) created by voluntary human intellectual activity; (b) all six have official government approved creating documents; (c) all six are registered with the government; (d) all six have, through their human creating agents, voluntarily obligated themselves to obey and conform to the commands of the Legislature; (e) all six have a name conjured up by their private sector creators and, last but not least, (f) all six are required by the government to have a government issued license.

The foregoing explains how the six items in ordinance are all six, artificial entities, so there is no grammatical error in the inclusion of "natural person" therein, but the means by which real live flesh and blood men and women are enticed, induced or seduced into "volunteering" themselves into servitude, as statutorily defined "persons" equal to Walmart, takes more examination and analysis, as I shall explain:

As no individual man or woman has natural authority to command non-volunteers to obey, the human creators of a city or state can not possibly imbue the city or state with authority to do so either, therefore, in order for the city or state to be able to command subservience of real live flesh and blood men and women the city or state must, somehow, entice, induce or seduce real live flesh and blood men and women to voluntarily submit themselves to the political authority of the artificial entity. So how does the city or state do that?

Engaging in subterfuge and deceit, how else do politicians "get things done"? This was not done overnight, many generations have passed thereby enabling the ploy to be gradually implanted in succeeding generations without hardly anyone ever questioning how it all came about.

One never has to prove one's innocence. The State or City or whomever has to prove their guilt.

No-one ever has to prove that they are not breaking the law. The city has to prove that he WAS breaking it.

"Innocent until proven guilty", remember?

Richard