UVM Student Off-Campus Rights

We advocate that the privately-contracted army of UVM Police and their friends in the Burlington Police Department are in direct violation of rights guarenteed to us by the Constitution of the United States of America.

Amendment VIII (1791):
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

In regards to the above Amendment, we assert that in most cases these noise violation fines qualify as excessive. In many cases, $300 tickets are being given out for hardly a legitimate reason. We demand that the excessive costs of these tickets be reduced to something more deserving and easily affordable by full-time students on tight budgets during a time of economic downturn.

Amendment XIV (1868):
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

In regards to the above Amendment, we certify that Burlington's Noise Ordinance law that has been passed and enforced has successfully deprived us of our liberty and property rights. These rights allow us to talk to each other on our property, while the Burlington Noise Ordinance certifies that we can be charged for doing so. For the Burlington Police Department to enforce us to whisper or not talk at all on our own property is a violation of the liberties guaranteed by our Constitution.

We demand that the ridiculous nature and quantity by which these tickets have been issued be significantly changed. Tickets of such excessive price should be given only during instances of a more deserving nature, ones that are more of a threat to the public good; instances such as social gatherings containing large quantities of under-aged drinking and/or having received a real complaint from a neighboring resident.

Amendment VII (1791):
"In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court in the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

In regards to the above Amendment, we demand that those who contest these outrageous tickets, usually at least 15x ($300) the cost outlined by the Constitution ($20), be given a fair trial with a jury of peers, as the Amendment proclaims. Trials should not consist of only a Judge and the police officers involved.

In addition to the above Constitutional qualms, we demand that justice be carried out in regards to un-justified assault, violations of civil liberties, and/or other forms of police brutality inflicted upon college students and other Burlington residents.

We hereby assert that the nature by which the police have been conducting themselves conflicts with the sense of liberty and freedom that Vermont as a state, Burlington as a city, and the University of Vermont as a college have a renowned history of fighting for.

This nature is more directly comparable to a neo-conservative police state, a social fabric by which our country has scarily been moving towards; one which the undersigned legal adult residents of Burlington are opposed to.

Thank You.