JUSTICE, B.N. (Before Nixon or Before Nazis)

WHAT'S CHANGED? 

Dennis B.N

Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D, June, 2016

       Like many of my colleagues, I hung out at bars and coffee shops and talked to people, even today.  However, there are some significant differences that merit comment about “the good old days.”  The only thing good about them was that they warrant discussion.  So, I rewrote an excerpt from my Memoirs of a Drug Warrior to see if anyone understands it, or, more to the point, if anyone cares.  It is my hope that some nostalgic well connected acid freak might even line up a publisher or an agent.

One of the many advantages of trying cases in numerous jurisdictions is the benefit of comparing different views of the law and of legal procedure. Before I started traveling, I assumed law in the United States was pretty much the same all over however, that’s not the case.  The only consistency is when people in the system view it as a methodology rather than a body of knowledge.  There have, over the decades, substantial changes in both the law and the perception of the law.  Here is an example of the good old days.

One of my first cases out of state was in Laramie, Wyoming.  Both Laramie and Boulder, Colorado were college towns with travel between the student bodies at each institution. Laramie is on a wind-swept plateau is cold.  The town is much less active and much smaller than Boulder and, other than romancing sheep, I there’s not much else to do there. But, the cowboys do have money. And that’s where my clients, newly returned from Vietnam to enroll at the local University here enter the picture.  They were contacted by someone in Laramie who wanted to purchase marijuana. He drove down to Boulder to beg the clients to deliver the product to Laramie, which the clients were reluctant to do at first until the price offered was so high, they couldn’t refuse.

An interesting fact about my client’s back then was that the majority of them were first introduced to marijuana in Vietnam, by superior officers. So, as long as they were killing Commies for Christ, everything was cool. But when they came home things changed. There were newspaper articles at the time about how soldiers returning from Vietnam had become addicted to heroin and the government wasn’t doing anything about it. Later, I found out they were doing something about it. The government was packing heroin into caskets and sending it to the United States with the corpses, but that’s another story.

So, when my clients showed up in Laramie with a couple hundred pounds of marijuana they were surprised to be presented with handcuffs rather than money. I recruited co-counsel, Eugene Dykeman, and we flew to Laramie to see what we could do. We talked to the prosecutor and a date was set for hearing on our suppression motion. The prosecutor was friendly and condescending and offered to go easier on me when I told him I had never done a drug case there before. After the hearing, he accused me of lying to him because of my performance at the hearing.

“I thought you said that you had never handled a drug case before,” he said accusatorially.

“No, Mr. Reese, I said that I had never handled a drug case in Wyoming before. You must have misunderstood.”

During the hearing, I discovered some very interesting facts. First, Boulder was targeted by various agencies as a drug center. In fact, it was a training ground for some agencies. Additionally, the detective on this case specified that the informant had to buy marijuana from someone in Boulder and get them to deliver it across a state line to Wyoming. My clients were nominated and elected at the same time.  

When I delved into the phone call made from Laramie to my clients in Boulder, some very interesting facts were uncovered. The officer, listening in on the phone call, heard both sides of the conversation between the informant and my client. But the call was made from a phone that had no extension. It was a pay phone. So I asked the investigator how he managed to hear both sides of the conversation and he said, “well now, I have this neat little gadget that I use. I take my knife and I peeled back the wires and attach alligator clips to them, attached to headphones. there’s no microphone in the unit so the other side couldn’t hear anything from me but I can hear everything that goes on.”

Well, the detective had just confessed to a warrantless illegal wiretap. He was clueless he had done so.  I considered the case won at that point but toyed with him for another hour.  Then Dykeman had a go.  All was well except the prosecutor didn’t seem to recognize the problem with the search.  I concentrated on that and Dykeman concentrated on the enticement by the Government to encourage citizens to cross a state line to commit a crime.  I personally believed that it was to help populate the state with one congressman and two senators.  Incarceration would ensure that they would be around for a census.  After the first hearing, the prosecutor informed me that the U.S. Attorney was interested in my case.  He explained that he was a part-time prosecutor and dealing with me took up too much time.  He threatened to turn the case over to the Feds if I kept filing motions.  I knew that the penalty under Federal law was much less that the state of Wyoming was offering.  Immediately, upon returning to Boulder, I filed more motions.

