POST MODERN POLITICS

Dennis comments ♦ July 26, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

DEBATES?? REALLY!!
WHY DO THEY CONTINUE TO INSULT OUR INTELLIGENCE?
Dennis L. Blewitt, a/k/a Gonzo
I am really starting to believe that I must be really stupid, insane or obtuse. I have followed the political process for years and even ran for office before. But, I just can’t understand what the hell is happening. I remember one campaign where one candidate kept asking, “Where’s the beef?” It got a lot of play and had many voters wondering. But then, I look at the present election and the statements of politicians and press and wonder if I haven’t been transported to either another dimension or a whole other planet. A lot of words are exchanged in a meaningless manner and nothing of substance is discussed. At least nothing that an ordinary citizen cares about. I guess if a person is a trust funder or a one per center, the discussion might be germane to something. But, for the average citizen, everything but bull shit is lacking.
Both candidates talk about taxes, as though that was an issue that really mattered. Most of us pay taxes. Some of us have been harassed by tax authorities and have made the political enemies list. But even then, most people bitch and moan about them, but tax policy is not the great decider in their lives. Most of us remember past tax refunds which was barely enough to go out for an evening, let alone be life changing. The only people that really get exercised about taxes are the selfish rich, who believe that good fortune, luck or circumstances had nothing to do with their wealth. Most of these people don’t even take funny drugs.
Then we have discussions about medical care, jobs, rape abortion, religion, and other bull shit issues about which we have little control or interest. We see commentators talk for hours, analyzing nothing and trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It is almost like hearing Howard Cassel discuss football, or watching a game on television and the fans cheering the teams on as partisan fans, not discerning decision makers.
But, most importantly, I think about what is NOT being discussed, or even mentioned. We have a President that made several promises which weren’t kept. I think he tried, but he was sabotaged. However, I would expect him to have read the Constitution and be endowed with some scruples. However I see none of that. A prior administration destroyed our constitution and made a political criminal act the cause for endless war and expanding the powers of the Executive Branch. That President repealed Habeas Corpus, Posse Commitatis, murdered people in the name of the People, committed war crimes, and totally changed the land of the free and home of the brave into the land of the subjugated, and home of the paranoid cowards. We have seen due process thrown away and much of the rest of the Constitution. There is no discernible difference between the candidates in this area. It would appear that both parties are in a race to see who can destroy Constitution the fastest. We see a Government primed with repressive laws on the shelf, waiting for an event to foist them upon a fearful, irrational, mad citizenry. I have heard not one word about this situation. We have several citizens indicted for war crimes abroad. What has been mentioned of this? Next we hear talk about jobs. The only really effective way that I know of for Government is something like the WPA that put my father to work in Estes working on trails. So we have one candidate who tells us that he will give a humungous tax break to the voters, especially the rich ones, cut back on Government, increase our armed forces and make jobs. How, I ask, can a government shrink, give away revenues, spend money on our wars such as on crime, in Afghanistan, on drugs, in Iraq, and in spoiling for a fight in Iran. This seems to be off limits for political discussion.
We have no candidate that has a vision, a dream, or even a cogent idea of what the people are concerned about. For instance, What is the purpose of Government? Is it to support monopolistic capitalism or is it to provide for its citizenry? When business become more and more efficient and there are fewer jobs, do we take care of our citizens or kill them as non-productive eaters? Is employment the purpose of government or is it to provide for the health, safety and welfare of its’ people. Does an ethical, sane government protect its citizens from predators, or join in the hunt. Why is no candidate discussing the rendition program and the number of civil servants convicted in other countries for war crimes? And, why is no one talking about the costs and collateral damage of the Drug War?
One candidates falsely claims that a government must be run by a business man, not an elected citizen because it must be efficient. Having been a director and a CEO of some corporations and represented many of them, I will tell you what I constantly remind businessmen of. That is, “every corporation can be efficient of it doesn’t have to answer to a Court system and account to the people. I have told clients that they can control a corporation by having the fealty of the attorney, accountant, the accountant and the public relations firm. If a company is structured that way, it is costly for a group of dissident shareholders to raise hell with management. Additionally, corporations owe their loyalty and organize their activities around profits and return to shareholders. A Government must structure its activities and reason for being around the welfare, health and safety of its people. Neither candidate addresses that issue. Both seem to indicate that there is a magic wand that can bring about substantive change with a magic wand.
The stock market! The religious Tea Partiers and their associates treat the stock market quotes as if were gospel, although it only really measures broker’s and banker’s commissions. One would think that with all the serious problems in the world, politics could deal with a little more than investment bank’s profits. I have yet to hear either candidate tell us what his vision for the Country is and how it would be accomplished. Instead, we get the bread, bath and circus politics of the early Romans.
So, we all optimistically sit around the TVs, hoping to hear something that isn’t an insult to our intelligence. The commentators amuse each other with stupid, utterly inane prattle, while all the good programming is taken away. We read how much influence money is poured into the campaigns and try to limit contributions instead of looking at the cause of the situation and postulate a solution Brokers, bankers and financiers are high-stakes gamblers who have almost succeeded in destroying this country. I couldn’t be done, but for the ignorance, naiveté, venality and gullibility in their worshiping of the rich. We worship them so much, we have become priests and priestesses to their voodoo religion, placing people one the sacrificial alter while engaging in figurative oral sex with their gods as in the early Roman time. The difference is that Rome did not screw its citizenry nearly to the extent that we are being screwed. Modern day politics make Caligula and Nero mere amateurs in comparison.
After the stock market crash of 1929, Congress held hearings about the nature, extent and cause of the crash and the resulting depression. This resulted in drastic changes in both commercial and investment banking. Additionally, new programs were implemented and the Wall Street pirates or robber barons, as the press calls them lost a great deal of status. Commercial and investment banking activities were separated with the Glass-Stengel act. Consumer and investor protection became the cultural more of the day. Because of the regulations, trust of American banking was enhanced, making the economic stability of the Country. The hope was that with the resulting legislation and policy changes, we would be stronger and the people more protected from the Pirates and Robber Barons of Wall Street. Of Course, turning to war production also helped.
Well, the crooks of Wall, chafed at the restrictions, agitating for change, forming front groups, rewriting history, bribing everyone is sight and turning Wall Street into a big casino, where the players get paid for betting other people’s money and are allowed to go back to the trough for continuous seconds. Long and short-term capital gains differential was abolished under Reagan under the rubric of tax reform and de-regulation. Banks pissed and moaned about pesky regulations and got many repealed, but managed to keep depositor insurance underwritten by the same government they have repeatedly denounced and slandered in their claim for being over-regulated.

IS IT LAZINESS OR STUPIDITY?

Dennis comments ♦ July 26, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

THE RISE OF THE AUTOMATED BUREAUCRATIC MACHINE AND THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE

DENNIS L. BLEWITT, J.D.   Mar., 2017

  I am no longer surprised by the ignorant arrogant of our public servants drawing high salaries for not thinking or even demonstrating the capacity to do so.  Not only have we dumbed down the population, but we tolerate consummate arrogance in conjunction with the ignorance.  A perfect example made me a participant after I returned from my last trip.  My readers know that I travel often since retirement.  I consult, but do nothing that requires time restrictions or doesn’t amuse me.  

                So, imagine my surprise when I returned home from traveling and received two letters in the mail from the attorney regulatory counsel informing me that I was under investigation for not answering a ludicrous inquiry previously.  I received both letters from my held mail.   I have attached the letters so that you may judge for yourself if maybe something should be done with the officials rather than me. I find the letter insulting and I believe I should be entitled to a little curtesy from a profession to which I have dedicated 40+ years of my life.  But first, a little background. 

            Every lawyer licensed to practice law in Colorado must pay a registration fee to support the activities of the licensing authority and to pay for investigations, research, staff and programs.  The entity has rules and also follow rules of the state Supreme Court.

The Reagan administration claimed that the poor of the country were just deadbeat fathers and welfare queens driving Cadillacs.  A citizenry believed this as well as that welfare was immoral.  An ignorant public believed this bullshit.   I had a client form a corporation to collect over $1,000,000 on a percentage basis in child support arrearages on contract from the County welfare services. Based upon my experience, I would not undertake such a venture because I know most parents try to make support payments and don’t make them for a valid reason.  Since there are rarely hearings to determine the fairness or equity of a situation, judges now rubber stamp decrees based upon legislative mandated formulae. 

            The administration determined that being against the poor, especially those receiving aid to dependent children would gain votes.  Unelected officials then got congress to mandate that states deny or revoke licenses to anyone owing any kind of child support.  Legislatures raced to pass laws revoking driving licenses, plumbing licenses, real estate licenses, and attorney licenses among others to display their ignorance and support of the policy.  This is similar to the labeling of “sub-human” of some people by the Nazis when the state puppets ordered deportation, sterilizations and other remedies to purify the race.  Ironically, most money collected by this legislation just reimbursed the state rather than going to children.  Recovering these costs caused other costs to be imposed upon other social agencies.

                A decade ago, congress passed the “Professional Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which provided remedies to the state to enforce child support orders.  It was not based upon empirical knowledge but upon propagandistic politics.  The act provided for a Child Support Enforcement Unit and also mandated that data collection and retrieval be created to track support compliance.  If done, the state receives a bribe from the Federal Government to run the program.  The state legislature, in lockstep with their Federal masters, enacted legislation, not based upon evidence, but upon the mythology of the deadbeat father, and welfare Cadillac mothers.  So, in order to collect support orders and obtain re-imbursement welfare benefits on behalf of the State, whose agencies are supposed to help the needy instead of acting like a collection agency, the legislators decided to revoke licenses issued by the State.  How it helps a person pay support by depriving a means of making a living is beyond me, but the vengeful and idiotic congressmen and legislators dictate that the person lose any license issued by the state, including law licenses.

                Therefore, even though there is an expensive data base foisted upon the backs or the poor which tracks support payments and compliance with Court orders, this was not used.  The Government pays the states to set up this system.  I assume it works.  Nonetheless, I received a threatening letter from the Attorney Governance group stating that I had not certified that I was in compliance with support orders.  She was unable to determine whether or not further proceedings are in order.  The letter signed by an attorney, presumably licensed to practice law and who attended law school somewhere.  When I went to law school, I was trained to give advice, investigate facts, determine the best interest for the client and for society.  Corporate counsel has a further duty to the public or shareholders.  A government is a kind of corporation.  A lawyer is expected to think, reason, and plan.  Anything less than that is not practicing law, but administrating an entity. A lawyer doesn’t blindly follow regulations as did the advocates and judges in Nazi Germany who deported Jews to Auschwitz and similar places. This is generally done by clerical staff at less expense to the taxpayer.  A well trained grade school graduate can see if a form is filled out in compliance with rules.  This does not necessitate great intellect or thought.  What does require some thought is to determine an answer and apply reason and logic.

                I was the 4557^th lawyer to be registered in Colorado out of tens of thousands.  My age is on file.  The courts are computerized, listing each and every case any lawyer is a party to, as well as any orders, pleadings, judgments, etc.  Regarding child support, there is a register of all parties who owe child support. Had I treated a client as the attorney for Colorado treated her client, I would be sued or even worse.  I would have been expected to investigate and find out if there were any judgments or orders, and based upon what I discovered, to take action.  Not so our Government lawyer, making much more than a clerk.  In the same batch of mail, I received upon my return, there was another letter from the same party stating that she was unable to determine whether or not further proceedings The letter is troubling on several levels.  Aside from being insulting, it flails against my training and beliefs as a lawyer.  First, unlike those trained in Napoleonic law, I was trained to function subject to a constitution.  I was trained to give a person the benefit of a doubt and not to automatically assume someone is out to cheat, injure or steal.  I have practiced law for over 40 years, run for public office, been a judge, taught at a university, was on five Ph.D. dissertation committees and not exactly unknown to officials.  My wife’s ancestors include a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and mine, in addition to a King of England, include judges, bishops, and a Judiciare for the Crown.  Tradition in my family is strong.   

                I have also been an admirer of Chief Justice William Douglas, who at age 64 married a 23-year-old.  He was a better man than I.  Although I would be flattered to be named in a paternity action, I know that this would be impossible, and I only took biology in high school.  I want to say in passing that had any of my students shown such lack of intellect, I would have been tempted to fail that student.  There are several pages pertaining to me on the internet.  Yet, I was requested to submit a sworn statement with a notary seal attached, why I didn’t fill out a form question which, in addition to being insulting, is un-necessary.  If no answer was given, then I will be disbarred.  As a matter of principle, I cannot participate in such an inane exercise.  As an educator, I can’t continence stupidity, ignorance or laziness.  As a lawyer, I can’t agree with the Napoleonic concept or innate guilt and lack of a presumption of innocence.  As a taxpayer, I cannot stand such a waste of resources by someone paid by my tax moneys and registration fees.  Maybe if some of these lawyers started using common sense instead of blindly following like lemmings, we would not have the highest incarcerate rate in the world and rank as low in various area as we do.  In any event, dear readers, expect me to go from the label of retired lawyer to retired disbarred lawyer. 

