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?

CREEPING OPPRESSION

WHAT HAS CHANGED
WHO’S THE REAL CRIMINAL?
IT ALL DEPENDS UPON THE POWER TO DEFINE.
DENNIS L. BLEWITT, J. D.., May 2016
WHEN I finished law school, there still was stability in the law.  There were century old definitions, concepts and principles.  There was a respect for precedent.  Law was methodology, not a body of knowledge.  There were fairly clear lines that defined crime, which developed over centuries. I started in a time of social change and challenge to concepts and ideas.  Power was up for grabs.  The rulers had divided the population along color lines, class lines and gender lines.  But these divisions were being challenged.  Loyalty oaths were attacked, the selective service was attacked, separate but equal schools were attacked and the new generation didn’t know their place.  They were restless and questioned authority.
All wrongs weren’t criminal.  A person had to intend to be a criminal to commit a crime.  However, there were lots of harmful screw ups; ones that hurt others because of recklessness or lack caution.  These people weren’t then considered criminal.  Yet.  But, to get control of thoughts and deeds, the regime believed that more power must be exercised.  The people couldn’t be trusted to govern themselves.  The law was called upon for discipline and to maintain the status quo.  The new generation preached love and the old preached hate.  The new wanted change, the old wanted the status quo and stability.  Not only was there a war in SE Asia, but there was a cultural war at home.  One that was viewed as a matter of life and death by the old guard.  Rather than try to understand, force was the weapon of choice, and the war on drugs was the battle ground.  The war kept the rabble paranoid, fractured and incapable of coordinated social action.  A casualty of that war was the abolition of common law, and the implementation of various degrees of Civil, or Napoleonic law.  Power was taken from the people and instilled in the rulers.  Debate was stifled and simple mindedness prevailed.  If there was a hurt, there was a punishment.
Causation had been defined as intent, now it was equated with knowledge.  Defenses dating back centuries which were clear now became confused and blurred.  “I didn’t do it, I didn’t mean to do it, it wasn’t illegal to do it, and, the devil made me do it” were the only defenses to crime.  Common law held that the act wasn’t relevant.  That stopped being a factor with the Druids.  What mattered was what was in the persons “soul” or heart.  Was he a bad guy or a screw up?  Only bad guys were criminals.  Crime was behavior that concerned the state and not individuals.  Criminal law could not be used for personal gain or revenge, if harm occurred, of consideration or caring.  There was a whole area of the law that dealt with these problems.  It was not criminal law.  However, without intent, there may be grounds for a lawsuit, but not for a prosecution.  
Then things started to get blurred.  The population wasn’t responding to things in predictable ways.  Young people avoided what was considered their duty.  They avoid the draft and protested war.  Races started to demand equality.  Gender equality was next.  The powerful took advantage of the unrest to dilute the labor pool and subjugate populations to lower wages.  Standard of living declined along with the perceived dominance of the world by the U.S.  Law no longer was the exemplar of the culture, through mores, folkways, taboos and customs.  Various groups vied for power to impose definitions upon the public.  Common law was considered inconvenient and unfair.  Power was up for grabs and for sale. The war on drugs was the perfect vehicle to keep the youths, minorities and dissidents under control.
When I started, common law was the law of the land in a substantial part of the English speaking world.  It was the reflection of the people.  It existed by consensus.  Consensus gave it legitimacy.  Power was exercised from the bottom up. “with consent of the governed.”  Most of the rest of the world had law based upon recognized or forced power from the top down, called Napoleonic, Roman or Civil Law.  It had worked well for centuries until some leaders got greedy and power hungry.  Some also got frustrated with the inefficiency of Government and, with the salad bowl concept rather than mixing bowl, definitions were up for grabs.