I had some more trips. In one, I got within a mile of the runway when they closed the airport, forcing me to fly back and drive there. Most of the hearings were uneventful, and the prosecutor kept trying to get me to tell my clients to plead guilty to something.  I would respond by filing more motions.  This was the first wiretap case in Laramie and I don’t think the Courts there were used to them.

Finally, I pissed off the prosecutor to the point he turned the case over to the Feds. We had to wait to celebrate because I didn’t drink if I was flying.  However, I made up for it when I got back.  Looking back and comparing what happened then with what would have happened now is astounding.  It is hard for me to believe or appreciate what four decades has done to the drug laws.

In Cheyenne, we had a judge who had sat form many years and had many years as a practicing lawyer.  We both knew about loco weed that the cattle and horses occasionally ate, but there wasn’t a big marijuana problem in the area.  Most illicit smoking was trying to burn corn silk behind the barn.  The prosecutor made a reasonable offer to dispose of the case.  We actually had some discussions about the case, as opposed to today when a recent Law School graduate reads some police files written in a slanted fashion by more experienced police officer and then confers with the officer or agent in order to come up with a “plea bargain.”  There is no bargain.  There is an offer by some kid on a take it or leave it basis.  This arrogance is enforced by long sentencings with minimum mandatory sentences of the client balks at the extortion of a plea.  It is assembly line case processing.  It isn’t fair, but it is efficient.  That’s how the courts handle so many cases in a year.  It is also why we have ten times more prisoners now than when I started.

Before the clients were to be sentenced on a plea to a reduced charge, the Judge called us back to his chambers before Court.  Back then, judges mingled with the peasant lawyers and didn’t hide behind back doors.  I think that is not the case now because the judges know that they are unfair, dictatorial and clueless.  The judges were more concerned with Justice than processing cases and moving the docket along.  The process was fair, but not efficient.  Now the process resembles a ritual such as Mass, where a litany is recited which has absolutely no relationship to reality where a judge tells a defendant about rights he theoretically has, which actually don’t exist.  The client responds with catechistic answers.  The judge asks the defendant if he is agreeing to be screwed of his own free will and there haven’t been any threats.  Instead of telling the judge that he was threatened with extremely long sentencing if he didn’t go along, he tells the judge that his plea is voluntary.  At that point, the defendant is sentenced according to some chart that any clerk could use with the same result.  Uniformity is the buzz word.  To get that, judges can’t be independent.

In chambers, the judge had a conversation with the attorneys and prosecutor.  He explained his position in advanced and warned the prosecutor that he would have many regrets if he pissed and moaned about the decision.  This is the essence of the judge’s position as best as I can remember.

Judge-  Gentlemen, I have been doing some reading about this marijuana situation.  I don’t think it is that bad.  I read how it became law and am aware that the defendants didn’t start until they were in Viet Nam.  I find it unfortunate that the Government isn’t doing something about the situation there.  We’re surely spending lots of money to kill and I think some of the money could be used to help these men out.  So, I am sentencing them to the indeterminate sentence as required.  He told us that he had to do that because the press demanded some kind of punishment because it was the biggest marijuana case in Wyoming so far.

However, he told us, I will entertain a motion to resentence these people in 90 days when the publicity dies down.  So if you gentlemen file motions in about 85 days, I will grant them.  He also said that the clients had 30 days to turn themselves in at the facility in El Reno, Oklahoma and they could take their cars there.  Not a peep out of the U.S. attorney.  The defendants were released in 100 days, finished college and have been employed ever since.

