#25 The Court's Justification for its Verdict

Here is the full text of the justifucation for the decision against me, as written by Isabella Zurawska representing the Regional court of Warsaw

Verdict in the name of the Polish Republic.
March 31st, 2003
Regional court for Warsaw Srodmiescie, in II penal division consisting of:
Chairman: Isabella Zurawska
Assesors: Barbara Tekiga and Wabda Ostrzeniewska
Clerk: Ewalina Malinowska
And in the presence of the prosecutor: Dorota Starza-Pisarzewska-

After having examined on October 31, 2002, December 5th 2002, January 8th, 2003, February 12th 2003, of a case of Adam Richard Goodman, born on….
Accused that:
1. On Mat 15th, 2002 in Warsaw, he caused the impairment to a car Renault Megan, reg. no. WWL 70gc, in the way as follows: He broke the front window, bashed the front right fender, caused a bash in the roof of the vehicle in its central part and scratched the front door of the vehicle, causing the loss of PLN 3000.00 to the damage of Tomas Zaremba.
2. In the place and time as point 1., he made injury of the body of Tomas Zaremba. Knocking with his fist into the face of Tomas Zaremba, he caused a cut in his upper lip and damage of his four teeth, causing the disorder of the health of his organism for the period of seven days.

Justification
The regional court established the facts as follows:
On May 15th, 2002 at about 2:00pm the harmed Tomasz Zaremba was driving a car Renault Megan, Reg. No. WWL 70GC. He was driving along the utmost left lane of Solidarnoisci Ave. towards Praga district. Before his vehicle, up until the crossing of Andersa St. There were no cars. He was driving with his eleven-year-old daughter Katarzyna Zaremba. Coming close to the crossing he noticed an MZA city bus standing on the central lane before the traffic signal. A cyclist, whom appeared to be Adam Richard Goodman, was also approaching the bus. At some point the cyclist rapidly turned left and without using any signal cycled on the utmost left lane, barring the way to the driver of the Renault Megan. Tomas Zaremba, wishing to avoid collision started to brake, at the same time using s sound signal. As a result of a signal Adam Goodman withdrew to the central lane. The victim continued driving, stopping at the crossing of Solidarnosci Ave. With Andersa St., because there was a red light burning for his driving direction. Awaiting for the change of the light, in the right outer mirror, he noticed the accused approaching him, who was pushing his way between the bus and the cars standing on the left lane, which had stopped behind the car of Tomas Zaremba. Adam Goodman “crowded” with his bicycle along the right side of the car, and came to the fore-part of the car, put down his bicycle on the street and started to strike blows with his fist in the front window, roof of the vehicle and the engine cover, causing at the same time damage to these parts of the car, namely that he caused a crack of the window, impairment of the roof and of the engine cover. After a while, he raised his bicycle and threw it between the barrier and the car causing damage of the left back door in the form of a scratch, afterwards he approached the door of the driver, opened it and twice hit the driver’s face with his fist, causing injury in the form of injury to facial skeleton with the wound of the upper lip, livedo and oedema of labia, percussion painfulness of teeth, jaw and mandable and painfulness of soft tissue of termoporomandibular joint.

The above facts of the case, the court established on the basis of: Partly explanations of the accused, partly evidence of the witness Tomas Zaremba, Evidence of Tomas Yucha, Stanislaw Jablonski, Katerzyna Zaremba, notification of the crime, protocol of inspection, protocol of detention of a person, visual material, medical opinion, opinion within the scope of the damage to the car, psychologists opinion, protocol of inspection of the bicycle.