                Finally, I have belonged to a group since I started doing peer review for an international drug policy journal.  I joined this group after reviewing an article by a Brit regarding policy based legislation.  The rest of the world has rules that policy legislation must be based upon empirical evidence.  Here in this country, legislation is based upon image and propaganda.     

            I have been a member of an international group promoting empirical based legislation for years.  I have also been an educator and the University level.  I can’t in good conscience give a response to the threat from the Attorney General’s office.  Remember, this is the same office that covered up the perjury and incompetence of the head of the State Forensic Lab and still uses false information in training manuals for police officers in the Attorney General controlled police academy. I would have thought that being a member of the profession for 40 deserves a modicum of respect instead of insult and accusation. The following is a copy of the letters to me.

fortimer, Jr.

Jlation Counsel Funk

L..1 11 1   rlUU.;’.)Ul l

April M. I

Geanne I

Alai Timothy Katrin Miller Catherin

Jac1

E. Jarr

Attorneys’ Fund for Client Protection

Unauthorized Practice of Law

l?ebruary 11, 2016

Dennis l. Blewitt 5019 Holmes Pl.

Boulder, C0 .80303

Re:  Req uest for Investigation filed by ARC, 16-372

Dear Mr. Blewitt:

The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel has been notified that your 2016 Attorney Registration information indicated that you are in non-compliance with respect to child support orders. Please see C.R.C.P. 227 and C.R.S. § 26- 13-126(3).

I am unable to determine whether further proceedings pursuant to C.R.C.P.

251. 10 are appropriate. Therefore, please give me your position in this matter in writing within ten (10) days of the date of this letter. Please include the following information with supporting documentation:

1. location of court and case name and number in which child support was awarded;
2. nature and amount of child support arrearages;
3. status of any motions or orders regarding child support arrearages, including any contempt orders; and

4,) the name and telephone number of current opposing counsel, if any, in the domestic relations case or, if there is not counsel, the name, current address, and telephone number of the opposing party.

[f you are not currently obligated under any child support orders, or are in compliance with any and all child support orders and obligation, there is no need to call this office. Simply provide a written statement attesting to same, with your notarized signature, along with a brief explanation as to why your

L Child support order means any administrative or court order requiring the payment of child support, child support iebt, retroactive support, or medical support, whether or not such order is combined with an order for maintenance.

Attorney Registration information indicates otherwise.    You will be notified Whether further proceedings must be undertaken.

thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Sincerely,

Counsel

Counsel

iamuelson

lation Counsel ortimer, Jr.

lation Counsel

Erin Robson

April M.

Regulation

J.f Geanne F

Alar Timothy Katrin Miller

Catherine

Jacc

Dear Mr. Blewitt:

The request for investigation as indicated above has been assigned to me for

review. I note from the file that your response was to be filed with the Attorney regulation Counsel by February 22, 2016, but we have not yet received it.

independent of the disciplinary ramifications of failing to respond to an investigation by Attorney Regulation Counsel, C.R.C.P. 251.8.6 provides for an administrative suspension for the failure to cooperate in an investigation.

Please be advised that if you do not respond with regard to this matter, the investigation will proceed. Moreover, the allegations in the request for investigation will be deemed uncontroverted, with the result that the Attorney regulation Counsel likely will be authorized to prepare and to file a complaint.

further, ·failure- to  cooperate  can  be,  in and  of  itself,  grounds  for  discipline.

ee, C.R.C.P. 251.5.

I will expect to receive your response within ten (1O) days from the date of

this letter.

Sincerely,

Assistant Regulation Counsel

EF/jn

DO WE NEED REFORM OR A COMPLETE SYSTEM REDO? D.L.Blewitti, J/D., July, 2021

Dennis comments ♦ July 20, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

Years ago, before I became too old to be relevant, I wrote the following, calling attention to one of the most frustrating problems facing arrestees.  As the police state creeped on and the public were brainwashed into thinking that private enterprise was better at governing than government, privatization ran rampant with the complicity or even encouragement of greedy, stupid, or lazy judges, or young prosecutors put on the bench without any ideological or moral compass, industry started to displace government in the criminal justice system.  universities offering advanced degrees in criminology and corrections closed or reduced their programs.  The public became convinced that minimum wage employees in the justice could dispense better service to the public than trained employees.  Justice became systematized and privatized to benefit business and not the public.  The public and the products of privatization became the prey of a corporate society, cheered on by the indoctrination public.

            President Reagan set the tone by saying the Government is not the solution, but  the problem, negating President Kennedy’s plea to ask what people can do to improve government. We became a nation of pigeons, ripe for the plucking.  If a person is inconvenienced, it is the fault of the Government.  If he can’t cheat or gyp others, it is the fault of the Government.  If we are over-fun with disease, it is the fault of the Government.  Nothing is our fault.  We don’t have to govern.  We leave that to the corporations, who can exploit without conscience or remorse.  Not only that, corporations do not have to be responsible to the public for their failures in policy or harm done to others or society.  They are efficient and their only responsibilities is to the shareholders.  Government entities were and are formed for the benefit of the people, Corporations are formed and exist for the benefit of the shareholders.  If there is a profit to be made, the behavior is justified as are the consequences.  People owe fealty to government in an exchange of duties and benefits.  Not so a corporation.  So, the privileged, who want for nothing, can swarm over the people like locusts, and when nothing is left to take, swarm onto the next territory.

            So, when a judge or a prosecutor enforces a payment due to the private analyst or private prison program, He is an agent of the corporate mind as defined by Benito Mussolini et al.  Such a system is no longer for the benefit of the People, but for the businessmen, bankers and industrialists.  This was carried to extremes in 1940’s Germany decided to kill its slave labor, rather than feed them when they were too weak or sick to labor. 

            We mask the general concept as a business-government partnership.  As long as the [prisoners are warehoused efficiently, it doesn’t matter.  If no one sane wants to hire a prisoner, it is the prisoner’s fault in the first place for being there in the first place.  The judges and prosecutors are blameless because they are following the law (orders.) 

            Since these recommendations are made by youths with little experience outside of college and the Country Clubs, and most recruitment is from this class, it is easy to see why we have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.  We are run by privileged idiots, too naïve and arrogant to conceive of policy consequences.

            So, when the prisoner on work release can’t get relevant employment, it is the prisoner’s fault.  There is research to the contrary, but our officials chose to ignore it because the press is too greedy or ignorant to explain things adequately. Think about the idea of a collect call from a penal institution and think of why this exists.  Government has defaulted to corporate policy.  I wrote for following several years ago and it still applies.

“You Have a Collect Call”

            The phone rang today, as it often does.  However, a recording started with “You have a collect call from a correctional institution.  The phone service you have is not set up to accept calls from our system.  You may set up an account to accept such calls if you have a Visa or Master charge account.  If you want to set up an account, press one.”  Then the listener has to follow instructions entering credit card numbers, dates, security code and waist size.

            After this is done, you get to talk to the party calling you collect.  I did this today from a call originating in another state.  After I set up the account, I was disconnected.  When the party called back, ten dollars had already been deducted from my account deposit for the privilege of setting up the account.  I had heard complaints from clients in the past, but, because of the social position of my clients, they are generally out of the slam in a few hours, and I don’t receive too many of such calls.   However, it got me remembering how it started.

            Initially, TV shows always mentioned the arrestee’s free phone call.  Every jail in the country had a “prisoners” or “inmate” phone(s) in the cell block and prisoners had good access to them.  That changed with privatization of the correctional system.  Predatory business practices became the norm, and the prisoner or arrestee became the pigeons.  (Stool pigeons still were treated differently) Some families called the set up a “love tax.”  Others called it an outrage.  I fall into the latter.  I do not believe civility should end at the jail-house door.  Nor do I believe in exploitation of the poor or disadvantage.  However, I appear to be in a minority again.  The exploitation fits in perfectly with hard on crime attitude that has existed for the last thirty years.

            I find this very puzzling and disturbing.  First, as a lifelong student of crime and criminology, and in that field as a lawyer and instructor, I feel like a failure.  I have known    

the past decades have helped train some and have tried to keep up with the literature.  In addition to criminology, which was a product of my era, a new emphasis or major has evolved called criminal justice.  This field seems to be the engineering equivalent to the theoreticians.  Many a police officer and law enforcement agent have degrees in such a subject.  It has captured a large interest because that is where the research money seems to be.  There doesn’t seem to be much interest in the causes of crime that is studied by criminologists, but in what to do with the criminals after they are produced.  In other words, how do we manage crime in a prison-industrial-banking system as a non-government or private profit enterprise?

            What is totally frustrating is that I know that both study areas are clear that poverty is one of the main causes of crime.  Most people arrested and put in the slammer are poor.  They tend to be young, minorities, undereducated, and otherwise disadvantaged.  Chambliss teaches the class difference in defining crime, emphasizing the class-consciousness and social status.  Most graduates who have either degree in crime studies know this.  So, my question is this.  How does someone who studies basic criminology or criminal justice justify exploiting prisoners with private collect phone calls?  What were these students doing while in class?  Did they even read a book?  Or did they pick up the major only for credentials and pay enhancement, not paying any attention whatsoever to the research or presentations of instructors and professors.  How did they pass exams?  Who won the world series or World Cup in 2010? 

            Now I am not too much of a fossil to remember the proper student priorities.  That is getting drunk, getting laid and getting fed, not necessarily in that order.  However, when I was in school (I promised never to do this after listening to the same line from my parents), I had to study and learn in order to stay in school.  Otherwise, adios school, hello Viet Nam, or worse yet, move back in with my parents.

            Now, ideology trumps about anything else.  Criminologists know lots of things, which the rulers chose to ignore.  The rulers ignore simple knowledge and fact because they have to stay elected and one gets elected because of image, not substance.  Students don’t want to be educated; they want to be trained.  Training provides job skills to apply in the workforce.  Education can be a handicap, because it doesn’t provide a particular job skill, it is a process.  I got it figured out, having been in both types of institutions.  I was trained to be a barber.  I was licensed and had a skill that could be used in the workplace.  Then I studied criminology.  I sure as hell wasn’t trained.  I remember one whole semester seminar where we struggled with the definition of crime.  I figured at that rate; it would take at least 50 years to be a criminologist.  Then I went to law school.  That was a little of both.  Most today are training institution.  When I was in law school, I was taught that there was no law (Postmodern law?).  We were taught that it was a process, not a body of knowledge.  Now lawyers are trained in subject matter to better serve their corporate masters with their billable hours.  But I digress.

            What, one might wonder, does all this have with privatized phones in jails?  Consider this.  A person is sentenced to jail.  He is told that he can be on work release.  However, he is unemployed.  Can you imagine a potential employer receiving a call that starts out, “you have a collect call from a correctional institution?”  Would you hire someone making such call?  Of course not.  The person is set up for failure and officials can proudly say that the person was given a chance to work. 

            The practice also turns jailers into privateers.  Money, not compassion runs this kind of system.  The persons in the system are looked at as objects that can yield a profit.  They can further be punished for being poor.  I believe that it is outright wrong to give any agency the right to raise its own funds.  That is the job of the elected representatives of the people, not of jailers, police or other occupation forces.  Not only that, but it also makes it extremely difficult for a prisoner or arrestee to contact his lawyer, employer or family.

            The real disturbing thing about all of this is that the people running this system and the legislators see nothing wrong with this.  God is punishing them by making them poor.  They are unworthy.  Since I am better than they are, I should punish them too.  This seems to be the attitude of officials.  My question is do we really want people like this running things?  When did we, as a society change where kicking someone when he is down is acceptable or even rewarded?  Maybe these people never had friends when they grew up.  They never learned the rules of the playground.  They probably didn’t learn to play or were micromanaged by adults that nothing was learned.  They were never hurt and have no notion of what hurt is.  They are comfortable.  Anyone not comfortable is a bad guy and it is his own fault for not being comfortable.           

            I suggest all moneys collected by any form of government be paid to the general fund and allocated by our elected representatives.  The phone revenue should be distributed to the families of the poor whose supporters are in jail so that the family members don’t have to steal, deal or hook to survive.  In any event, Government should absolutely not be engaged in enterprise.

            Someone should clue the overseers of the burden and hardship it creates for the unfortunate.  A system can not be reformed if there are no fresh ideas and it is ruled by elitists afraid of the people.

ADDENDUM

            I didn’t get around to posting this when written and put the transcript of Green Tongue’s hearing instead.  So, I have an addendum I put twenty-five dollars on the account.  The client called again, and the message said I had five dollars credit left.  This is the first time I got to talk.  In other words, I was charged twenty dollars to set up the account.