I don’t have the vocabulary to describe what happens in court today to give all of you a comparison.  All I can say is that you should attend some court sessions and compare what is happening today with my story.  There hasn’t been just a change in attitudes, there has been a whole change in the culture.  Everyone entering the courthouse is suspect.  Probability is slim, but that doesn’t matter.  We are no longer a free country where we are assumed to be good.  We are suspected of wanting to cause harm to the court personnel.  Unless you are a member of the police state, you have to submit to surveillance, and searched, either by hand or electronically.  I can’t help but observe that the courts weren’t that way until the prosecutors and judges started screwing the people.  I have always found the situation to be insulting, but I guess I am one of the few who doesn’t live in a state of fear.  Like one famous president said, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and yet another stated confidently, “you have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  Also, compare past presidents with the front-running candidates today.  It is not hard to see why I write.

WE MUST ABOLISH FUN

DEAD CONCERT SEASON:

NEW GENERATION RESPONSE TO FUN; CONTROL IT or ABOLISH IT.

Dennis L Blewitt, J.D.  June 2016

            THE local paper published suggestions to officials and residents about how to manage the appearance of the “Grateful Dead” when they appear at a local football stadium to perform a concert.  The main concern was that the officials were concerned with camping in public places.  They were especially concerned with the types of fans that the band attracted.  Their fans did not wear ties and probably smoked weed.  The latter is accepted in Boulder as long as the smoker is acceptable and not a member of the unwashed.  The public image of Boulder is “the people’s republic,” which is pure propaganda.  It is an elitist location more aptly named the “brat’s playground.”

            The article took me back a few decades to when I ran for District Attorney.  I mounted a vigorous campaign against my opponent, a party official.  Most people thought that I wouldn’t get on the ballot, because I was nobody. However, the Nixon administration had shown its propensity toward establishing a police state, and more people were afraid than was recognized by the establishment. Even though there were protests, racial unrest, challenges to the power elite, most older people believed the Nixon policies of repression would stop the changes. The citizens were especially afraid of “new age" beliefs, longhair, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll. It was also the first year that the voting age was lowered to the age of 18.

            The Grateful Dead announced that it would give a concert in the football stadium, causing consternation and panic in the strait community.  I had other things to worry about such as writing speeches, planning strategy, and formulating position papers. However, my morning was interrupted by my campaign manager, who suddenly appeared at my doorway, out of breath and in a panic.

            "You got a stop them,” he shouted, blood vessel pounding in his head, and a panicked look on his face.

            "Calm down. What are you talking about?"

            “Your clients are going to wreck your campaign,” almost crying as he said it. “I can’t talk about I got to show you. Come on let’s go.”

            So I left the office with my campaign manager and walked down Pearl Street to where my client had a store and walked into a beehive of activity. In the back was a hundred pounds of marijuana and an even larger quantity of plastic baggies. An employee was stamping baggies and passing them to another employee who was taking a handful of marijuana out of a big box, and stuffing it into the baggie which bore the stamp, “Baggies for Blewitt,” in bright royal blue letters.  I was impressed with the efficiency of the assembly line.

            "What are doing” I asked my client?

            Proudly he announced, “We’re getting you elected.”        

            Now, I must admit that I didn’t think of that as a campaign strategy. Although, I have to concede that it was pretty brilliant. The election laws had just been changed to permit 18-year-olds to vote and that was the majority of my constituency. They weren’t quite as uptight as the people of my father’s generation, who were more concerned about hair than any other issue.  I thought the idea brilliant.

            However, in deference to my campaign manager whom I promised could run the campaign, I vetoed the idea. In retrospect, I wonder if I would still do the same thing. But, with Nixon’s drug war and the political climate of the right wing I, frankly, feared that I would get arrested and prosecuted, which had been tried a few times previously by various right-wingers. I was told later by clients, that some of the baggies had shown up at the concert.  If any of you dear readers have one, or a photograph of one I would really appreciate having it.  In any event, I lost the election.