There have been many definitions of law, government, etc., however most deal with power and who yields it and who is subject to it.  Is the subjugation voluntary or not?  Where does the power come from?  How is it used?  The main difference between the two system can be defined in terms of power.  In Common Law system, power depends upon the consent of the population.  Rulers don’t remain rulers if the people don’t agree.  A Napoleonic system has power at the top, going down to the people.  It has many forms, the most extreme being Fascism, National Socialism, Stalinism and martial law. When people are fearful, unscrupulous politicians wrest power from the people and concentrate it for their own benefit.  That happened in the U. S.
Conservative Presidents wanted power and were afraid of change and of Communists.  Younger people had experienced enough duck and cover, paranoia, cold war suspicion and adopted the motto of Mad Magazine, “Quid, me vexare?”  They reasoned that if a bomb was going to fall, there wasn’t much they could do about it, so why worry about it.  Live, love, and be free was the password of passage.
Indoctrinated by fear of communism, the leaders were convinced that this change in beliefs of the young was inspired by communists.  Reds were behind civil rights demands, anti-war demonstrations, draft-card burnings, riots, student protests, and fluoridation.  The reds were behind everything.  But, we were saved by a president who identified the problem as the young and minorities, led by reds, who needed to be controlled.  A perfect way was devised to do this.  Drugs were associated with protest and long hair with draft resistance, and vice versa.  Our president’s men decided that the situation could be controlled by criminalizing drugs, instead of making it a tax evasion matter which it was considered previously.  This policy was embraced by the older citizens who were fearful of change.  The propaganda machine went into operation and the powers that be started marketing fear like some companies marketed soap.
However, the rulers were cognizant of the perilous position they were in.  So, the legal system had to be changed.  Power needed to be concentrated.  This was easy to do with a congress afraid to declare war in Viet Nam and left it up to the Executive branch.
Without opposition, the system started to be changed into a Napoleonic one.  Power was exerted from the top, not exercised by consent.  Since drug cases took up so much court time, the civil cases became backlogged and costlier.  Prosecutors, to win elections, tried to convince the people that they could represent the victims of crime and the interests of the state at the same time.  This was another power grab.  As that developed, the general bad guy theory gave way to the concept that wrongs should be paid for and the state should make sure that happened.  All of the sudden, anything that caused an injury or hurt was defined as a crime.  Prisons expanded exponentially.  By the time of Reagan, privatization was promoted as a cure for big government who had demonstrated that they couldn’t work in instances in which there was no reason for it to work.  Crime again got redefined, depending upon the profitability of the situation.  Some interest groups organized to have their definitions of crime.  New crimes evolved and were defined differently in various jurisdictions, depending upon who could exercise the power to define.  We went developed into a legal tower of Babel.
Thus, we evolved into a police state.  The vehicle used to do this was the drug war, inflamed with the marketing of fear.  There were not enough leaders with integrity to speak up for right and risk public condemnation or ridicule.  There were few people with the vision to see what was happening.  Intellectuals feared criticism and ridicule. The brightest were either tripping and dying, the rest were quaking and pissing their pants.  Whites wanted to keep power, the rich wanted more money, youths wanted to be mellow, politicians wanted war.  All this combined to steal freedom and liberty from the citizenry.  Freedom was intentionally and premeditatedly stolen from the citizenry.  Who is the criminal?