Accused Adam Richard Goodman in the preparation procedure did not admit having done the charged deeds. He explained that on May 15th, 2002 he was cycling to the cinema, he was cycling quite slowly along the several lane street. On the left side there were no cars. Suddenly he heard the noise of a car behind him, sounds of an engine, he turned round and saw a car rapidly approaching in his direction. When the car passed the accused, it rapidly braked at the same time turning towards the accused and drove into the accused. At about 8 meters before the stop line, the car stopped causing that the accused was imprisoned between the car and the bus, which stopped on the central lane. The car stopped with the squeak of the tires, the accused had to push the car with his hands. He explained that the accused purposely barred his road so that to obtain 3000 PLN damage(1) . Referring to the body injuries, the accused explained that he hit the victim because the one wanted to kill him and used a vulgar word against him. He stepped down the bicycle, approached the door of the driver, when the harmed opened the door hi hit him. Yet he did not hit very hard, however the victim invented the story of his lips and teeth to obtain money(2) . He declared that he acted in his own defense. In the procedure before the court he did not admit to having done the charged deeds, either. He explained that his intention wads to cycle along side the left of the bus, which was standing at the crossing. He started passing by the bus he heard a whir of the engine. The car approached him up to a dozen centimeters or so and rapidly barred the road of the accused turning right and braking. He blocked the accused pulling up with a squeal of tires at the angle. The accused stepped down the bicycle, pushed his way between the bus and the car. He put the bike in front of the car so that the driver could not drive away. He went round the car and requested that Tomas Zaremba get out of the car, after which he opened the door and hit the victim in the face with his fist. He did not hit the car.

Court considered the following:
Court believed the explanations of the accused in the part referring to the time place of the incident and the fact of hitting Tomas Zaremba. Adam Richard Goodman with full particulars described the circumstances in which the conflict with the harmed occurred. He explained that he approached the door of the car, opened it and hit the harmed twice in the face with his fist. The above evidence correlate with the remaining collected in the case evidence material, especially with the evidence of Tomas Zaremba, Katerzyna Zaremba, and with the medical opinion. The harmed in his evidence confirmed the fact of being hit in the face by the accused, the result of which he suffered injury in the region of a lip and teeth. Also the direct witness of the event Katerzyna Zaremba confirmed the fact of hitting her father by the accused. The scope of the suffered body injuries caused by the accused was specific in the medical opinion from which it comes out that the harmed suffered injury to the facial skeleton with the with the wound of the upper lip. Livedo and odema of labia, percussion painfulness of teeth jaw and mandable and painfulness of soft tissue of termoporomandibular joint. The above injuries originated in the result of at least two blows struck in the region of lips and the left side of the face with the relatively small force. The conditions of such a tool, according to the expert are met, among others by a palm twisted in a fist.

The accused indicating the motives for his behavior explained that he hit the harmed because he acted in the necessary self-defense. In the court’s valuation, understanding by the accused of the hitting in the face as an action of necessary self-defense in the interpretation of the facts which goes too far. Necessary defense is a repulse of an unlawful and direct attack on any property protected by law. In the light of circumstances of the indicated incident, one cannot speak about unlawfulness or about directness of the attack. Behavior of the harmed did not carry traits of attempt on the life or health of the accused. The harmed participated in road traffic in compliance with the rules, and it should be stressed that thanks to the immediate, conscious reactions of the harmed as a driver, a road accident or collision did do occur(3) .

Court did not believe the explanations of the accused from which it ensues that the harmed barred his way and denied damaging of Tomas Zaremba’s car. Explanations of the accused in this scope are contradictory to the evidence of the witness: Tomas Zaremba, Katerzyna Zaremba, Tomas Yucha, Stanislaw Jablonski, to the inspection protocol and to the opinion referring to the damage of the car. In Courts opinion, the accused starting a maneuver of passing round a bus should have assured himself if the left lane was free. The accused as the participant of road traffic is obliged to abide all the rules, including also careful and cautious ride. It is unquestionable that the bus situated on the center lane because its garbits require preserving special precautions. In this case, even moving along the so-called line causes danger for other participants of road traffic(4) . The more, the accused that the accused without using a signal suggesting his intention of riding into the left lane, started a maneuver of passing by the bus, forcing Zaremba who was moving properly, that is in compliance with the obligatory traffic rules to sudden braking. In the light of the above, considering the dimensions of the bus which occupied the central lane and also the explanations of the accused who declared that after the road was barred he “pushed his way between the bus and the car, and he is a big man”, one cannot acknowledge that the harmed barred the road to the accused.(5)

