"I was going home at about 10:45 in the evening, an early evening for me. I noted a car behind me for the last few blocks before my house, but it appeared to be a compact, not a full size, and when the red and blue lights came on, I was a little surprised. I finished my turn, went about a quarter block and turned into a small business office complex and parked."

"The young female officer approached my rear left side and said she had stopped me for the unlighted license plate. I said, 'Oh golly, I think I have a replacement, let me get in the glove box and I'll fix it right now and we can all go home, happy.' She said, "No, I don't care about that, let me see your drivers license and registration." "

His response was limited to questioning the officer as to whether he had committed a crime and was being placed under arrest. Continuing quote:

"Her backup arrived and her sergeant arrived and took over the interrogation. We then established...that I had been stopped for a traffic infraction, that I could not answer the license question, that I was not free to go, that I was detained and arrested, there was no warrant and...that I had committed a crime. ...I then closed the conversation by the demand that I need to speak with my counsel and had nothing else to say until I had the advice of counsel."

Henry says that when he stated that he needed counsel prior to answering their questions, they handcuffed him and placed him into the police car. Then, he said, a police officer took each side of the car, searching it thoroughly with three additional officers searching the trunk for approximately fifteen minutes. They sifted through oil containers, tools, donated clothing for charity, and his Congressional campaign materials (he was a congressional candidate). Then, prior to completing the search, he was transported to jail, and thereafter in his absence, the car impounded. Within an hour of impounding, the owner of the car (Mr. Nicolle was not the owner), was forced to pay $455 to obtain his car following the one-hour impound.

"So, then I entered the booking section. 'Stand here, look there, take off your shoes, ... answer these questions and sign this.' Sorry, I cannot do either of those without the advice of counsel." ... They replied that if I did not talk and sign I would never see counsel nor would I see a magistrate. ...

"They had me strip naked and locked me in the "medical observation cell." This is a standard 8 or 12 foot X about 15 foot cell, but with nothing to disturb the pleasant pea green 1/4-inch-thick urethane industrial, self-skinning foam which blankets every surface except the 10 X 18 inch barred hole in the floor which serves as both a universal toilet and a drain for the hose-down cleanup. Believe me, the effect of the foam on the bare flesh and bone is little different that ordinary concrete or wood.

"Over the following 8 or 9 hours, I shivered and dozed on the cold, hard floor while a variable parade of the curious visited my cell window.  I heard the arresting officer and another female, and probably a dozen different male voices with conversations along these lines:  Casually - "Who's the guy in the penalty box?" "Oh that's Henry Nicolle, one of those 'Liberty People' ". "Oh? Why did we arrest him?" "Just a license plate light infraction." (incredulously) "An infraction? Why do you have him in there?" "He won't answer our receiving questions and he won't sign the inventory without advice of counsel and he wants to see the on-call magistrate." "Oh. Well, those guys are all nuts anyway."

"...Our conversations reject the concept that the green rubber room, or Penalty Box, had anything to do with psychiatric or medical observation. Its function and deliberate use are a form of torture, and not self-torture. You have no choices.

You will talk and sign or you will stay in here all night.

You will talk and sign or you will stay in here all night and all of tomorrow and not see the magistrate in the morning.

You will answer our questions and sign our documents or you will NEVER leave this room.

You can see your counsel after you sign and answer our questions, but not before. ....

"About 7-8 AM, a sergeant opened the cell and threw a set of jail clothes to me. 'Get dressed, I'm going to move you to another cell." I was moved to the next sequential cell which had two phones, a bench and a standard prison toilet. ...Eventually I was released about 1 AM the following morning. (Wednesday). ...

Henry Nicolle."

Let us not forget, the problem was simply a broken bulb over the license plate  which the owner was able to replace after paying $455 to get his car out of impound.