            I put fifty dollars on the account this time and talked one time.  The client called back, and the message said I had one-minute left.  This is the third conversation I have had for my seventy-five dollars.  I was obtaining instructions on the extradition when the phone went blank.  The minute had run up.  It is bad enough that they scalp the phone costs, listen in on attorney-client privileged calls, sometimes recording them, but when you cut the lawyer off in the middle of a conversation, this is hard core prisoner harassment and exploitation.  It should stop.  The system is too corrupt to continue. Just vote no on everyone.  Make the jailers and the privatized phone systems personally liable for any civil rights damages as a result of denial of counsel.  Make every jailer have to spend a day at least in his own facility as an inmate, paying for his phone calls on the same basis as the inmates.

            This is beyond wrong.  It is unconscionable.  It is scandalous. 

REPEAT OF GONZO BLOG

Dennis comments ♦ July 15, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

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I have practiced law for 4 decades, was a judge, candidate for DA, defense attorney, writer, University teacher, co-founder of Double Helix Films, Home Music Channel, and many other business entities. I was board chairman of Lexicor Medical Technologies, and board member of WAVI, Inc. . I am interested in the CIA’s involvement in Drug trafficing and other forms of corruption

Thursday, July 15, 2021

 https://denniscomments.com/Posted by Dennis Blewitt at 11:34 AMNo comments: 

Monday, March 25, 2019

IF A TREE FALLS IN A FOREST AND NO ONE IS THERE, IS THERE A SOUND?
This question recently was brought to mind by a clerk in sandwich shop. To me, it is one of the great ministries of our time. I was recently in a sandwich shop near where I live. The shop is part of a small chain started by an acquaintance of mine in Boulder. It is staffed by college age young people who like their music. In fact, they like it so well that it is very difficult for patrons of the business to hear anything or have a conversation. However, the employees seem oblivious to the situation.
I went into the establishment today at lunch time to buy a sandwich. I got some potato chips and the soft drink and sat down waiting for someone to call me to pick up my order. A customer would go to the counter, placed his order, pay for the order, and sit down awaiting its preparation, which I did. After sitting an inordinate amount of time, a customer came over and asked me if I had ordered a brisket sandwich. I had I told him, and he informed me that it was at the counter. I went to the counter and told the employee that one of their customers had told me that my order was ready. He looked at me and said to mean, I called out four times that the order was ready,” looking and treating as though I were the village idiot. I explained with music level is high as it was, I didn’t hear him. Rather than apologize, he looked at me rather disdainfully stating, “I called it out for times.”
For some reason, his explanation and consummate arrogance minority. So, I walked away before I exited establishment, I decided that I would register a complaint. I went back to the order taker and explained that I was not happy that the employee blame me for not being able to hear
his announcement that my sandwich was ready. The response was a blank stare finally to the person who called out to sandwich in said that I thought it was a knowing that I was blamed for not hearing the sandwich announcement with the music blurring so hard which I believe was reasonable considering that there should be no doubt that I was a septuagenarian. A coworker was standing next to that I was to find out later was a manager. When my comment received a shrug, I expressed the opinion to the employee that I thought he was “fucking rude.” At that point the other gentlemen, claiming to be the manager, said he was calling the police because I used profanity toward his employee. It seemed to have made his day that a 20-year-old manager could threaten an old man with calling the police. I told him to go ahead and call them since I didn’t believe I had committed a criminal offense. Meanwhile the subject of me not receiving I sandwich had yet to be addressed. Apparently, twice the post pubescent manager ordered me to leave which is the prerequisite for involving police.
I became more and more annoyed with the situation as I left the facility. I could not understand how the employee could believe it was my fault that I couldn’t hear my order being called and the manager didn’t feel he should apologize for the fact that I didn’t get my sandwich. The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got at the manager threatened for BN dissatisfied and threatened me with police action. So back to the original question, was there a sound or did the tree even fall?
Why does a whole generation of citizens feel they are entitled to be offended by people getting upset with their go to hell attitude? What is there about the culture, society, or upbringing that causes them to blame others for their own shortcomings? I really don’t feel it is my fault that it is somewhat difficult for me to hear at my age. I really don’t believe it’s my fault for getting frustrated and angry pending $15 for a sandwich that I didn’t get. Why did the employee think that by informing me that he had called out for times announcing the sandwich, that this excused
his conduct or lack of concern for a customer? Why was she so gleeful putting an old man in his place, and threatening a customer of police action because he just been ripped off for almost $20 by the shop? What someone please explain.Posted by Dennis Blewitt at 5:18 PMNo comments: 

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Dont let a little pneumonia stop you

Many of you have wondered why I have been so silent recently. It is not for lack of subject matter, it is because I’ve had a rather long bout of illness due to MRSA migrating to various parts of my system. Needless to say, this weakened me quite a bit. When I thought I was through with the illnesses, I decided to get implants for teeth. After going through much pain and torture, the equivalent of having a gang of bikers worked me over with chains I decided to take a trip to lower altitude to recover.
The news, being ultra-depressive, was not helping my disposition any. So, to be able to fight more effectively in the future, we took off for the Mediterranean. Right before that I did a brief television appearance in Las Vegas and, when recuperated flew to Barcelona Spain where we took an MS cruise ship through various tops to Malta and back to Barcelona. During that trip my body decided to reject the implants. After a rather painful amount of time, and lots of Percodan, I recovered. I am now on a transatlantic crossing from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale. For some reason, I didn’t look too healthy to the staff and they put me in quarantine for a day. I decided to take the transit planning trip to catch up on my writing. I bought an Internet package for the ship to stay in touch with people, which I have yet to get working. In the meantime, I would like you all to reread the Constitution and as you justice Cavanaugh said hearings he is a strict constructionist on the Constitution. Now remember all the politicians elected to office take an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
With that in mind read about the declaration of war. It provides that only Congress can declare war. Through what I believe to be gross negligence or even treasonous conduct Congress has delegated that to the present, which is dereliction of duty in the least. Congress is allowing a renegade Runaway president to run roughshod over the Constitution. He asked like a king or a dictator modeled after it all Hitler. The president believes that as commander in chief of the Armed Forces you can use them as toy soldiers as he pleased. The problem is, there are other parts of the presidency that has nothing to do with for power. He doesn’t care, because no one has enough balls to stand up to him in his party.  In some countries, this type of behavior would have resulted in the breaking out of the guillotine. However, we’re civilized. Secondly, with tax cuts we have given the rich enough extra money to buy off our government.
When I get a better, I will start writing again and attempting to analyze what the hell is happening to our country. Meanwhile I have been reading many for newspapers and other publications, where it has been written that Americans are complete fools and idiots, which I find personally embarrassing.
Thank you very much for your support and I hope that I can continue my work as in the past.

Posted by Dennis Blewitt at 6:10 AMNo comments: 

Sunday, July 22, 2018

LAW REFORM IN NAME ONLY
AND THE BIG CON BY
CORPORATE INTERESTS

       Most people don’t realize how law has been sabotaged over the last half century.  Even more don’t realize how corporate America has benefitted from this change.  Unfortunately, most people don’t care.  They are fiddling while their country burns, and the people bled dry, like slaughtered animals in a slaughterhouse.   These changes came about partly because of marketing fear by the government. The biggest change was due to the implementation of the war on drugs, a law devised by the Nixon administration to keep protesters and other radicals in line.
With the advent of that law, there was a radical power shift whole legal system conferring greater powers upon the executive branch, manifesting in the increase of power given prosecutors. This power shift caused population jails to increase geometrically and prompted suggestions to make more people keep guilty, thereby making courts more efficient. One such efficiency was built.
When I first started practicing law I could generally arrange to have a client admitted to bail within 2 or 3 hours of receiving a call by a client. I would receive a call from a client or someone on the client’s behalf, interview the client in jail, discussed payments, and contact a bail bondsman. There was a bonding schedule at the jail and the jailer was commissioned as a deputy court clerk. Rarely did it take more than 3 hours to spring a client. The police and prosecutors started a propaganda campaign in which they described the process as an affront to the police because prisoners were tipped custody after arrest. Although the police knew or should have known that the right to bail guaranteed by the Constitution and it has been around for 800 years, they still the that it was a total insult to their Nabors. Police adopted a vigilante nature, starting to view the Constitution as an enemy to effective law was.
This was accelerated with the US Supreme Court started to discuss the obligation of the states to provide basic process deciding what aspects of Constitution applied to the State Board’s officials. Particularly irksome areas that will legally searching citizens, the confessions of arrestees, requiring probable cause for the issuance of low search warrant for making a search, guaranteeing the right to counsel and other fundamental concepts and around since Magna Carta. Police were relatively easy to influence by politicians because of their fellow status and disdain the citizenry. There was a war going on. There were demonstrations. There were riots in cities. Young people were showing unpatriotic behavior by resisting the draft and protesting a war. They thought was unfair and illegal. The Constitution was pretty much being a more I Congress, relinquishing its declaration of war Powers the executive branch, and yielding to the desired of military industrial complex. Incidents were manufactured use of military force. And protesters were starting to be received as unpatriotic or, in some cases even treasonous.
This resulted in bitter strife between generations, exploited and divisibility by the next frustration. The government marketed fear. Advertising agencies devised a series of law and order shows such as FBI, O’Hara, Treasury Department, and other pro-police propaganda shows.  These were designed to counteract such things as police brutality at conventions, Buddhists monks burning themselves, and the rumors of soldiers committing atrocities and returning home addicted to heroin. Law and order played will became a political basis for many political campaigns. Efficiency was preached the ignorant and appealed to the citizenry bearing the burden of war costs. To strengthen that point, and will shortage was contrived making people more anxious after the fighting stopped in Vietnam.  Very few people questioned why there was a shortage of fuel after a war in which soldiers commuted daily by helicopter and B-52 bombers made daily runs between Manilla, Philippines and Thailand. The end result of reform during this era was to increase the time and arrest the arrestee spent in confinement increased by a factor of 35. This caused prison populations and jail populations to geometrically increase, setting the stage for the introduction I to what the centuries had been a State function. 
Thus, in a maneuver in which 8 centuries of precedent was overturned and a common law system replaced by system based a Napoleonic code which enabled corporations take a predatory stance, exploiting people could not fight back with defend themselves and, in the process, implement one of the most regressive form is taxation manageable by passing on the cost of privatization to who can least afford it.  Governmental functions would turn over to private corporate interests, passing the costs of the taxpayer’s. Imprisonment for debt, abolished centuries ago, became the new norm. All the sudden programs, which had been province of the taxpayers were implemented to replace jails, probation services, counseling services and the myriad other predatory ways in which business can’t screw the poor.  The government had become privatized. Privatized companies needed profits to stay in business and these profits had to come from somewhere. And, since the businesses promised savings to the taxpayers p profits and to be derived somewhere. So, logically, people suffer looted by stupid politicians that his type of system is good for the country and our system of government
One of the more innovative with the introduction of the ankle bracelets. Bond was no longer a vehicle to guarantee the person’s appearance in court. A Napoleonic form of preventive detention was implemented, where my lease promote institution be conditioned upon behavior and superstitious of the Judiciary. No longer were accused’s fair presumed to be innocent.  They were all considered a danger unless they could show otherwise. Detention hearings usually and whereby judges not learned in the law is provided for in Magna Carta parroted ideas of Napoleonic code and its extreme form of martial law.
The respect for precedent or stare decisis, became acquainted anachronism. Judges no longer engaged in the business of fairness, but instead engaged in the protection racket to the prison industrial complex.  Another flagrant violation by a scared Judiciary indoctrinated to worship of business was the privatization of telephone services involved in the judicial – jail process. Private companies supply phone service to constitutions and corporate price, causing the poor who have relative and no institutions to pay an exorbitant amount for telephone calls.  Thus, the poor, can’t afford bond are taxed by predatory corporations who can extract tribute from people who are incarcerated by order of the State. Additionally, although the Constitution provides for an attorney’s client confidentiality, juries are one of the conversation and he are not can be monitored and by implication, shared with law enforcement personnel. This is an egregious affront to justice and our constitutional traditions, which have been ignored or violated by prosecutors and judges, acquiesced to by gutless, greedy lawyers lack principals, fortitude or respect for centuries of precedent and tradition.
As long as the government markets fear like Procter and Gamble markets soap, you got to be walked over and tramples by powerful interests. It is almost impossible stop this judgment not with an ignorance population spurred on by a greedy power structure is disappointing and tragic that their residual lack or leadership in the third branch of government, which is opposed to be independent but, instead, shows subservience to other branches of government allow the implementation and rise of a will or will of the police State. It is time to wake up. It is time to be out it is time to replace weak kneed politicians more interested in their social standing and economic well-being that they are in fulfilling their oaths of office.