The harmed indicated the type of damages caused by the behavior of the accused. He declared that they originated as a result of blows struck in the car with the hand and of throwing the down the bicycle(6) . At the same time he evidenced that he had collision before the incident in which the car was damaged. Also, the accused in his explanations admitted that during his stay at the police station directly after the incident, the harmed showed the car to the policemen present and that he lifted his lip. In the opinion of the court, damages to the car and injuries in the face of the harmed should be directly bound to the incident on the crossing of the roads(7) . Tomas Zaremba had no reasons in any way to charge the person whom he previously had not known at all. Also the psychiatrical opinion from which it ensues that the soundness of mind of the accused at the moment of the deed was to a slight degree limited(8) , indicates that he was in a state of emotional restlessness. Tomas Zaremba evidenced that the accused behaved as a raving madman- he was yelling. The above was confirmed by Katerzyna Zaremba who evidenced that the accused behaved aggressively, spoke with a loud voice, behaved as if some fury had overtaken him and knocked the car. He vented his emotions striking blows into the car and in the face of the harmed. Both Tomas Zaremba and Katerzyna Zaremba saw the moment of the accused striking blows in the engine cover, window and roof. Left back door was damaged while his “throwing” the bicycle between the barrier and the car. After which the accused approached the driver’s door, opened it and hit Tomas Zaremba in the face. The fact of the existence of defects on the car was confirmed by the witness Stanislaw Jablonski(9) . He indicated the type of damages which were visible on the body of the car after being bought by the wife of the witness. Also Tomas Jucha confirmed the damage to the car after the arrival of the harmed to the police station(10) . With reference to the scope of the damage to the car, Court also considered the expert’s opinion. Basing on the photo documentation and on the inspection of the Renault Megan car, the expert stated that the front window and the roof of the car were damaged. The above damages might originate as a result of acting with a car hand of the perpetrator(11) . With reference to the mentioned opinions on damages and the damage of the two remaining part of the car: the engine cover and the back door, Court acknowledged that they were caused by the accused. The above especially comes out from the evidence of Tomas Zaremba and Katerzyna Zaremba. Both witnesses evidenced that the accused after having put the bicycle in front of the car hit the front window with his fist causing a crack in it, and hit the roof and engine cover. Next he took it and threw it between the barrier and the car on the left side of the car(12) .

In the court’s valuation, explanations of Adam Richard Goodman within this scope in which he questions his guilt constitute a line of defense aimed at avoiding penal responsibility(13) . Partly deserves credit the evidence of Tomas Zaremba in which he gives the type of damage of the car and the appropriating behavior of the accused. Because the harmed evidenced that before this incident he had a collision, he hit into a tree. As a result of this occurrence, the car was damaged. In light of the indicated by the witness circumstance, it is not possible to precisely differentiate the damages, which originated as a result of a road collision, except of the damages appropriated to the accused on the basis of the credible evidence material: Opinion of the expert, protocol of the inspection and the evidences of witnesses and especially Tomas Zaremba and Katerzyna Zaremba referring to causing damage which the witness saw while observing the behavior of the accused. Considering existing doubts and an obligatory rule “in dubio pro reo” expressed in art. 5/2 of the code of penal; procedure, one should acknowledge that the accused did not cause other damages(14) . In the remaining part, the evidence of the witness is logic, compact. Also evidences of the other witnesses; Katerzyna Zaremba, Tomas Jucha and Stanislaw Jablonski deserve to be believed in. They are logic, consequent and they mutually compliment one another. Referring to the valuation of the evidence of Katerzyna Zaremba, who considering her age was heard in the presence of a psychologist, Court based its valuation on the specialist opinion, out of which it ensues that the mental development of the witness, capability of acquiring and reproduction of perceptions meet the standards. The evidence does not contain purview which could be acknowledged as “confabulations” Court paid attention to the notice of the specialist that the adequacy of reproduction of details was influenced by her father’s reminding her of the course of events(15) . Nevertheless, as it comes out from the evidence of the witness, she presented these factual circumstances connected with the incident, which she memorized, admitting more than once that she does not remember certain details. Considering the above, Court did not find any reasons to refuse to believe the evidence of Katerzyna Zaremba.