Drug War.

DRUG WAR: LIES, COVERUPS AND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF A COUNTRY        

dennis l. blewitt, J.D. May, 2016        

               It took a while for me to recover from my grand jury experience.  I was still fairly idealistic then.  That was to change over time.  I still didn’t connect the dots.  Sally Denton had published her book, “Bluegrass Conspiracy” and “Smith County Justice,” “Compromised,” “Politics or Heroin in SE Asia,” and other books.  I also started seriously research the subject.  At first, I wouldn’t discuss my findings, believing that I would be locked up in a looney bin.  That soon changed.

               In addition to having drug cases in over 30 U. S, state and Federal jurisdictions, I started receiving information anonymously by chance meetings and deliveries to my mailbox.  All in all, the experience was surrealistic.  It made me question my sanity and ability to think and understand.  I was starting to agree with my friends that I was bat-shit crazy.  After all, why should a nobody from nowhere Colorado have these surrealistic experiences, when my clients, who were on acid quite often seem perfectly normal.  I asked people if two plus three still equaled five.  There was agreement.  I would describe things I saw, and no one argued.  But, when I would speak about what I had observed and how I interpreted events, observations and experiences, I could see the disbelief and skepticism in people’s eyes.  The information mysteriously supplied started to make sense and form a pattern.  I would run into strangers who would tell me things which would later prove to be true.

               At that time, all new clients had to have a reference.  I had to feel comfortable with them.  I didn’t care about a fee, I only cared about them being a plant to set me up or otherwise harm me.  Then came an inquiry from an ex-client.  He had been a large scale distributor with his own fleet of airplanes.  I had represented him in Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and S. Dakota.  He was arrested east of Denver with about 500 pounds of marijuana on the interstate.  He had landed a plane with a confederate and an agent whom he had employed to write his memoirs. He documented the trip on film for his memoirs. Of course, he didn’t know she was a Fed at that time.  That came later.  At the time of the arrest, she made it a point to try to get me to advise some kind of questionable conduct, but I was too naïve and didn’t succumb to her charms like my client had.  In any event, within one hour of his arrest, they told him they would release him on a recognizance bond if he would agree to work for them to try to obtain anything usable against me.  If he could set me up for something, they would dismiss his 500-pound marijuana case.  We had a jury trial, and he was convicted.  I appealed the case.  The Government spent all the money investigating and capturing him.  However, the agents took the film from the camera to a corner drug store for developing.  The contact prints showed people unloading marijuana from a plane, but wasn’t good enough to identify anyone.  When the jury asked for a magnifying glass, I suspected that the case was lost. And, sure enough, two hours later a guilty verdict was announced.  The judge sentenced him to one year per 100 pounds.  He also stated that the main reason wasn’t the marijuana, but the fact that he had fathered several children and didn’t pay any support.  The judge said he was obligated to stop a one-man population explosion.  This was the last of several matters that I had handled for this defendant. He seemed to have lost confidence in me after his 5-year sentence. Or at least so it seemed at the time.

               However, I was not to have been so lucky. Although this particular client had great entertainment value, he was also a pain in the ass. Additionally, he had a monumental ego, reflected by the fact that he had hired a federal agent unknown to him at the time, to transcribe his memoirs, which turned out to be a confession of great significance however for some reason this document never seem to have gotten into the court files or records I suspect because he had significant ties to the intelligence community.

               Out of the blue, his new lawyer contacted me and informed me he was filing a post conviction case for the defendant based upon ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. That didn’t particularly surprise me, because many choose to do that when their lawyer loses a case. However, the grounds that this defendant used were unique. At that time, there been several cases of prosecutorial misconduct including planting spies and Jim Garrison’s office while he was trying to indict people on the Kennedy assassination, and planting spies on the Russell means defense team. I knew that the secretary, recording the client’s memoirs was employed by the drug agency, which I thought was outrageous enough, but, curiously, that wasn’t the grounds for his appeal.

               It seems, that when my client was arrested and in the custody of the federal agents, they told him that his case could be dismissed if he was able to get any evidence against me. Although he tried he was unable to do so, for which he blamed me. Had I done something illegal or unethical, and he would be a freeman today. They told him that it be fairly easy to do. They also said they would be greatly appreciative. So under his theory, he couldn’t tell me everything about the case that I needed to know to defend him, because to do so would incriminate him in a way that might be leveraged against him if he were to get something against me. Follow? I sure is held didn’t. So, because he couldn’t tell me what I needed to know to defend him he had inadequate representation of counsel. All I needed then was the white rabbit and the red queen. I considered using this in a class I talk about postmodern criminal defense. It was a scenario that could rival that of Umberto Eco.  However, since I realized that I wasn’t anywhere near the writer that Eco was, I decided not to. Additionally, I couldn’t determine whether to style it as Eco or Kafka or maybe a synthesis of the two.  So, I bumbled along, blissfully ignorant of the swamp in which I had chosen to play.