Posted by Dennis Blewitt at 3:41 PMNo comments: 

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

IS THERE A DIVINE RIGHT OF Kings, or is he full of shit?

S THERE A DIVINE RIGHT OF Kings, or is he full of shit?            Since high school, I have been a student of Magna Carta, its history and content.  I visited an original at Salisbury Cathedral in England.  My particular interest in the document and the event is that one of my ancestors was forced at sword point to agree to it and sign it by a bunch of rebellious Barons.  Of course, he had his fingers crossed while doing so (maybe the origin of the “king’s X.”  In any event, after disingenuously signing it, he went running to the pope to have the contract declared null and void.  The pope obliged, and the king went on a rampage to subdue and punish dissent, using the divine right of kings as justification.Now that king was a total ass-hole.  While his brother, King Richard was returning from a crusade, he was captured in Germany and held for ransom.  John, regent at that time refused to pay, allowing him to continue ruling and oppressing his people.  When he was finally made king, John continued his dictatorial and greedy ways until his barons said “enough,” which brought about the rebellion at Runnymede where King John signed the Magna Carta.  Embodied in that document were the concepts of due process of law and equal protection of the law, as well as some rules minimizing the ways in which he could screw his people.  Additionally, he had to agree to appoint judges learned in the law instead of rubber stamp judges.  King John invoked the divine right of Kings every time he caused harm to one of his subjects.The document has had many revisions throughout history, but the concepts remain the same.  It formed the basis of our Constitution, 6 centuries later.  One of the most important and long-lasting provisions, other than trial by jury, is the right to due process of law.  That concept, which has been with us for centuries is being ignored by the modern version of King John.  Somehow, the ignoramus became President, and in a spectacular display of ignorance or arrogance has called for the abolition of due process for immigrants.  Like Hitler, he expects judges rubber stamp his policies or be abolished.  I am personally insulted that he thinks the people are so stupid or self-centered to go along with this blatant disregard for tradition, law and decency.  His “lock her up” mantra is appearing more and more insane.However, since history tends to repeat itself, I have some hope.  While my ancestor traveled about the country punishing his enemies he contracted dysentery.  I believe that he was so full of shit that divine intervention sent a message to despots.  On the way back to London, he lost the crown jewels in a swamp and died from dysentery.  At least he wasn’t full of shit anymore.  The London Telegraph,during the 800^th anniversary stated the following:John’s offences are almost too numerous to list. In the first place, he was treacherous: when his older brother, Richard the Lionheart, was away on crusade, John attempted to seize the throne by plotting with the king of France, Philip Augustus, prompting contemporaries to damn him as “a mad-headed youth” and “nature’s enemy”. He was also lecherous: several nobles are reported to have taken up arms against him because he had forced himself on their wives and daughters.Most of all, John was shockingly cruel. In a chivalrous age, when aristocrats spared their enemies, capturing them rather than killing them, John preferred to do away with people by grisly means. On one occasion, for example, he ordered 22 captive knights to be taken to Corfe Castle in Dorset and starved to death. Another time he starved to death the wife and son of his former friend, William de Briouze. In 1203 he arranged the murder of his own nephew and rival for power, Arthur of Brittany. Marc Morris is the author of King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta

            As you have probably surmised, I am not proud of my ancestor.  In fact, I am embarrassed.  My grandfather taught me about most of our ancestors, the names of the sails on the tall ships and how to be a fair master.  None of which was very practical, but interesting nonetheless.  Upon analysis, our president isn’t the greatest danger to our country and its form of government.  Our greatest danger to our country is ignorance.  How else could we have such a president, sponsored by an enemy state and preferring fascist heads of state to democratic ones.  The Greeks used ostracism against miscreants.  I believe that is necessary and for decades, I have advocated this practice when dealing with “white collar” criminals.  However, not only did they ostracize, they were notable scholars and teachers.  Both are needed.  Shun evil but educate ignorance.  Continue expressing disdain and anger against an administration that would become a dictatorship.  Correct the attorney general for his misleading, stupid interpretation of the Bible.  Get angry.  Get involved.  School the ignorant.

CITIZENS ABDICATE THE RULE OF LAW TO THE POLICE STATE

Dennis comments ♦ July 14, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

Several years ago, one of my grad students and myself designed and executed an experiment for one of my cases. Medicall marijuana had just become legalized and the police, greedy administrators, and of course, privatization zealots, with either greedy or stupid [politicians, bewailed the legalization; not because of public harm, but because of the loss of income potential from enforcing drug laws. There would be no funds to bribe police with toys and other goodies. Conditioned by drug war propaganda, the ignorant believed death destruction and deflowering would follow the advent of medical marijuana. So, the lobbyists went to work, the mentally disabled battled the physically disabled for the right to medicate with the evil weed. Youth must be saved, and virginity preserved, at all costs. Better a person get sexually molested in a jail than by a hippie or freak.
The police state pulled out all the stops. MADD organized a fear campaign about drugged driving, speaking louder than scientists who researched the problem. Fear sells better than logic any day, particularly to an ignorant population that is indoctrinated against science, facts and logic. In fact, the State is so sure of its propaganda machine, it blatantly ignores science when they are busted with evidence and ignore change with public exposure. They are so sure of the dogmatic following of false information and their psychological scare tactics; it ignores exposure and proceeds to rob the public.
When I investigated the source of testimony of police testimony about dopers having “green tongues,” I commissioned a study. We recruited some medical marijuana patients and had them medicate themselves on camera. Every so often, they would stick out their tongues for the camera to record evidence of any green tongues. After several repetitive hours, not a single green tongue showed up in the sample. Curious, I had my ex-student, now a professor of criminology, follow up with the published research and other materials about the phenomenon. The source, of course, was the government. The various governmental agencies publish all kinds of things to train experts in drug recognition and enforcement. The materials aren’t based upon reality, but upon what the police state can assert to increase convictions and revenues by the use of “Drug Recognition Experts,” who sell convictions like the old snake oil salesmen of the old west. To make sure the scheme works, credentials are manufactured, seminars are given to Judges and prosecutors who are too invested in convictions and revenue generating to care, or smart enough to realize that reality won’t keep a person in office. The teachers are given fictitious credentials who pass credentials on to others. Other agencies put the imprimatur of authenticity of the products, and the courts shake down offenders in the name of public safety, saving the public from imaginary boogeymen, conjured up by front organizations such as MADD, twelve step programs, and other P.R. programs calculated to aid in the shake down of citizens.
The following is a synopsis of research by Dr. J. Watterworth and me. It shows correspondence regarding green tongue research and validity in training manuals and materials used to educate drug recognition experts to convict defendants accused of driving a car while imbibing in weed. Since little research exists correlating ability with marijuana use, and there are no objective tests to show a driver, green tongue was invented as a reason to test a driver, when under the heavy hand of traffic enforcement. There may not have been any bad driving, but the existence of a green tongue is used to require a sobriety test, which may or may not be correlated with driving ability. Since the tests can’t be duplicated and videos generally don’t exist, the word of the officer becomes the only evidence, backed up by a urine, saliva or blood test, extracted because of the “Green tongue.” From My files: Fax exchange with officials.
—– Original Message —–
From: Logan, Barry
To: jaywatterworth@comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 1:12 PM
Subject: FW: NHTSA study question

Dr. Watterworth; I passed your question on to the individual who edited that portion of the monograph. Below is their response. At best I would say the information appears to be anecdotal. I have some other feelers out as to the source of this “sign” and if I learn anything I’ll pass it on. When the monographs are updated that will be removed if there is no better substantiation. In my experience, the changes on the tongue in marijuana smokers, when they appear, are related to irritation from the heat of the smoke and is white or grey, with raised papillae, but it is not a consistent sign.

Regards

BKL

<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->
Barry K Logan PhD, DABFT
Executive Director
Fredric Rieders Family Renaissance Foundation
2300 Stratford Avenue
Willow Grove PA 19090
Ph: (800) 522 6671
(215) 657 4900
Fx: (215) 657 2972
barry.logan@nmslabs.com
http://www.frfoundation.org
<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->

From: Chuck Hayes [mailto:chayesiac@msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 10:03 PM
To: Logan, Barry; tompage@earthlink.net
Subject: RE: NHTSA study question

Hello Barry. The green coating on the tongue is one of those things that has been passed down through the years by various DRE instructors as a possible indicator of cannabis use. We addressed this in the DRE instructor manual by the listing following information in the Cannabis session: “Possible green coating on the tongue” under the list of possible indicators and added an instructor note that reads, “Point out that there are no known studies that confirm Marijuana causing a green coating on the tongue.”

I am sure Tom would agree with me in that we have to be very careful about using this as an indicator. That’s why we have listed this under “possible indicators” with an explanation for the instructors to clarify that there is no documented study to confirm this observation.

Chuck Hayes
From: NMS
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:37 AM
To: Logan, Barry
Subject: FW: NHTSA study question

This came into the generic mailbox that Marketing monitors.

Pamela Lipschutz
Senior Marketing Analyst
NMS Labs
3701 Welsh Road
Willow Grove, PA 19090
215-366-1638 (voice)
215-657-2972 (fax)
From: Jay Watterworth [mailto:jaywatterworth@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:44 PM
To: NMS
Subject: NHTSA study question

Dear Dr Logan:
I am involved in a research project dealing with marijuana detection. A paper that lists you as a lead author, “Drugs and Human Performance Fact Sheets,” published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contains a statement that interests us.

Today I spoke with the National Center for Statistics and Analysis of the NHTSA who suggested that I contact you as the lead author of the report.

In the section Cannabis/Marijuana, it is stated under “DEC Profile” that other characteristic indicators of marijuana use include a “green coating of tongue.” I have searched the literature and have not had any success finding any studies or research that discuss or mention this observation. I wonder if you could provide the source material that supports it?

If you are unable to provide me with such a reference, could you tell me who could provide it?

Thank you in advance for your time.

Jay Watterworth

Jay Watterworth, PhD
Department of Sociology
University of Colorado at Boulder

THE Atlantic, in an article of April 2015, stated that
“…2012 coverage of problems with FBI forensic analysis, but the existence of shoddy forensics has been so clear for so long in so many different state and local jurisdictions that the following conclusion is difficult to avoid: Neither police agencies nor prosecutors are willing to call for the sorts of reforms that would prevent many innocents from being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, and neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party will force their hands.
Ignorance of the problem is no longer an acceptable excuse
But despite the fact that egregious problems have occurred in hundreds of crime labs throughout the U.S., affecting tens of thousands of cases or more, and perhaps even sending innocent men to their deaths, most police officials and prosecutors remain unwilling to acknowledge what we should now see clearly: They’re incapable of running crime labs that reliably protect the innocent and identify the guilty, in large part because their conflicts of interest and biases are insurmountable

In Colorado, the Office of the Attorney General documented inadequate training and alarming lapses at a lab that measured the amount of alcohol in blood.
How does this happen? It happens because most people don’t care about others as long as they feel safe, not only from real threats, but imaginary ones also. The public is so against taxation, that they would rather wreck a judicial system than to pay for a fair and righteous one. That is, until they are trapped or victimized. So, when medical marijuana became legal, the reve3nue stream had to be augmented. This was done by fraud. Experts were manufactured, using voodoo science.
What should one think? First, politicians aren’t stupid. They have education. Why, do they allow. They care more about themselves and careers than they do about the people. They have contempt for the people. They are afraid of public opinion. They are not leaders. Poor people don’t contribute to campaigns. The majority of the people know crimes are committed by the poor, whom God punishes. Therefore, they can punish also. Someone has to pay for government. Better the peasantry than the rest of us. Ignorance is bliss, don’t spoil it for me. Well, the people get what they don’t pay for.
Sooner or later the people will catch on. When that happens, officials beware. The demand that we defund the police state, will overpower the propaganda slogan of defund the police, and the rich will have to start being fair.
As demonstrated above, the authorities, even when busted continued their crusade against marijuana smokers driving cars. For 12 years, drug recognition experts are being produced and used by police and prosecutors, resulting in revenue generation. The myth is furthered by in house PR people within police and prosecutors. Judges, drawn from the prosecutorial pool, continue this injustice on the bases of expediency and the fact it is easier to go along with the program.
Mask the evidence. A 2006 U.K. study by researchers at the University of Southampton found that the error rate of fingerprint analysts doubled when they were first told the circumstances of the case they were working on. Crime lab technicians and medical examiners should never be permitted to consult with police or prosecutors before performing their analysis. A dramatic child-murder case, for example, may induce a greater subconscious bias to find a match than a burglary case. To the extent that it’s possible, evidence should be stripped of all context before being sent to the lab. Ideally, state or city officials might hire a neutral “evidence shepherd,” whose job would be to deliver crime-scene evidence to the labs and oversee the process of periodically sending evidence to secondary labs for verification. (Atlantic)
We have to decide. Ego we want efficiency and freedom from discomfort, or do we want justice. Are we a society or a collective of selfish Darwinists? Do we want a future, or are we hedonists? Do we stand up for justice and right, or let the elite continue to deceive us? Decide now.