Court believed the opinions of the experts: doctor of court medicine and expert within the scope of cars, because experts made them, they are dependable, clear and complete. They constitute precious evidence material and there is no basis to question them(16) . All of the protocols of detention, inspection also deserve confidence. They were made in compliance with obligatory regulations, by persons authorized to do so, whereas the parties did not notify and reservations to the purport of the documents.

Having regard to the above the court came to the conviction that the guilt of the accused is unquestionable. Adam Richard Goodman with his behavior, namely that on May 15th, 2002 in Warsaw he caused the damage of the car Renault Megan, reg. No. WWL 70GC in the form of a crack in the front window, damage to the roof, damage to the engine cover, scratch on the left back door, causing damages in the amount of PLN 4225.29, exhausted disposition of the penal code(17) .

With his behavior, namely that on May 15th, 2002 caused injury of the body of Tomas Zaremba in the following way: H8itting with his fist in the face, he caused injury to facial skeleton with the wound of the upper lip, livedo and oedema of labia, percussion painfulness of teeth, jaw and mandable and painfulness of soft tissue of the termoporomandibular joint, causing the health disorder of his organism for the period of 7 days, he exhausted disposition of art 157/2 of the penal code.

Court inflicted punishment of one year of imprisonment to the accused, recognizing that it will be adequate to the degree of his guilt and to the degree of social harmfulness of the deed, inculcating observance of legal order in the accused and will cause that he will not commit a crime again.

For deed under art 157/2 of the penal code, Court decided to inflict punishment of 6 months of imprisonment to the accused, recognizing that this will be satisfactory repression, will obtain goals both in the scope of general and special prevention. While inflicting punishment, Court considered the type of infringed property and total lack of respect of the accused to another person, lack of respect to legal order. It should be notified that the indicated deed undergoes prosecution from private accusation, nevertheless in compliance with the existing jurisdiction line elaborated by the Supreme Court, lodging an accusation by the prosecutor in a case prosecuted from private accusation should be treated as (a) taking over (of) the accusation by the prosecutor(18) .

Inflicting punishment, the court considered several extenuating and aggravating circumstances. The accused allowed himself to do the deeds from purposeful guilt. Social harmfulness of the made by the accused is considerable. The accused was riding a bicycle in the middle of the city. Riding a bicycle and participating in the traffic imposes unreserved obligation to observe the traffic regulations, while not adapting to the basic rules of traffic creates serious threat to other participants. He was riding his vehicle in daytime, along the road where there is high traffic density. As the aggravating circumstance, court treated the motives of the perpetrators actions, because he permitted himself of the deeds out of a wish of retaliation, because as he declared, he wanted to teach the harmed that one cannot play a game with the cyclists in the street” Such behaviors of the accused, the goal of which was to take the law into his own hands” should be considered as blameworthy and condemnable. To aggravating circumstances, court accounted as the type of negative consequences of the deeds. The accused caused material damage. His ostentational behavior, especially hitting a father in the presence of the child in the situation when he was conscious that there is a small girl in the car, speaks for complete lack of respect to such values as: dignity of man, right to body immunity, feeling of safely, especially in a public place. Moreover, the accused is a person who cannot contain his emotions, is undisciplined, conflictive, the example of which was his behaviors in the court room and the fact that he used as many as four councils for the defense from authority. He demonstrates claiming attitude(19) .