               I then started to sociogram my experiences again.  I did that before I ran for DA, and sort of stopped while I was reeling from attack.  I had a tip from an agent in Aspen, a case in Chicago and one in Milwaukee that enlarged my paranoia and, eventually understanding.  But that took a while.  Soon, I was about to be inundated with information, and with it, misinformation.  In my book, I detail these delusions, but I already get enough criticism of the length of my missives.  So until I find a publisher, this is it.DRUG WAR: LIES, COVERUPS AND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF A COUNTRY        

dennis l. blewitt, J.D. May, 2016        

               It took a while for me to recover from my grand jury experience.  I was still fairly idealistic then.  That was to change over time.  I still didn’t connect the dots.  Sally Denton had published her book, “Bluegrass Conspiracy” and “Smith County Justice,” “Compromised,” “Politics or Heroin in SE Asia,” and other books.  I also started seriously research the subject.  At first, I wouldn’t discuss my findings, believing that I would be locked up in a looney bin.  That soon changed.

               In addition to having drug cases in over 30 U. S, state and Federal jurisdictions, I started receiving information anonymously by chance meetings and deliveries to my mailbox.  All in all, the experience was surrealistic.  It made me question my sanity and ability to think and understand.  I was starting to agree with my friends that I was bat-shit crazy.  After all, why should a nobody from nowhere Colorado have these surrealistic experiences, when my clients, who were on acid quite often seem perfectly normal.  I asked people if two plus three still equaled five.  There was agreement.  I would describe things I saw, and no one argued.  But, when I would speak about what I had observed and how I interpreted events, observations and experiences, I could see the disbelief and skepticism in people’s eyes.  The information mysteriously supplied started to make sense and form a pattern.  I would run into strangers who would tell me things which would later prove to be true.

               At that time, all new clients had to have a reference.  I had to feel comfortable with them.  I didn’t care about a fee, I only cared about them being a plant to set me up or otherwise harm me.  Then came an inquiry from an ex-client.  He had been a large scale distributor with his own fleet of airplanes.  I had represented him in Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and S. Dakota.  He was arrested east of Denver with about 500 pounds of marijuana on the interstate.  He had landed a plane with a confederate and an agent whom he had employed to write his memoirs. He documented the trip on film for his memoirs. Of course, he didn’t know she was a Fed at that time.  That came later.  At the time of the arrest, she made it a point to try to get me to advise some kind of questionable conduct, but I was too naïve and didn’t succumb to her charms like my client had.  In any event, within one hour of his arrest, they told him they would release him on a recognizance bond if he would agree to work for them to try to obtain anything usable against me.  If he could set me up for something, they would dismiss his 500-pound marijuana case.  We had a jury trial, and he was convicted.  I appealed the case.  The Government spent all the money investigating and capturing him.  However, the agents took the film from the camera to a corner drug store for developing.  The contact prints showed people unloading marijuana from a plane, but wasn’t good enough to identify anyone.  When the jury asked for a magnifying glass, I suspected that the case was lost. And, sure enough, two hours later a guilty verdict was announced.  The judge sentenced him to one year per 100 pounds.  He also stated that the main reason wasn’t the marijuana, but the fact that he had fathered several children and didn’t pay any support.  The judge said he was obligated to stop a one-man population explosion.  This was the last of several matters that I had handled for this defendant. He seemed to have lost confidence in me after his 5-year sentence. Or at least so it seemed at the time.