COURTS, EFFICIENCY, AND THE DEMISE OF HUMANITY

Dennis comments ♦ June 20, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

   Opinion by Dennis L. Blewitt, J. D,

Her husband called.  He was in jail for armed robbery.  He was an addict and desperate.  His wife, an addict, had been kidnapped by a group of sex traffickers and rescued by the FBI.  However, there was a failure to appear warrant from Ft Collins.  The initial felony was for introducing contraband into the jail, not intentionally, but because she couldn’t toss it before her arrest, when arrested for a disturbance at a motel.   She too was an addict.  While incarcerated in Ft. Collins, she tried to enter a rehab program, but she was homeless, with a jailed husband, and was held as a material witness for the FBI with a cartel bounty con her.   She had been sold as a teenager, had no High School diploma, suffered from Hepatitis C, Epilepsy, Delayed Stress Syndrome, The District Attorney was tough on crime and prosecuted, not just merely for possession.  Rehab programs, a private, wanted payment, which was impossible.  After 6 weeks’ confinement, a judge put her on probation.  He also added about $2000 in fees.  He knew or should have known this was impossible, but, like a good marionette, followed orders.  This relieved the judge of any responsibility.  Also, as an ex-prosecutor, he believed that addicts were scum.

            She tried to stay clean, but, since she was homeless and at the mercy of strangers she met on the street, she relapsed.  These same judges are the first to lecture the peasantry about taking responsibility for themselves.  This, even though it has been almost 100 years before scientists discovered that environment was a large factor in creating a criminal.  Again, shifting blame away from a corrupt and anonymous system is a good way for the simple mind to ignore humanity.  It is easy to apply “the spirit of Capitalism” described by Max Weber in this instance.  It goes like this: “God has rewarded me with a fairly good life.  You are poor and homeless.  God is punishing you because you are not worthy or bad.  If God can punish, so can I.  Therefore, I don’t have to consider how privatization, and specialization has affected you.  God has already decided. Go prostitute yourself for money, drugs, and, most importantly your court costs.  You can always find a dumpster to sleep in.”  We are a competitive Christian nation, not a civilized society.  Societies stifle individual efforts and accomplishments.  God protects the good from my boundless greed and punishes the bad by allowing me to exploit them.  The Christian nation has no obligation to its residents, who are entirely responsible for any and all circumstances.  The nation has no responsibility other than promote business, profit, and individuals fit enough to survive.

            How can this happen?  It has been 60 years since I took my first graduate course in criminology.  At that time, there were courses in corrections, counseling, budgeting, support group building, etc.  The curricula ended in a master’s degree in correction.  That degree is no longer offered because there are no jobs for such trained people.  Since privatization, skilled, trained empathetic people have no place in the Court Supervision system.  The probation officer’s job is not to help people and cut recidivism, but to increase the bottom line of corporate profits.  Correcting isn’t profitable, is costly and labor intensive.  Ignoring problems and applying policy is cheap and easy and has the effect of built-in obsolescence, guaranteeing future profits, explaining why a rate that was constant for 40 decades, exponential growth in prison rates from 100, to 450 prisoners per 100,000 persons, since the election of Richard Nixon. The largest private prison system had $1.65 Billion in revenue  last year.  Essentially, the District Attorneys and Judges have become shills for greedy, profiteering business enterprise.  Since officials market fear, this is sold as the cost of a safe society.  Complete and utter horseshit!

            So, we must ask ourselves.  Do we want to continue putting judicial robes on Prosecutors?  Is the purpose of the third branch of Government to punish and benefit corporations or to benefit society?  Should we continue to allow judges to cop out and blame everything on the legislatures, rather than use their inherent supervisory powers?  Should we tolerate officials that promote a police state or rid ourselves of them.  Do we want to continue to train police to murder us or to help us?  Do we ignore research, common sense, and justice or demand that justice and betterment of society take priority over profits?  Do we hold the corporations liable for the damage they cause by not insisting that they hire trained staff instead of goons?  Do we make the Attorney Generals of the country personally liable for the murders by police that result from their police training?  Do we want efficiency, or do we demand justice?  Please let me know.

            The police state propaganda machine excuses police misconduct and murder with the Nazi war crimes Nuremberg defense of “just following orders,” to the American excuse of “following procedures” or “training.”

            Every “subhuman” shipped off to a camp to obtain “freedom through work” was lawfully placed there by judicial order pursuant to a Reich Stadt law, for which the defendants would refuse to obey or take responsibility.

            Fellow citizens aren’t commodities.  Citizens don’t exist for the benefit of business.  Profit motive supremacy has no  place in a caring society.  We must leave the state of nature and become a society again.  This must change.  Reinstitute Corrections as a career and valid area of study.  Re-emphasize fairness instead of efficiency.  Make judges seek fairness, not expediency. Do not allow government entities become profit centers.  Make all fines, fees, and revenues go to the general fund, controlled by legislatures and the people.  Don’t go gently into oblivion.  Do as Dylan Thomas mandates and “Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”

            Demand justice, fairness and putting the people first.  Re-establish common law, not Roman law of conquest.  Take profit motive from government.  Make government work for the people, not commerce.  Stand up to those who prize profit and efficiency over humanity.  Demand justice,  Demand fairness, demand equity, Demand corporation be subordinate to people.  Demand a government of people and for people, not soulless, lifeless, ghosts called corporations.

DON’T TAKE ANY SHIT FROM ANYONE

Dennis comments ♦ June 3, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

A recent you tube video reminded me of one time I was searched.  If you are squeamish or lack sugar coat or not use my usual vocabulary in this piece.  It will not be politically correct, fit for innocent minds, have a modicum of sensitivity or any special consideration for the reader.  A story like this can’t be censored or edited. The story is true.  Only the vocabulary has been changed to amuse the reader.  This is your last chance.

DANGERS OF A SEARCH,  If offensive language bothers you then GO NO FURTHER

            This memory was the result of watching a cavity search of a motorist in Texas after a citizen had been stopped.  The officer stated he stopped the car because the driver tossed a cigarette but out the window.  After the lecture, he inquired about drugs.  When the two women in the car expressed ignorance about marijuana, he informed them that his old infallible trooper nose smelled marijuana and they would have to be searched.  The video then showed a front and back cavity search of the two women in the car, resulting in nothing being found.  I just had to relate my tale of my trip to Canada.

The trip to Vancouver Island started out inauspiciously.  I had just acquired another car and was set for a road trip.  However, although the car performed marvelously, I can’t say the same for myself.  I was in need of massive doses of Kaopectate.  Between Sinclair, Wyoming and Little America, I changed shorts 2 times.  The afternoon of the second day, the situation abated and the shorts were tightly packaged in triple plastic shopping bags and packed in a trash bag in the trunk, to be dealt with at our destination where there was there were laundry facilities.  Because I felt better and the underwear was well packaged, I forgot about it in the trunk.

            We proceeded to Annacortes, Washington and spent the night after parking our car in the ferry line, ensuring our passage first thing the next morning to Victoria.  It was a great trip, whales in sight, no clouds or wind.  We stopped at Orca Island and two other small towns before approaching Victoria.

            There was a customs inspection point and most cars were waived on through after showing identification.  However, I had to toy with the customs agent.

            “You’re an American?

            “Yes, that’s what it says on the passport.”

            “Have you ever been in Court on a Driving Under the Influence charge?”

            “Yes, several times.”

            “Were you convicted?”

            “No but many of my clients were.  I’m a defense attorney.”

            For some reason the Mounty wasn’t amused.  “Over there, smartass” he commanded.

He informed his comrades in red

“We have a smart-ass defense attorney here.  Be thorough with him.  You know how tricky they are.”

So, I was going to be subjected to summary punishment by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for being a smart-ass attorney.  I watched while the 7 or so officers climbed all over my car, taking out suitcases and rummaging through them.  They were thorough indeed.  The Mounties were having fun joking with each other as they rummaged through the car.

“Open the trunk!”

I complied and watched as more suitcases were taken and opened.  Nothing.  Then he came to a plastic garbage bag.  Inside were some white plastic bags from grocery stores.  He lifted the bag out of the trunk. And the Mounties gathered around.

“What’s in there,” he demanded.

“That’s our laundry.” 

He started taking clothes out and examining our dirty laundry.  He then came to the white grocery plastic bag. 

“What’s in this one,”

“You really don’t want to know, I wouldn’t open that if I were you,” I emphasized, shaking my head no.  However, curiosity got the best of him.  They gathered around the garbage bag as the Mounty reached down into the bag, bringing out my excrement saturated underwear.

“Shit!!!” shouted the Mounty, while his comrades laughed hysterically.  His face matched the crimson of his uniform and his fury was hard to conceal.  He wielded his authority in a retaliatory way and had paid the price.  I suppose it was a shitty thing to do, but what the hell. The delay was annoying and his retaliatory show of authority was over the top.  But his surprise and humiliation in front of his crew was well worth it.  I didn’t plan to return to Victoria in the near future

IS THIS GOVERNMENT REAL, OR A POST-MODERN ILLUSION? 3-30-17

Dennis comments ♦ May 29, 2021 ♦ 2 Comments

Who’s in charge? Bureaucratic war leaves us at the mercy of snake oil salesmen and spooks

According to Corporate Watch’s profile, Hill & Knowlton opened offices all around the world from the mid-1950s. Susan Trento, author of The Power House, a biography of Hill and Knowlton’s Robert Keith Gray, writes that they opened many overseas offices on the advice of then CIA director Allen W Dulles. Gray also used to brag about checking major decisions personally with CIA director William Casey, whom he considered a close personal friend. Hill and Knowlton’s overseas offices were perfect cover for the ever-expanding CIA. Unlike other cover jobs, being a public relations specialist did not require technical training for CIA officers. This, in its description. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. I believe we are witnessing an all-out bureaucratic civil war between intelligence gathering factions.
While editing my memoirs, and reflecting upon this year’s bizarre election, a speculation occurred to me regarding the FBI’s interference with the election and the democratic process. Now I admit my theory is somewhat far-fetched, but there is ample evidence to support it. Several assumptions regarding her postmodern society need to be made as does an understanding of the works of modern-day social and political theorists.
My first assumption is that the elected leaders of this country are not the real policymakers or power in our government. They reign over a government which functions by itself and operates cultures that, over the decades and centuries, define the particular department, bureau, or agency. Of course, elected officials have us some influence but only to the degree they are allowed by the culture of the institution or the leaders that make most of this of the decisions. What I am speculating here is that because of security clearances, culture of fear and other reasons, no outsider could fully control a particular agency or department.
One of my first clients was a woman named Gayla Tannenbaum. She was referred to me by a friend who practiced law in Chicago. That experience was to define my career and life since that fateful day.
The saga of Mrs. Tannenbaum and another of my clients named Professor Riha was in the news for over a year. Much has been written about the Riha affair. The affair exposed myriad intelligence activities and agents at the University of Colorado, including a story that the CU president was an agent of some sort. There were stories about infiltration of student groups by CIA operatives; there were stories about agent provocateurs; there were stories of death and destruction of student activist; and there were stories about massive conspiracies and gemstones.
Those of you that have known me over the last four decades realize how devastating this affair was, not only for me, but for the nation. Briefly, the following events occurred. Thomas Riha, a University of Colorado Political Science disappeared after marrying the niece of the Czech STB, (equivalent to Russian KGB). Many incidents were reported in the local papers. Mrs. Tannenbaum, some sort of operative either for ONI or some other military intelligence unit was accused of causing Riha’s disappearance. Police and prosecutors in two jurisdictions got involved and Mrs. Tannenbaum was prosecuted for related offenses in Denver and Boulder. She was declared insane in Boulder District Court and sent to the state hospital in Pueblo, Colorado.
David Wise of the Washington Post wrote about this in his book, Politics of Lying, that this scuttled the Huston plan to combine all intelligence agencies and brought down the Nixon Government. Several Senate and Congressional committees investigated this including the Pike and Church committees. After publishing several reports on abuses of citizens by the U. S. intelligence agencies, congress legislation saw to it that we would never find out as much as we did at that time about Government misconduct. Several other congressional investigations further chronicled governmental misconduct which was promptly ignored by the press or buried in the papers. We are facing a similar situation between the House and Senate intelligence committees, gridlocking any investigations.
The result was that the FBI-CIA war was left behind in the news in favor of Super bowl, Dancing with the Stars, other TV shows and trivia that sells news and advertising. However, the battle raged with the FBI losing with the loss of J. Edgar Hoover and various revelations by congressional committees and investigative reporters who lived long enough to report, unlike Gary Webb and Danny Casolaro who died of mysterious suicides.
With the Trump candidacy, the FBI saw their chance. The campaign made an issue over Mrs. Clintons emails while Secretary of State. She had used a private server which may not have been secure. Driven on by cheerleaders crying “lock her up,” the FBI dreamt up a way to capitalize on the issue and sabotage the CIA. The CIA was probably blackmailed into not interfering with the Clintons since, according to Terry Reed’s Compromised, the CIA ran an Iran Contra cocaine-weapons operation out of Mena Arkansas when Bill Clinton was Government. Leaks and slanderous allegations against President Clinton didn’t’ seem to weaken the CIA’s position. Nor did various investigations. The “Octopus” or “Enterprise” was making too much money from operations and proprietaries to be shut down. Essentially, they were too big to control and too secret to govern. So, the FBI bided its time until recently.
Now, dear reader, I ask you to suspend preconceived perceptions, views and prejudices and let your imaginations roam, just as Eco has you do in Foucault’s Pendulum and just look at events in historical context. Suspend judgment on conspiracy theory, speculation and the view of a benevolent government run by altruistic citizens, and ask the question of “Who Benefits?” There are no conspiracies. That is a fiction sold by the masters to conceal the fact that all the bad things we see are structural.
Many want to believe in conspiracies. This is what the rulers want, because it keeps the citizenry from thinking and talking about “structure. “When I first identified participants in the practice of packing corpses of soldiers shipped from Viet Nam to the states, I thought in terms of conspiracy. Now, after four decades, I see the same behavior with different players. That must be structural.
How can such a thing be structural? Because we allow it to be so by our neglect and selfishness, encouraged to be ignorant and amused with games and trivia. We are distracted and encouraged to be ignorant.