            Which brings us to today. The drug war is still going on. We still have prisoners of that war and the highest incarceration rate in the world. We don’t have Universal Health Care. We don’t have a top-notch educational system. We don’t have as much paid vacation as other countries. We are stressed out. The so-called “deadheads” still exist, although the Grateful Dead has been around for almost 4 decades. However, like most things in our society, we are now concerned more with image than actual potential threats. When Boulder had hippies, they were everywhere, camped everywhere, and pestered people everywhere. But, for some reason, they were tolerated. Now, there is zero-tolerance. I have yet to hear any debate on to the harm that a few days of camping in the city would cause. I haven’t heard any discussion about emergency services for the people coming into Boulder for the concert. I suspect, rather than helping make the event a success, officials are staying awake and working overtime to determine how to sabotage the event. I’ve heard all kinds of worst-case scenarios, all directed at Prohibition, and none at amelioration. Under the present conditions, I believe the only reason that the concert is coming to down in the first place is to enhance the coffers of the police establishment, giving slaughter for the perpetual prison machine and the fine revenue machine. Some of my enemies have accused me of looking at things as they do now because I retired and don’t have to live the printed terry life of a lawyer. My response is, “I never made any money as a lawyer before I retired, why should I start now?” In any event it’s going to be interesting to see how the concert and the concert crowd is treated. I am considering starting a pool based on how many hippies the police can bag during the event. When I was practicing law, hippies were considered dangerous and a threat. Police officers I knew, who prided themselves and never drying their guns, weren’t afraid of hippies. Not so when Boulder County. We have one of the few documented cases where a deputy sheriff went hunting without a license specifically for hippies. There was a brief story about it in the local paper. The local power structure is more concerned that people will show up and smoke legalize pot than they were before it became legal, which I find ironic and hypocritical. Also enclosing, that I recommend everybody carry cameras and photograph the scene. Who knows, it might save someone’s life. If not, it’s still probably pretty good historical footage.

            

Does Law Exist?

WHAT’S CHANGED: 

ABOLISHING LAW THROUGH FALSE HISTORY 

Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D.

First there was the Sachsenspeigel, the source of Saxon common law.  It was an amalgamation of customs, decrees village consensus and other sources, none of which were written. It codified law in Eastern Europe and Eastern England, pretty much centered around the tribe or territory.  Not even an invasion by Normans could supplant it. Then came the Normans, with their version of law, more in line with Roman Church law. It was pretty well established when William invaded in the 11^th Century.  The Normans tried to change the law, but instead of doing so, had one of their kings held at sword-point to sign a document limiting power of the King.  Although the King repudiated it, it survived and is the basis of many of the rights enjoyed today in English speaking countries.  So, the two systems became amalgamated.

            Conflict occurred between the people and the sovereign ever since.  Although there was conflict and even wars, law was pretty well established by the 14^th century.  Essential to the development were certain undeniable principles, sometime referred to as Natural Law.  Common law dealt with concepts, applied to the people, based upon general consensus.  Norman law dealt with specifics, declared by the State through decree or legislation.  The concepts such as prohibition against search, seizure, denying due process, and sanctuary of the Church and the home.  The concepts of due process and sanctuary survived for nine centuries in a revered place in our history and law.  However, after the assassination of a President and the pursuit of an unpopular war, fear seized the population, spurred on by our leaders.  With the election of assassination of Kennedy, the way was paved to wrest power from the people and give it to the powerful.  Searches and seizures became more common place to combat the scourge of marijuana, in use by returning soldiers and anti-war protesters.  The idea of a home as a sanctuary was abolished.  The king’s men were never allowed to enter a house, even on of a murderer.  They had to await his exit.