               However, I was not to have been so lucky. Although this particular client had great entertainment value, he was also a pain in the ass. Additionally, he had a monumental ego, reflected by the fact that he had hired a federal agent unknown to him at the time, to transcribe his memoirs, which turned out to be a confession of great significance however for some reason this document never seem to have gotten into the court files or records I suspect because he had significant ties to the intelligence community.

               Out of the blue, his new lawyer contacted me and informed me he was filing a post conviction case for the defendant based upon ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. That didn’t particularly surprise me, because many choose to do that when their lawyer loses a case. However, the grounds that this defendant used were unique. At that time, there been several cases of prosecutorial misconduct including planting spies and Jim Garrison’s office while he was trying to indict people on the Kennedy assassination, and planting spies on the Russell means defense team. I knew that the secretary, recording the client’s memoirs was employed by the drug agency, which I thought was outrageous enough, but, curiously, that wasn’t the grounds for his appeal.

               It seems, that when my client was arrested and in the custody of the federal agents, they told him that his case could be dismissed if he was able to get any evidence against me. Although he tried he was unable to do so, for which he blamed me. Had I done something illegal or unethical, and he would be a freeman today. They told him that it be fairly easy to do. They also said they would be greatly appreciative. So under his theory, he couldn’t tell me everything about the case that I needed to know to defend him, because to do so would incriminate him in a way that might be leveraged against him if he were to get something against me. Follow? I sure is held didn’t. So, because he couldn’t tell me what I needed to know to defend him he had inadequate representation of counsel. All I needed then was the white rabbit and the red queen. I considered using this in a class I talk about postmodern criminal defense. It was a scenario that could rival that of Umberto Eco.  However, since I realized that I wasn’t anywhere near the writer that Eco was, I decided not to. Additionally, I couldn’t determine whether to style it as Eco or Kafka or maybe a synthesis of the two.  So, I bumbled along, blissfully ignorant of the swamp in which I had chosen to play.

               I then started to sociogram my experiences again.  I did that before I ran for DA, and sort of stopped while I was reeling from attack.  I had a tip from an agent in Aspen, a case in Chicago and one in Milwaukee that enlarged my paranoia and, eventually understanding.  But that took a while.  Soon, I was about to be inundated with information, and with it, misinformation.  In my book, I detail these delusions, but I already get enough criticism of the length of my missives.  So until I find a publisher, this is it.

So , What Else is New?