DISSAPEARING COMMON LAW BLUES

Dennis comments ♦ May 14, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Dennis comments ♦ January 12, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

DL Blewitt, J.D., Jan, 2021

The following is a case that I handled in 1970. It was one of many marijuana cases that I worked over a half-century, including Mich., Ill., Wisc., Neb, Wyo., Az., Cal., Mont., Okla., Kans., Texas, N.M., and Miss. I also used my experience in these jurisdictions to study similarities and differences between them. At the same time, I was doing research on jury behavior, organized crime, and social and legal theory. I taught courses throughout the decades and wrote the occasional editorial and news piece. I was Council to the Colorado Organization for Drug Abuse, a Head Start program, (HEW) Community free school, (Boulder) and other organizations. I somehow pissed the government off and was subjected to a visit from the IRS for 87 weeks in an attempt to scare men and destroy my practice.
This experience led me to study, organized crime, intelligence community, law development and other black subjects. My younger brother was a member of Green Hornets USAF-NRO and holder of two DFC’s. When a superior officer informed him that his career might be slowed, he innocently commented, “I thought freedom of speech was one of the things that I am fighting for.” and came up with many of the same conclusion as I did. That is that the intelligence community controls the drug trade internationally and prohibition’s primary function is price control for its source of clandestine funds for clandestine projects. I made this accusation when I ran for District Attorney in 1972, when I announced that I would call a grand jury to determine why a certain faction did not seem to get arrested. During that time, I taught a Sociology of Law class and a Drug Policy class, during that time. Later, I taught other classes and was on some Ph. D. Committees involving policy, drugs, victimless crime, and other subjects.
Many fools have referred to me as a conspiracy theorist. My personal experience, confirmed by others, indicates that the drug trade problems are structural. People I first identified as operators in the drug industry, are dead or retired, but the business is thriving 50 years later with the same structure. I will discuss several of my cases, experiences, and beliefs in this series. I have no staff, have a thousand dollars a month social security income and am self-funding because I truly believe this story(ies) must be told.
In the following, the prosecutor tried to have me indicted for bribery, theft, witness tampering and other skullduggery. They triggered the audit and other harassments, not knowing that I had friends in high places. However, from that point on, I have dedicated my existence to shedding light on this opportunistic self-righteous group of royalistic, elitist ignorant fools who put ideology and ignorance in front of logic and justice.
I have tried to enlist help and interest and have held off, hoping for something. Since there none, I will proceed to the best of my ability. Those of you who are more concerned with cosmetics, grammar, style, and spelling should stop right now. I have too much to say to have to worry about style, and too little time to say it. I want to present content.
I also have a sociology of law manuscript that I would like to finish, but it must again be postponed. I intend to explain events as I related to Mr. Jenkins of the District Attorney’s office. It is not fiction, although it may seem that way

People v. Henderson
487 P.2d 1108 (1971)
The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William M. HENDERSON II, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 25027.
Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.
August 16, 1971.
Stanley F. Johnson, Dist. Atty., Robert M. Jenkins, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty., Boulder, for plaintiff-appellee.
Blewitt, Bisbee & Geil, Dennis L. Blewitt, Boulder, for defendant-appellant.
ERICKSON, Justice.
This interlocutory appeal was initiated by the defendant, William M. Henderson, after his motion to suppress evidence was denied by the District Court of Boulder County. The evidence in issue was seized as a result of a warrantless search of the defendant’s car after the defendant was arrested without a warrant.
A chronological statement of the facts preceding the arrest and seizure of evidence provides us with a proper foundation for the application of well-established search and seizure law. On July 16, 1970, undercover agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs were taken to a cabin west of Boulder for the purpose of buying sixty pounds of marijuana. Soon after arriving at the cabin, the undercover agents were supplied with ten pounds of marijuana and were told that an additional fifty pounds of marijuana was then on its way by automobile and would arrive shortly. Minutes later, a Mercedes Benz automobile entered the driveway in front of the cabin. One of the suspects, while getting out of the car, recognized one of the narcotics agents and gave the alarm to the occupants of the cabin. Most of the individuals in the cabin and all of those in the Mercedes Benz fled into the woods that adjoined the cabin. Within a few minutes, all but one of the *1109 suspects were captured and returned to the cabin. The suspects were immediately arrested and advised of their rights, and arrangements were made to transport the suspects to detention facilities. Approximately thirty to forty-five minutes later, while everyone was still in the cabin, a second car arrived. Its occupants were also arrested, and both the occupants and the automobile were searched. No evidence of narcotic drugs was found. Thereafter, two more vehicles arrived at separate times, and again, both the passengers and the vehicles were searched. Search of the defendant’s vehicle, which was the third automobile to arrive at the cabin, resulted in the seizure of a small quantity of marijuana that is the basis for charging the defendant, Henderson, with a narcotics violation. A later search of the Mercedes Benz, which was the first car to arrive, produced the sought-after shipment of fifty pounds of marijuana.
The defendant contends that his motion to suppress evidence should have been granted, because the police officers did not have probable cause to believe the shipment of marijuana was in his vehicle. Moreover, he argues that the search of his automobile without a warrant was in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Since this case contains facts establishing exigent circumstances which would require the police officers to either seize the vehicle and hold it until a search warrant could be obtained or search it without a warrant, Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S. Ct. 1975, 26 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1970), supports the conclusion that given probable cause a warrantless search was permissible. See also, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, (June 21, 1971), 403 U.S. 443, 91 S. Ct. 2022, 29 L. Ed. 2d 564. Consequently, the decisive question is whether the police officers had probable cause to search the defendant’s vehicle.
The District Attorney contends that the order in which the vehicles were searched is crucial to this case and supports the search. He urges us to hold there was probable cause to search the defendant’s vehicle, because at the time of the search, the shipment of marijuana had not yet been discovered. In view of the factual sequence of the events which preceded the search, we find this argument unpersuasive. Clearly, the police officers had probable cause to search the Mercedes Benz automobile and no other. Facts sufficient to provide the police officers with probable cause to search the Mercedes Benz automobile include the arrival of the vehicle at the time the shipment of marijuana was to be delivered, the recognition of the car’s occupants as traffickers in narcotics, and the flight of the occupants upon recognition of one of the purchasers as an undercover agent. Confronted with these facts, no reasonable man could believe that the shipment of marijuana was likely to be found in the defendant’s vehicle, which arrived long after the aforementioned events had occurred and after the search of another vehicle had proved fruitless.
As an alternative argument for upholding the search of the defendant’s vehicle, the District Attorney cites People v. Collman, Colo., 471 P.2d 421 (1970), in which we upheld the arrest and search of an individual who entered premises being searched for narcotic drugs pursuant to a warrant. The District Attorney contends the Collman case stands for the proposition that there would be probable cause to search all persons and vehicles arriving at the cabin site for an indeterminate period. We find this interpretation of the Collman case to be overly broad. In the Collman case, we were dealing with premises which were being utilized as a “secret rendezvous or hideout for illegal activities.” Police officers had purchased drugs at the premises on several occasions and during the course of their investigation had observed numerous individuals enter and leave the premises in a clandestine manner through the rear door. Essential to our finding of probable cause therein was the defendant’s surreptitious entry onto the premises at night through the rear door.
*1110 Similarly, in People v. Lujan, Colo., 475 P.2d 700 (1970), we upheld the warrantless arrest and search of a person who arrived under suspicious circumstances at a remote location where drug traffic was known to be carried on. There, we stated:
“Where, as here, police agents are conducting a search by warrant for narcotics in the early morning hours in a place where they have reasonable grounds to believe drug traffic is carried on; they in fact do find drugs and paraphernalia used in drug traffic; a person drives up at 2:00 a. m., parks his car and turns off his lights, all in close proximity to the premises being searched; there is certainly probable cause to believe that that person was a participant in drug traffic. * * * Clearly, all the surrounding circumstances within the knowledge of the arresting officers, when measured by the standard appropriate for a reasonable, cautious and prudent officer engaged in a narcotics investigation, indicate that there was probable cause for an arrest.”
Here, none of the undercover officers had been to the cabin in question previously. Nor did they have any knowledge of prior narcotics transactions occurring at the cabin site. Without clear evidence that the cabin was being used as a secret hide-out for illegal purposes, the police officers did not have probable cause to believe that persons arriving at the cabin were participants in criminal activity and, more importantly, that they possessed or were engaged in the sale and delivery of narcotic drugs.
Contrary to the District Attorney’s argument, we are of the opinion that this case is governed by People v. Navran, Colo., 483 P.2d 228 (1971), in which we held that the mere arrival of a person at a residence where a shipment of marijuana is to be delivered is insufficient to provide probable cause to believe that the person has committed a crime or that a search of his car will reveal the presence of narcotic drugs. Furthermore, we stated unequivocally in People v. Feltch, Colo., 483 P.2d 1335 (1971), that mere association with guilty persons does not amount to probable cause to arrest. See also, Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S. Ct. 1889, 20 L. Ed. 2d 917 (1968); Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 80 S. Ct. 168, 4 L. Ed. 2d 134 (1959); United States v. DiRe, 332 U.S. 581, 68 S. Ct. 222, 92 L. Ed. 210 (1948); Gallegos v. People, 157 Colo. 173, 401 P.2d 613 (1965); Commonwealth v. Reece, 437 Pa. 422, 263 A.2d 463 (1970).
We, therefore, conclude that the defendant’s motion to suppress should have been granted. Accordingly, we reverse the ruling of the trial court and direct it to order that the evidence seized from the defendant’s vehicle be suppressed.
PRINGLE, C. J., and KELLEY, J., dissent.

This is the first installment of my research into Government and Drug trafficking. I need your support, so please circulate generously. Tell me if you would like to have more.

STOP TOTALITARIANISM

Dennis comments ♦ October 15, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

TOTALITARIANISM RETURNS
Early in my career, my practice and even my life was defined by Washington politics way beyond my comprehension or control. Due to Viet Nam, an administration who believed that any dissent must be “leftist” and inspired or funded by communists, in a complete denial of reality, a culture of fear and suspicion became instilled into our culture. This ignorance and prejudice result in the toppling of a Government over an illegal break-in by the president which exposed a whole corrupt and out of control administration, resulting in years of hearings by both the Senate and House into illegal activities of the intelligence communities. This denial of truth or just plain ignorance almost wrecked our government and left us with a legacy of distrust, revenge, and rejection of the notion of a society or a people, replaced with selfish individualism, devoid of character or compassion.
This came to light because of brave civil servants, courageous protesters, and the underestimation of the intelligence of the general public. During that time, in order to sell an unpopular war, Psywar was waged against the citizens with law and order propaganda tv programs to push a non-democratic agenda. Many brave people exposed the crimes of the officials and stopped the march to a totalitarian government.
The situation today is even worse. Fear permeates our society. Any criticism of the Government’s misconduct or crimes is met with prosecutions such as espionage. War criminals are protected instead of exposed. Scientists are ridiculed rather than believed. Truth is stopped with the politicization of officials sworn to protect us and our Constitution. Critics are not criminals. Scholars and intellectuals sre not enemies. So, I ask you to read and weep. Don’t let the selfish and greedy win Don’t let ignorance rule and lies and propaganda shape our future. Think and act. What happened to me a half century ago is repeating even more venous and dangerous. Act like a people, not a herd.
This is from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Government misconduct and criminal activities. It is discouraging that we still haven’t learned in a half a century. Please think about the following. Pay attention.

