Overview:
On Thursday, Fresno city lawyers and defense attorney Kevin Little met two stories below the Van Ness Avenue courthouse to begin the city’s first criminal trial under its new anti-camping ordinance — in which a 77-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanors.
The trial was postponed until April following motions by Little to dismiss the case.
Should the trial continue, it'll be the first time the city's anti-encampment law has been put under legal scrutiny by the local court.
Deep under Fresno’s courthouse, the stage was set this week for a potentially precedent-setting legal fight over the city’s contentious anti-camping law.
On Thursday, Fresno city lawyers and defense attorney Kevin Little met two stories below the Van Ness Avenue courthouse to begin the city’s first criminal trial under its new anti-camping ordinance — in which a 77-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanors.
The defendant, Wickey Two Hands, has denied wrongdoing and said he doesn’t believe he violated the city’s controversial “sit, lie, sleep” ordinance when Fresno police arrested him on Oct. 14, 2024 — about a month after the new law went into effect.
If convicted, Two Hands faces up to a year in jail and about $1,000 in fines.
Thursday’s trial was postponed when Little, Two Hands’ defense attorney and a longtime advocate for the unhoused, filed a series of motions to dismiss the case. Attorneys representing the City of Fresno asked the court for more time to review the defense motions.
“This prosecution,” Little said later in a Fresnoland interview, “like the statute that gave rise to it, is ill-conceived, and we’ll continue fighting.”
Both sides are due back in court on April 10, where Little said he expects the judge will hand down a ruling on the motions to dismiss.
Fresnoland reached out to Fresno city officials numerous times without hearing back. City Hall spokesperson Sontaya Rose referred all questions to the City Attorney’s Office. Daniel Cisneros, one of the attorneys handling the misdemeanor prosecution, declined to comment, citing office policy. City Attorney Andrew Janz did not respond to requests for comment.
Fresnoland has also submitted multiple public records requests to the city attorney’s office and police department requesting documents in connection with the arrest.
‘He wasn’t breaking any valid law’
Wickey Two Hands has pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor charges — one alleging the anti-camping ordinance violation and another for “unlawful possession and abandonment of carts.”
Fresno police also did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Court documents filed by the city say the arrest took place on the morning of Oct. 14, 2024. The officer arrested Two Hands for allegedly admitting that his carts and campsite were illegal.
In his arguments urging the judge to toss the case, Little said, in part, that police body camera footage showed officers failed to inform Two Hands of his Miranda Rights.
Two Hands, a Bakersfield native, moved to Fresno in 1990, and said he lived for about a decade on Motel Drive — an old strip of rundown hotels and inns along Highway 99 on Parkway Drive and Golden State Boulevard near downtown. He also said he was displaced from the area about three years ago when the shelters were transformed into affordable housing.
When asked about how he became homeless, the soft-spoken Two Hands said “it’s just the way I live.”
“I just chose this way of life,” Two Hands said. “I just may have chosen it at the wrong time.”
Two Hands said he’s aware of available shelters and services, but chooses to stay outside since many of the shelters are only a temporary solution to get off the streets. He also said he can’t afford to find a place to live on the money he makes working.
Little said his client declined the city’s offer of “diversion” because, Little said, the city failed to provide any specific details of a potential deal.
Diversion is a legal provision where a deal can be struck between the prosecution and the defense to meet a set of guidelines in an effort to circumvent a trial and possible jail time.
Little praised his client for rejecting the city’s offer.
“He wasn’t breaking any valid law, and he’s entitled to have his day in court to prove that, for all of the reasons that we’ve indicated, that this is not a legitimate prosecution and he shouldn’t have to kneel to the powers of the state simply because he’s unhoused, and they want to enforce this illegitimate ordinance.”
He also said that going to trial forces the ordinance to face legal scrutiny. Little has been mounting a case against the ordinance itself since it was passed, and he said that he sees the case first as a way to “vindicate” his client, but also as an extension of his goal to challenge the city’s new law.
“…I think, kind of how the unhoused community feels, that someone needs to stand up and challenge (the ordinance) well,” Little said. “We can’t continue to have people dragged into court and then take pleas, take diversion…because in a way, we’re saying that what’s going on is OK.”
“I don’t think that a lot of people who, in theory, are in favor of this ordinance really know what it entails,” Little later added. “So it’s time for that to be aired in public.”
What happens next?
According to Little, a judge will decide on April 10 whether to dismiss the case or proceed with a criminal trial. When asked what would need to happen for him to come away with a win, Little pointed to a need for transparency.
“To force the city to explain this ordinance and how it’s been being enforced and why it’s only being enforced against unhoused people,” Little said. “To expose how this ordinance is being enforced and why it’s being enforced, in front of a public forum, because that has not happened.”
Two Hands acknowledged that all of this, for him, was “an unusual circumstance.” He said that, if he had it his way, he’d just be able to live in his space alone, unbothered by anybody, saying “it’s not a crime to survive and live.”
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