            Then came the attack on due process.  The police state obtained an advantage and due process seemed to be anything that the executive branch of the government feels comfortable with.  With this mythology of law, a false history was developed.  All the changes were brought about by one gigantic protection racked, called Government.  Fear was marketed to the point that the citizenry became paralyzed and irrational.  Checks and balances in our constitution were abolished as inconvenience.  Justice was replaced with expediency.  The Courts were viewed as inconvenient in the administration of the modern corporate state. Instead, substance was eclipsed by procedure.  With the help of PR firms and politicians without honor, we became the world’s leader in incarceration.  We are behind other Western nations in almost everything good, and are competing with Islamists for the record number of executions.  Greed is venerated.  Charity considered passé. 

            The fear machine made it easy.  Also, the rulers, stealing from us and lowering our standard of living made it easy for them to convince us that Government was bad.  Taxes were bad.  Decent housing and medical care are “socialistic,” and business is better at almost everything.  Profit became the new deity.  One of the cleverest ways of wresting control was to convince us that private corporation should rule everything.  Soon, Government became an enterprise, financed by various self-funding schemes, wresting control over expenditures from legislators and delivering it into the greedy unscrupulous tycoons and robber barons.

            Three decades ago, congress investigated the intelligence agency abuses.  After hearings and printing a lengthy report, the rulers set about making sure that the citizenry couldn’t find out as much did ever again.  The abuses couldn’t have occurred if the agencies didn’t have a source of income outside the legislatures.  Whistle blowers became targets and were prosecuted.  Laws clamped down on citizen participation and dissent.  Disclosure laws made it possible for the elite to measure the strength of the opposition.  Media no longer was viewed as a community asset held in trust for the people.  Equal time was essentially abolished for politicians and costs to run for office increased astronomically.  The day of the rail-splitting candidate was history.

            One thing was clear from the Pike and Church committees.  The rogue activities, illegal in most civilized states were funded by privatized businesses, called proprietaries, such as Air America, which flew most of the drugs for the CIA.  Like lemmings, we blindly run to the sea of privatization to drown.  I often ask “Where’s the outrage?”  Now I ask “Where’s the brains?” 

            So we allow privateers to stop cars, confiscate cash and other valuables to hire more liars jerks to harass the citizens on the highways.  There is no way a police agency should obtain one cent without appropriation by a legislative body, no matter how publicized the situation.  We are the Government, not the officials and employees of the state.  The ass-holes get away with this because we let them.  A recent review of the news according to the Washington Post reveals that the police are literally getting away with murder. Nearly a thousand times this year, an American police officer has shot and killed a civilian This is not equal or fair.  It is the power elite’s version of ethnic cleansing.  The Government bombed its citizens experimentally at Bikini and other sites, infected blacks with syphilis in the name of science, caused suicides administering LSD, developed the drug trade in the US to keep the citizens in line, euthanized, sterilized and executed almost at will.  People can be denied a livelihood by investigation.  Some unprincipled Bureaucrats, like J. Edgar Hoover, even tried to get Martin Luther King to commit suicide.  I ask, “How long is this going to be allowed?”  Why do we even speak to these people or their associates?  Why are they respected and not ridiculed?  Is the population so stupid, or just lazy?  

Stupidity Reigns Supreme, Bring in the Clowns

WHAT’S CHANGED:

ABOLISHING LAW THROUGH FALSE HISTORY  

Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D.