Moreover, in the spring of 1970 the FBI severed its formal liaison to the CIA in reaction to a CIA-FBI dispute over confidential sources in Colorado. 33 Though hostility between the two agencies had surfaced before with some frequency over matters such as disagreement regarding the bona fides of communist defectors, this particular dispute was “the one straw that broke the camel’s back.” 34 The incident in Colorado, now known as the Riha Case, involved a CIA officer who received information concerning the disappearance of a foreign national on the faculty of the University of Colorado, a Czechoslovak by the name of Thomas Riha.
The information apparently came from an unnamed FBI officer stationed in Denver. Hoover demanded to know the identity of the FBI agent; but, as a matter of personal integrity, the CIA officer refused to divulge the name of his source. Hoover was furious with Helms for not providing the FBI with this information and, “in a fit of pique,” 35 he broke formal Bureau ties with the Agency. 36 To many observers, including Huston and Sullivan, the severance of these ties contributed to the perceived inability of the Bureau’s intelligence division to perform their task adequately.
In this context, a special meeting was called on April 22, 1970, in Haldeman’s office. In attendance were Haldeman, Krogh, Huston Alexander Butterfield (who had responsibility for White House liaison’ with the Secret Service), and Ehrlichman. The purpose of this gathering was to improve coordination among the White House staff for contact with intelligence agencies in the government and, more importantly, as Huston remembers, to decide “whether — because of the escalating level of the violence — something within the government further needed to be done.” 37

1960’s DENVER POLICE HAD THE BURGURLY SCANDAL. WILL THIS BE THE POLICE BUGGERY SCANDAL

Dennis comments ♦ September 22, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

WATCH: Student Left Hemorrhaging After Cops Allegedly Sodomize Him With Baton VIDEO OMITTED

Denver, CO — The Denver police department has opened an internal investigation into their officers after a man claimed he was forcibly sodomized by a cop during an arrest.
According to police, 23-year-old Michael Jacobs was being placed under arrest during a protest near Civic Center Park on July 29 for disarming a police officer. Police claim Jacobs attempted to take an officer’s pepper ball gun — which is not backed up by video evidence and disputed by Jacobs and his attorney.
Jacobs disputes the claim that officers had probable cause to arrest him at all. The college student says he was rattling a fence during the protest to get an officer’s attention when he was taken down from behind.
“I was grabbed from behind, it felt like it was from my neck, no warning, no ‘you’re under arrest,’” Jacobs said.
A portion of the video shows people shaking a fence near the park and then the takedown. Exactly what transpired before this video is unclear and is a matter of Jacobs’ word verses the police.
As the video shows, an officer runs at Jacobs as several other officers pile on top. In the brief video, you can see an officer use his baton against the student.
During his arrest, Jacobs said that an officer came up to him as he was face down on the ground and sodomized him with an object he thinks was a police baton.
“As I was on the ground, and as I was completely helpless, someone took what felt to be a nightstick and just shoved it up my butt. After that it was pretty much done,” Jacobs told KDVR.
“It was the traumatizing experience I’ve been through in all 23 years of my life.”
After the arrest, Jacobs went to the hospital where he conducted a rape kit and says doctors who evaluated him two weeks later found evidence of rectal and anal hemorrhage, KDVR reported.
“I’ve been having to go to GI doctors since and have them explain to me why I have hemorrhoids bleeding out of my [sic] rectum,” Jacobs said.
“I mean, the people that are there to protect you, to do something so wrong, it’s like I have panic attacks now, which I’ve never experienced before.”
Jacobs now faces charges which his lawyer has dismissed as bogus.
As the Denver Channel reports:
A probable cause statement released by the Denver Police Department claims Jacobs was part of a group trying to push down a gate at Lincoln Park and adds that they managed to bring it down and get inside.
But in the video, Jacobs is outside of the fence.
The police report states Jacobs violently resisted arrest and even grabbed an officer’s pepper ball gun. It’s a claim Jacobs and his attorney, Dr. Matt Greife, dispute.
“That could not be further from the truth,” Jacobs said.
“This was a cover charge,” Greife told KDVR. “They have to charge him with something to justify why they went to him in the first place.”
“To say that he attempted to disarm a police officer off their pepper gun or pepper ball gun, that’s nonsense, he was on the ground way too fast,” Dr. Greife said.
Griefe told the Denver Channel that cops have refused to release the body camera footage he says would exonerate his client.
“We should know what the police reports say. We should know what the body cams tell us,” Dr. Greife said.
Jacobs is now facing a felony charge of attempting to disarm a police officer and is due back in court at the end of the month. Greife is now moving to have the charge dropped against his client, noting that their failure to release the body camera footage means they have no evidence to convict him.

IN THE SIXTIES, THERE WAS police scandal that rocked Denver.  Police would investigate a robbery and what the burglars didn’t take, they did.  Soon, they started to stage their own robberies.  Some actually did time when the scandal broke.  One of the lawyers I worked with was acting governor when the scandal broke and appointed the special prosecutor.  The investigation was going real high in Colo politics, when the Governor, upon returning to Colorado shut down the investigation  An understanding of Denver police behavior would not be relevant without studying the political structure and the influence of Federal Intelligence Agencies upon policy.

When the hippies arrived, and, with the anti-war movement, the police were given a pretty much-unbridled privilege to attack what they perceived as deviance, lack of patriotism, evasion of barbers, and other objectionable qualities which offended local citizens. For instance, I had clients takeen to jail, stripped down, and hosed with cold water from fire hydrants. In a court in which I was a judge, from drugs came in, seized the hippie with the intent of cutting his hair with their sheep sheers. Many arrests in Denver and the surrounding areas were enforced with the sundown intent to encourage miscreants to leave before the Sunset.

In one of mine more notorious cases, a sheriff’s officer chased my clients on his motorcycle of Boulder Canyon firing at him.  This crime, driving a motorcycle without a helmet. The jury acquitted him of the charge that the judge found them guilty. Nonetheless. In sentencing, the judge took judicial notice that the gun was a 22, which nobody used to hurt anybody. He called it an aggravation weapon. After arguing with the jury foreman and chasing me out of the courthouse, demanding that I come back and I can like a man, he sentenced my client to jail. The judge was a big act like that of supporting his local police. That has been entrenched in the law enforcement culture of Colorado for the past 50 years. 40 years later, the hippie’s body was discovered in a mine shaft in Nederland Colorado, the officer who chased by client admitted that he had shot the hippie because he didn’t like them. Since the old policeman was dying of cancer, nothing was done to him. I have been studying this issue for half a century. As long as district attorneys feel that they represent to the police establishment which they identified as their constituency, and the judges are appointed from district attorney’s offices, there will be very little change. The law enforcement culture today, has evolved into a them v. us dichotomy. Because of the socioeconomic bias and recruitment from upper classes, there is a piss on the peasant environment in law enforcement. With a broken windows policy,, and in many cities, the racist – the elitist view of the police is not seen for what it is. No mention is made of the fact that many people living in certain areas To afford to repair their windows, sometimes, and view the action as good law enforcement.

Of course, law enforcement is that conditioned to be the poor as potential criminals. In our society, a high percentage of the poor are black. To blacked out any conversation of economic elitism, or discrimination. The debate is deflected to one of race and is exclusive of institutional racism.  This is but one factor to consider in a complex analysis. We have to examine are reward system, or the secondary reward system, are values, our tolerance, our patience, and other factors. All I can say to the attorney representing the sexually assaulted protester’s that he had to be thankful that the police are now murdering his clients.

THERE WILL BE NO POOR IN BOULDER

Dennis comments ♦ May 26, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

In 1992, Colorado enacted a constitutional amendment to the state Constitution labeled the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, also known as the Bruce amendment.  It was part of a movement by the tea party, to cut spending on government and encourage business-government partnerships and privatization of a government function.  It was sold to the voters as an amendment or method to restrict government waste and promote efficiency.  This was in conjunction with a campaign in the Southern states, labeled a contract for America, referred to by some as Contract on America.

                In any event, the outcome was pretty much a disaster.  The bill provided, among other things, that any monies not spent by an agency had to be returned to the taxpayer in any given year.  It also provided that any taxes or increase in revenues were subject to a vote by the public.  So slowly but surely state revenues declined as expenses increased.  At the same time.  This insidious group of neo-liberals started campaigning for the privatization of anything and everything they could possibly think of.  So, for instance, if somebody wanted to look at a public record such as a court file, a clerk would charge a fee to retrieve the file.  If the defense attorney wanted copies of documentation or evidence that a district attorney based prosecution or policy decision on, the defendant, typically a lower-class worker, was charged a fee for photocopying, although police records were publicly funded, investigators were publicly funded as were district attorneys and judges.  Although they were funded, because of this amendment revenue was collected in the manner favorable to the wealthy and detrimental to the poor. Agencies became merchants selling items to the public that they had already paid for.

                Likewise, the bond concept.  A system was changed so that it took 10 times longer to make bond than previously, bonding was more expensive unless one waited a day in jail for a judge to set Bond.  Jails became more crowded, holding unconvicted citizens awaiting trial, necessitating contracting to private enterprise to build more jails.  The privateers sold the politicians on the fact that privatized managers were more efficient because they can open and shut as supply and demand required.  However, being profiteers, they soon demanded that the State give them guaranteed contracts, allowing them to extort profit from the taxpayer’s in a monopolistic manner.  It’s ironic, the taxpayers restrict raising funds through taxes to support their government and, in the same breath, attacked the poor by charging them for the cost of government and reward stockholders and executives of corporations.

 One of the biggest crimes against the public or the people, and particularly against the poor is the privatization of the jail telephone system.  In the system, every phone call made by any inmate or detainee of a jail facility has to pay a fee per call.  At the time that payphone call for $0.10 a call, the privatized phone companies operating monopolistic franchises in the penal institutions were charging $2 a call.  The rationale was that jails needed to be secure and phone calls should be monitored and even recorded, and by the exploitation of labor, the service could be done more cheaply.  Ever since I first watched police programs on TV in 1954, I was inculcated with the notion that upon arrest a person was entitled to a phone call.  I was also taught that everyone was entitled to a lawyer, whether or not he could afford one.  Also, I was told that communications between lawyer and client were sacrosanct and could not be intercepted or other ways read or heard.  Of course, I was told that since Magna Carta all accused were innocent until proven guilty, and that of bonds’ sole purpose was to ensure a defendant’s presence in court.  Anything else, was contrary to common law, and only existed under the Roman code law, such as used in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.  It’s ironic, that the anti-Communist super-patriots were the ones pushing for preventive detention, and all these restrictions under the guise of safety.  Apparently constitutional rights don’t apply to the poor and disadvantaged as long as the ruling Elite can subjugate them.

                Meanwhile, judges. hand-picked from the ruling class, ignore the problems of constitutional violations, because they are minor, don’t apply to their class, and the public wanted safety over liberty.  They are indoctrinated with the idea that government is bad, commerce is good, businesses good, and poor people must be controlled, especially ones that belong to an ethnic or racial minority.  I suppose that makes sense, because if I were in their position might be nervous about members of the mass also.  The ones that live in gated communities have less to worry about than those that live in Fancy neighborhoods.  It’s not that judges don’t care; they just have never been arrested or jailed.  They don’t know how humiliating it is for someone in custody to call a potential employer, while seeking a job and having the potential employer here “this is a collect call from a correctional institution.”  The poor just have their pride, but the privilege to have more; or money; or clothes; or status; more toys; more education; and more opportunity.  They can’t understand the problem.  Hopefully, they don’t push the people to the point where they find out.  The hard way.

                Thus, it came as no surprise that the elitist city of Boulder, Colorado announced that it would lower their speed limits to 20 miles an hour.  The city has been essentially closed because of the virus scare or plague and revenue were dropped.  Most municipal revenue is dependent upon sales tax, and when you have distancing orders, stay-at-home health regulations, or orders, and other instruments of regulation that close establishments that generate income tax, the municipalities are going to hurt.  In a democratic society, the taxpayers could raise taxes later in payback emergency funds if necessary and keep the Government’s operating at the same capacity.  Or they can design other methods of raising revenue other than targeting the citizenry.  Having had the experience as a municipal judge ruling on traffic cases and being discharged because I did not collect enough revenue for the city, I have had reason to study the functions of municipal courts over 5 decades.  But that is for democracies, not plutocracies.  From my perspective, this is nothing but a revenue generator.  However, most of the residents of Boulder are Young, physically fit, wealthy, self-centered, and have tunnel vision.  They have no empathy for working people that must get from point a to point b with time constraints and who are paid by the hour, rather than by the dividend clippings.  Many of them ride bicycles because they are physically able.  In Boulder, a mortgage payment, the loan without taxes and insurance for the typical house starts $3000 a month.  However, the majority of the houses in Boulder cost twice that.  So, what do these people know about having to pay $2 a phone call, not being able to leisurely stroll or ride a bicycle between 2 points are getting a disproportionate amount of traffic tickets.  For them, is a minor annoyance for the non-Elite, it may mean missing a meal or to a house payment, insurance payment, dental expense, or some other semi-necessity.