The extenuating circumstances are that the style of life before committing the crime and especially hitherto unpunishability, personal conditions of the perpetrator: he runs a stabilized mode of life, has a profession and works(20) .

In the court’s evaluation the total punishment of one year of imprisonment inflicted upon him will be adequate tote degree of his guilt and to the degree of social harmfulness, and will meet the goals of general and special prevention.
The court adjudged the amount of PLN 4225.29 on behalf of the harmed Tomas Zaremba, acknowledging that the civil complaint in the mentioned amount deserves consideration because it was evidences on the basis of the gathered evidence material(21) .

Regarding the cost of process, Court adjudged under art 624/1 of the code of penal procedure. In Courts valuation considering the facts that the accused in a foreigner in Poland. Does not have legal employment, charging him with the cost of the procedure would not be purposeful(22) .

This document was translated form the Polish by Roza Jakubowska

Footnotes:
It appears as though Zurawska is quite angry here. And also that she is distorting the facts a bit. If you read on though, she seems to go back and acknowledge my story with a bit more detail. It is an interesting literary tactic. I mentioned this above. She makes her emotional point based upon things she wants to have heard, and then covers her self by afterward representing the facts clearly though not acknowledging the differences. Read the next few sentences and you will see what I mean.
2 This is a clever rewording. I of course claimed that the story that his teeth were broken were the false claim. The ignoring of that claim, especially when Zaremba during his courtroom testimony when asked if there were any medical bills in conjunction with this incident declared: I don’t remember.
3 Taking into consideration my claim that the guy drove into me with his car, that he lied about as many things as he did, and that he both had, and hid the facts about two other road accidents, one before and one after his event with me, how Zurawska could possibly come to the idea that he Zaremba exhibited commendable driving skills is a bit much.
4 Again she writes her opinion, and then follows a sentence or two later with some butt covering, acknowledging my story. A great irony here though is that doing so is basically agreeing with my story and ignoring Zaremba’s claim that my coming around the bus was only after everyone had stopped. That this was in no way the story of the cop who had claimed the braking and honking part had taken place some 120 meters behind the stop.
5 I am not entirely sure either of what the quote means or why it negates the car being in front of me. Zaremba himself admitted that I had to stop and carry the bike over the car in his court testimony. And this is after stating in three pretrial statements that the bike could RIDE past without problems.
6 Here of course she also chooses to forget that the actual statements from Zaremba were that I threw the bike at the car several times. This was changed to he threw the bike at the car once and then again to “he threw the bike down and some parts of it hit my bumper. I pointed out in one of my papers however that there is no single part of my bike of the sort of shape that would make the marks he has on the bumper. The pictures make this clear as well. I think you get the point. However, the next few sentences are perhaps the best example of prejudiced and incomplete thinking.
7 Get it? Because I saw Zaremba making a show about his car at the station, this meant that I did it. And, she hasn’t, and won’t as you read on, even acknowledge that Zaremba later submitted an estimate of damages in August for damages from yet another accident which he also attributes to me. Read on; she loves this guy!
8 The psychiatrist wrote that I was angry over being hit by a car.
9 Jablonski is the owner of an unlicensed body shop. His “wife” bought the car from Zaremba after Zaremba brought the car to him after the later accident in June. Jablonski’s “confirmation” would be that of the June accident. But perhaps that subtlety was a bit beyond Zurawska.
10 Yucha was the arresting officer, and he was the guy who gave as an original report that Zaremba had admitted that he had stopped in front of the biker who had come around the bus, though noting that the biker was not hurt. During court testimony, Yucha though called, refused to testify beyond saying “ I don’t remember that man, I don’t remember that day.” Zurawska misses these subtleties too apparently along with the fact that above and beyond everything, Yucha was not even a witness. Anything he “knew” about the situation, cane from the word of Zaremba.