First, there was the Sachsenspeigel, the source of Saxon common law.  It was an amalgamation of customs, decrees village consensus and other sources, none of which were written. It codified law in Eastern Europe and Eastern England, pretty much centered around the tribe or territory.  Not even an invasion by Normans could supplant it. Then came the Normans, with their version of law, more in line with Roman Church law. It was pretty well established when William invaded in the 11th Century.  The Normans tried to change the law, but instead of doing so, had one of their kings held at sword-point to sign a document limiting the power of the King.  Although the King repudiated it, it survived and is the basis of many of the rights enjoyed today in English speaking countries.  So, the two systems became amalgamated.
Conflict occurred between the people and the sovereign ever since.  Although there was conflict and even wars, law was pretty well established by the 14th century.  Essential to the development were certain undeniable principles, sometime referred to as Natural Law.  Common law dealt with concepts, applied to the people, based upon general consensus.  Norman law dealt with specifics, declared by the State through decree or legislation.  The concepts such as prohibition against search, seizure, denying due process, and sanctuary of the Church and the home.  The concepts of due process and sanctuary survived for nine centuries in a revered place in our history and law.  However, after the assassination of a President and the pursuit of an unpopular war, fear seized the population, spurred on by our leaders.  With the election of the assassination of Kennedy, the way was paved to wrest power from the people and give it to the powerful.  Searches and seizures became more common place to combat the scourge of marijuana, in use by returning soldiers and anti-war protesters.  The idea of a home as a sanctuary was abolished.  The king’s men were never allowed to enter a house, even on of a murderer.  They had to await his exit.
Then came the attack on due process.  The police state obtained an advantage and due process seemed to be anything that the executive branch of the government feels comfortable with.  With this mythology of law, a false history was developed.  All the changes were brought about by one gigantic protection racket, called Government.  Fear was marketed to the point that the citizenry became paralyzed and irrational.  Checks and balances in our constitution were abolished as an inconvenience.  Justice was replaced with expediency.  The Courts were viewed as inconvenient in the administration of the modern corporate state. Instead, substance was eclipsed by procedure.  With the help of PR firms and politicians without honor, we became the world’s leader in incarceration.  We are behind other Western nations in almost everything good, and are competing with Islamists for the record number of executions.  Greed is venerated.  Charity considered passé.
The fear machine made it easy.  Also, the rulers, stealing from us and lowering our standard of living made it easy for them to convince us that Government was bad.  Taxes were bad.  Decent housing and medical care are “socialistic,” and business is better at almost everything.  Profit became the new deity.  One of the cleverest ways of wresting control was to convince us that private corporation should rule everything.  Soon, Government became an enterprise, financed by various self-funding schemes, wresting control over expenditures from legislators and delivering it into the greedy unscrupulous tycoons and robber barons.
Three decades ago, congress investigated the intelligence agency abuses.  After hearings and printing a lengthy report, the rulers set about making sure that the citizenry couldn’t find out as much did ever again.  The abuses couldn’t have occurred if the agencies didn’t have a source of income outside the legislatures.  Whistle blowers became targets and were prosecuted.  Laws clamped down on citizen participation and dissent.  Disclosure laws made it possible for the elite to measure the strength of the opposition.  Media no longer was viewed as a community asset held in trust for the people.  Equal time was essentially abolished for politicians and costs to run for office increased astronomically.  The day of the rail-splitting candidate was history.
One thing was clear from the Pike and Church committees.  The rogue activities, illegal in most civilized states were funded by privatized businesses, called proprietaries, such as Air America, which flew most of the drugs for the CIA.  Like lemmings, we blindly run to the sea of privatization to drown.  I often ask “Where’s the outrage?”  Now I ask “Where’s the brains?”
So we allow privateers to stop cars, confiscate cash and other valuables to hire more liars jerks to harass the citizens on the highways.  There is no way a police agency should obtain one cent without appropriation by a legislative body, no matter how publicized the situation.  We are the Government, not the officials and employees of the state.  The ass-holes get away with this because we let them.  A recent review of the news according to the Washington Post reveals that the police are literally getting away with murder. Nearly a thousand times this year, an American police officer has shot and killed a civilian This is not equal or fair.  It is the power elite’s version of ethnic cleansing.  The Government bombed its citizens experimentally at Bikini and other sites, infected blacks with syphilis in the name of science, caused suicides administering LSD, developed the drug trade in the US to keep the citizens in line, euthanized, sterilized and executed almost at will.  People can be denied a livelihood by investigation.  Some unprincipled Bureaucrats, like J. Edgar Hoover, even tried to get Martin Luther King to commit suicide.  I ask, “How long is this going to be allowed?”  Why do we even speak to these people or their associates?  Why are they respected and not ridiculed?  Is the population so stupid, or just lazy?