THE OBJECT OF MY PROJECT
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Who’s in Charge
DENNIS L BLEWITT, J.D. May, 2016
I digress from the sequence if my narrative to answer some observation, questions and revelations I’ve discovered since my first article of my war with the CIA.  Many readers have expressed the attitude “so what else is new, that’s interesting, what did you expect, etc.”  I have had comments from all over the political spectrum.  From that, I see a pattern evolving.  Both sides are suspicious of both the Government and the elite.  Most readers now accept that the Government or at least a Government agency is behind the drug trade and has been for quite some time.  “If [we] all know this, why are your writing about it?”
Well, the reason is that it is still going on.  People are still going to jail.  The police state is advancing, and our rights are still jeopardized.  It is frustrating that with so many people aware of the situation, that it is still allowed to exist.
When I first became aware of the CIA involvement, I questioned my conclusions.  I questioned my sanity.  I questioned my suspicions.  It was too unbelievable.  Our Government couldn’t be involved.  Sure, maybe there are a few rogue elephants out there, but I was watching a stampede.  This couldn’t be true!
It took a lot for me to overcome my provincial small town view of the world and people.  I was on a cruise ship that held more than the population of my home town.  My father was a state employee and a local business man.  He was active in the VFW and other organizations.  I was slated for Annapolis as a political appointee.  My younger brother was a career military pilot.  I was not taught, but indoctrinated to support the Government, right or wrong.  The Government paid for almost 10 years of school beyond high school.  In short, I represented the views, beliefs and values of small-town America.  Even as late as law school, I still held onto these delusions.  Then I started defending drug cases.
My first drug cases were all ex Viet Nam vets, returning from the war.  They were introduced to drugs by their officers and commanders.  I did drug cases because I didn’t expect to practice law long and was killing time until I could find an academic slot.  I took a drug case because no one else in town wanted to soil their hands or risk the social ostracism associated with drug use.  I knew about drugs somewhat because at one time I enrolled as a pharmacy major and held an apprentice certificate from the state.  I also knew chemistry and lab procedure.  I had even toyed with the idea of going to University of Kentucky’s program for a graduate degree in narcotics social work before deciding on law school.  I grew up in a time of building bomb shelters in the basements, witnessing crosses being burned on people’s lawns, and loyalty oaths demanded of university professors.  It was extremely difficult for me to believe anything bad about our Government.
I look back on those days as extreme naiveté and ignorance, which, I assume made me a perfect patsy.   So, for four decades, I learned, researched, reflected and codified my thinking.
At first, I was branded a “conspiracy theorist,” a label placed upon people who expressed ideas contrary to the propaganda machine.  The logic seemed to make sense.  Conspiracies are extremely hard to keep concealed.  Then came the Watergate burglary.  A senate select committee held hearings and issued a report about all the violations of the intelligence agencies.  I believe the purpose of the committee was to find leaks and plug them.  There was very little change in structure, but lots of new security regulations.  But, people still believed that there could be no conspiracies. It is hard to keep information sequestered.  At least until WiKi leaks by Assange and Snowden’s revelations about the NSA.  
In my view, there are no conspiracies.  We should be looking at the structure of our Government and how it works.  We should look at who has power and how it is distributed.  We should pity the preachers of conspiracy for their lack of vision and understanding.  We should fight corruption on all levels and examine policy makers and policy bribers.  If we don’t wake up, our society cannot survive.
No one likes to be labeled as a conspiracy nut.  That is the way the ignorant can dismiss unpleasant facts without having to engage a thought process.  However, these things still exist and operate without original players.  It is systemic.  So, in my humble way, I try to explain to people what is, not what is perceived.  There should be some real consequences of lying to the citizenry.  We confiscate property of marijuana merchants, but reward death merchants.  We allow two branches of Government to ignore their obligations and default to the executive who engage in wholesale war crimes and violation of the Constitution.  We allow the rich to build a police state to protect their status gained at the expense of the people.  We allow power groups divide us and so dissent to strip the people of power.  We allow the greedy to strip our national treasures, steal our resources and enslave our population.
It is time to realize who, if anyone, is in charge or did we create a self-perpetuating fascist machine, relying upon the media to perpetrate.  We seem to forget that all Corporations are the creation of Government and serve at will of Government.  The corporate rulers believe that they can act with impunity they have immunity as long as small shareholders can be held hostage.  If we dissolve a few corrupt corporations and make the executives pay for their robberies, I believe things will change.  Drug money is forfeited, why not executive salaries?  After all, fair is fair.  We could use the confiscated funds to fight the police state.  When a pension is robbed, all who profit from the robbery should be made to indemnify the workers that were cheated or robbed.  Corporations are not people.  They are run by people.  Why should a corporation, run by a board of directors and executive officers be able to bribe officials with massive campaign contributions, when individuals can’t?  It is too bad that we don’t have titles in this country like they do in Europe.  Then we could identify the guilty more readily.  Why should corporations, who benefit by our government protection and laws, be allowed to leave the country, shifting burdens to the people when the people have no benefit?  Companies extort tax breaks by making promises which they rarely keep.  If a company pulls up stakes, it should return the benefits given from the community that were promised.  If companies destroy land or communities, this should be accounted for.  Executives that don’t operate as fiduciaries for the public policy should be barred from holding office.  Bullshit insider trading fines should not be allowed to mislead the public that regulators aren’t controlled or bought off.  It is time for change.
I digress and ramble.  I apologize, however not for what I say, but for the presentation.  It is time to resist.  It is time for change.  It is time to be heard.