11 This report was from one Robert Kalinowski. His report was turned in stapled to the estimate of damages on August 30th. Ironically enough though, in his report the damage to the hood of the car “could not” have been done by a hand. There were only three pictures taken and these apparently were what Kalinowski used to make his “opinion”. The small dents in the hood were very visible in the pictures. This report came after I had mentioned to prosecutor Wiesniakowski that there was water damage to the hood and that this would mean that the damages were old. I have always thought that this was why they bypassed the hood as being damaged “by a hand”. Not only did Zurawska miss this as well, She also ignore a change in the story in which Zaremba has me leaning with all of my weight on the hood of the car. In the earliest stories, the damage to the hood was from the bike, but after the second accident in June, apparently the whole hood had come off it’s hinges. In court, Zaremba actually changed his story to try to account for this even though his own witness confirmed the latter accident.
12 Zurawska is acknowledging just a part of the stated damaged, and also only a part of Zaremba’s story. I think Zurawska should have just testified for Zaremba herself. She would have done a much better job. I have a friend who is a scientist. He talks a lot about empirical evidence. I think it is really easy to prove one’s point if you remove a lot of the silly little extra points that don’t agree with you.
13 This sentence seems out of place. Some of the syntax can be attributed to the translation from Polish, but this sentence is a comment that, if ignored, allows the line of explanation to continue unbroken. I truly don’t understand why it is hear except the make the reading of the document more difficult. However, in that over the next few sentences, Zurawska tried to come to grips with the fact that there were actually previous damages to the car, I think it is safe to say that the first sentence of the paragraph was simply a little make up, a diversion. Take out the first sentence and read it again and you will see what I mean.
14 This is ignoring two important, absolute facts. First, Zaremba SAID that I was responsible for ALL of the damages to the car in three statements to the prosecutor before the trial. In these statements he had never admitted to any previous damages at all. The second is that Zaremba’s estimate of damages contains problems from the second crash, after our moment in May. Whatever the hell “in dubio pro reo” means, I’ll bet you it doesn’t mean that you can lie in court. Well, maybe it does in Poland.
15 I thought that was nicely said, if a bit wide of the mark. Simply said, the kid admitted in court that the father had told her what to say. This included some rather lawerly “ I don’t remembers” in response to my questions.
16 I just want to know why, if these opinions are so trustworthy, Zurawska doesn’t actually listen to them in regards to disproving Zaremba’s story about his teeth, or that the daughter was told what to say by her father.
17 Now, I would so very remiss if I did not point out that this number, 4225.29 PLN is the amount from the estimate of damages from after the second crash. How Zurawska, who simply had to understand what Zaremba was doing would even think of making this the number of the fine is simply insult to injury.
18 What this is as an acknowledgment that it was illegal to do any of this in the first place. This case had no right to be tried because the charge was a private claim by Zaremba. Zurawska allowed for this anyway, and this last statement is her justification of having done that. It also, if you are reading this all from my perspective, acknowledges that the conspiracy to defraud me was indeed perpetrated by the prosecutor and allowed by the court.
19 I have always felt that this pretty much describes Zaremba. Especially when it comes to doing something rather aggravated such as driving your car into a biker, or pulling a hook slide with your daughter sitting next to you. However, I was the object of the part. But, just in case you are a little swayed, this was the third time Zurawska decided to :”vent her emotions” on me, and then reconsider and actually tread from the text after she had had her say. The next short paragraph shows that.
20 HAD a profession. HAD a life. Nice of her to think of that some 10 moths after they had removed me from that “stabilized” life so OI could sit through this farce of justice.
21 Right, see footnote 17 about that.
22 It was nice of Zurawska to acknowledge one of principal issues that caused me to begin this fight: That it is not legal for me to work in Poland, makes making me both stay and pay for my stay for a ten month trial process rather egregious. I don’t know what the adjective would be top describe a situation in which said trial process was a complete crock. I like the word torture. If nothing else, it is what it looked and felt like to me.