                But raising taxes is unacceptable and unnecessary as long as the poor can be whacked without recourse.  It’s not callousness by these people, it is downright ignorance.  Although commonly thought of as being self-centered or egotistical, these people are genuinely nice.  They care about others but limit themselves to the thinking of people like them not “others”.  In the meantime, the beautiful residents of “liberal” Boulder can go about their business and their beautiful perfect city devoid of old, crippled, workers, or minorities, believing this is the way.  Other people live.

KILLING IS PATRIOTIC, THEREFORE CHRIST APPROVES

Dennis comments ♦ May 25, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

The Sixties were a time of turmoil, conflict and change. Nowhere was it more pronounced or exiting than in Boulder. There was an invasion of “hippies,” much to the consternation of the town’s founders and power structure. It is still going on today.
Before I left town for law school in Chicago, I did an analysis of the Boulder power structure, using a recent fluoridation referendum as the subject. Since there was a large Adventist hospital in Boulder, I assumed, that group was in the leadership position. Essentially, it was an attempted application of net theory. The reader should be aware that we were just coming out of the McCarthy era and the loyalty oaths were a subject of much debate among the faculty. The University was viewed as a fantasy land, inhabited by Communists and other threats to patriotism. I was at my first anti-discriminations rally at the Woolworth’s store at Broadway and Pearl streets.
To my surprise, I discovered a different group, led by small businessmen ultra conservatives, agitating against fluoridation, and more, such as impeaching Earl Warren, getting out of the UN, firing a left-wing professor who described J. Edgar Hoover as the biggest threat to democracy that existed in the world at that time. He was opposed by as naturalized “patriot” who traveled the state, addressing legionaries and others who feared politics of change. This paranoia increased with the start of the Viet Nam conflict and the draft and anti-war resistance movement.
So, after a three-year absence for law school, imagine my surprise to find how the city had changed. Turmoil prevailed. The old guard was still there, but circling the wagons. They were threatened. The Impeach Earl Warren billboards were still up going South out of town. Outsiders were barely tolerated, unless they were famous. The founding fathers viewed hippies as commies and traitors. The police now harassed those who looked different rather than thought different. The university loyalty oath became less important, at least to some. Hippies were now the clear and present danger. When arrested, they were given haircuts for “sanitary” reasons by the jailors. It took a lawsuit to stop that practice. However, the jailers substituted hosing down with garden hoses in the booking center as a substitute. It was more fun to watch. Sometimes, the arrestees had to strip and be hosed down in the showers, general in front of a full audience. It was explained that it was for the prisoner’s protection. From what, I never discovered. Fear and loathing was the general condition. The conservative founding fathers led the charge against hippies and change. The culture war was on. Sides were chosen. And some were drafted, just like in Viet Nam.
The main stage for this war was marijuana. It was the symbol of choice for those against the status quo, the establishment, the war machine. However, the forces for change lost with the convention of 1968, there were riots in Chicago at the democratic convention where a police force ran rampant over the constitution to stop the infestation of hirsute youth. There was a revolution by a younger generation. They lost. My belief was that the only logical political position was that of a counterrevolutionary. Otherwise, the pro-police state maniacs would win. The election of Richard Nixon confirmed my analysis.
There hordes of “hippies” arriving in Boulder, dressed in colorful costumes in unconventional styles. There were the Hare Krishna’s robed in Saffron and beating drums or chanting. There was the activist. There were the stoners. And, also, there were a group, led by a robed hippie calling himself John the Baptist, preaching from the flatirons about love, sex, drugs and resistance. He made Timothy Leary seem like a reactionary.
In any event, one of his followers wandered into my office, after being caught in possession of over a pound of weed, in a grocery bag, tucked under his arm like the ghost of the London Tower. He was arrested in that hotbed of communism and drugs known as the “hill,” adjacent to the University, over-run with University Students and other suspicious persons. A good percentage of law enforcement hung out there, municipal, state, and federal, where it was easy to bag their quotas of pot smokers and other non-patriots.
The client was of Hispanic origin from Harlem, New York. His New York accent was hard to miss. I had known his wife prior to his marriage. She was related to a prominent Southern Senator at the time and came from a long, established Southern family. She escaped to Boulder to explore life. Her relative, when he heard I was representing her husband, offered me a sum of money to take a dive. I declined. I wasn’t a big fan of Southern Democrats. I ended up defending him for free, but it was worth it.
The new DA was a former FBI agent who practiced law in the town. He was an Easterner and therefore felt compelled to wear cowboy boots to show he was one of us. He was going to rid the town of the scourge, and the most obvious way was to prosecute all marijuana possession cases. The judge was the just defeated DA. He was WW2 disabled Navy vet who ran as a democrat after the Chicago police riots. He was friendly
The new DA was full of himself, but had the support of the law enforcement community. His new policy was to try every case. Be tough on crime, especially that evil marijuana. Show hippies who we are. I was batting a thousand in losing drug cases thus far. However, since no other lawyers would go near them with a ten-foot pole, I was relatively safe. That was until it was discovered that many “hippies” had substantial trust funds and I was getting paid for some of my cases. In the meantime, those of us who objected to the oppressive and punitive conduct of the police and Courts, decided to clog the docket. This we did without effort. The only way that it was stopped was by the institution of a Public Defender’s office.
Marijuana was extremely divisive among the townspeople. When I was growing up, it was referred to as “loco weed,” favored by Mexican immigrants and seasonal workers. Nobody seemed to pay any attention, until it started being associated with draft and war resistance, Commie politics, and flat-top dodging young men who burned draft cards and protested the war. The weed became a problem because it became associated with everything feared by the young people’s parents. They survived a depression, World War, rationing and recovery. The wanted better for their children. They wanted obedience, conformity, loyalty. Ozzie and Harriet were their model. Beaver was what they expected in their children.
There was no dialogue, just demonstrations of power. It was “my way or the highway” as far as the Government was concerned. Dissent wasn’t to be tolerated. Patriotism was an imperative. The children had to be saved from themselves. The hippies must die. So, must dissent and disorder. One of the most hated was the “STP” family. They were colorful and predated the rainbow coalition. There was a case in our office involving one of their members who was arrested for having an upside United States flag sewn on the seat of his pants. That one was in the appellate stage. STP John preached from the flatirons every day, extoling the virtues of the Leary hallucinogen.
That was the climate when Carlos got caught with his kilo of marijuana. An Hispanic from Spanish Harlem, he had the New York attitude that cold piss off any cop. He had a ponytail and beard together with outrageous consuming, consisting of beads, bells and other bobbles. From the town’s elite, it was worse. He had a white wife. He was exactly what Boulder didn’t want. Image conscious Boulder was afraid of what the STP family would produce. Why would parents send their kids there, when there were draft dodgers, draft card burners, hippies, intellectual Marxists and other undesirables. I had a choice. I could plead Carlos guilty in exchange for a prison term not exceeding 5 years, or I could go to trial on what appeared to be an open and shut case.
At a suppression motion, the arresting officer testified that he observed Carlos in a high crime area. (It was “the hill,” a student area, infested with students, hippies and other young people. It was adjacent to the University and was were the students went to shop, eat and drink.) It was the happy hunting grounds for training new narcotics officers. It was impossible to be there for more than one half hour before an arrest could be made. Students and hippies were fair game for the police.
The arresting officer testified at a preliminary hearing that it was a high crime area because drugs were a crime and over half of the people in that area were in possession of the same. (He failed to testify that 90 percent were youths and college students.) He stated that the defendant had a Safeway bag under his arm and seemed nervous. When he approached Carlos, he noticed that the bag was leaking a brown leafy substance. His experience and training told him that the defendant had marijuana. The defendant stated he was picking up trash and on his way to a trashcan on the corner when he was accosted by the officer. The evidence was ruled admissible. (My client said that the hole wasn’t in the bag when the officer took it. I asked the officer if this were the case, and stated that the bag was exactly like it was when he took it and turned it into the evidence locker.) He said that my client was probably lying to me. A polygraph indicated differently. So, we went to trial.
However, at the trial, another version was told. The Courtroom was packed. It resembled a clown convention or a Halloween costume party. There were festive ornaments on the multi-colored garments. Bells rang and bracelets rattled. The hippies were in force to watch American justice in action. The defendant’s story was unlikely, but it was plausible, but just barely. I didn’t think I could sell a jury, so additional tactics were in order. I believed that if the jury thought I was a court appointed red-neck bigot, they might feel sorry for Carlos for having to be defended by such an ass hole. I scowled at him in front of the jury. So, when picking the jury, I had Carlos sit away from me and I looked at him with disdain, as though I were court appointed to represent him. The jury looked formidable. Not a hippie among them. They looked so serious. I felt they were making plans to build a scaffold while sitting there. When the DA questioned, they smiled and nodded like good little robots. They all had short hair.
The DA was a smiling glad-handing yuppie. He was young and dynamic. He was likeable. The judge was a WWII vet from the navy. He was wounded at Normandy and had a bad back. He had just been defeated for DA even though I worked for him on his election campaign. He was sort of fair, but not exactly a model of liberalism. He was better than the alternative. He allowed most questions and sat there looking judge-like.
My turn. When I got up to interview the jurors, I sighed and tried to do my job. The reception was more than hostile. These were solid, middle-class, white, patriots of the white middle class community. It was hard to discern what was hated more, the hippies, the students or Hispanics. I was pissing into the wind. There were no students on the jury. Few young people were in the pool. They were all in the audience. They couldn’t vote yet. So, I shook things up a bit. When questioning the jurors, I asked, “Do any of you have an opinion of Spicks?” Those jurors that were shocked, I left on. The ones that snickered or laughed, I threw off. However, there was one man from a small town who was on Social Security that I could not get off the jury. I was out of challenges. So, the trial began. All I could do is try or cry.
Some preliminary witnesses established the substance and the analysis. Finally, it was the policeman’s turn. His testimony was essentially the same as earlier, except for one minor point. He had previously testified that he saw a hole in the bag with green leafy substance seeping out, which, as a trained police officer, knew was marijuana, although it was dark with little light. At the trial, he testified that as he approached Carlos, Carlos shifted the bag on the other side, using his body to shield the bag from his light.
Now, the reader might ask, “why did the officer change stories?’ He obviously saw the hole in the story he gave at the preliminary hearing. It looked suspicious when the hole in the marijuana bag was the approximate size of a pencil. In the cultural war, no one in the policeman’s circle of friends would have assumed any hippie would carrying a bag would have anything else. “Yes, you may say, but why would he obviously tell such a lie?”
Now that is something more complicated. Testimony is tailored to specific results. At the suppression hearing, the officer was charged with justifying his stopping of the defending, the questioning and the subsequent search. It was important that he establish probable cause to look into the bag. The only possible reason was that there was marijuana coming out of the bag. That necessitated a hole from which some mysterious substance could leak. The reader must realize that, to the police, the biggest threat to society, other than stopping commies in Viet Nam rather than at the Golden Gate Bridge, was the scourge of marijuana use, causing all the political and social turmoil. Marijuana caused rebellious youths. Marijuana caused daughters to have sex out of wedlock. Marijuana caused antiwar protests. Marijuana killed patriotism. Marijuana was a communist conspiracy to undermine the youths of this country and sap their vital bodily fluids. Marijuana was evil. So were the users. So, since police always believe the ends justify the means, the officer felt justified in lying for the greater good and said what he wanted. At the trial, he had to justify some sort of guilty knowledge. Therefore, blocking the light with his flashlight so that the officer could not examine the bag was conceived. It showed that Carlos had guilty knowledge of the bag’s contents.
However, I left comment for later. After a denied motion to dismiss, I gave an opening statement and presented my defense– my client. He was dressed in what he described as “West Harlem Pimp” finery and was applauded by my audience, which I generally attracted in those days. The audience were mostly members of the STP family, with court regulars and colleagues hoping to see me get chewed out by a judge or other entertainment that might occur.
Defendant stated his name and his address as “the streets and mountain campgrounds.” I asked him to tell what he remembered of the night of his arrest.
“Wha chu mean, mon, about that night? How could I forget it, man? I was on the hill minding my own business when I noticed this bag in the gutter. I stooped over to pick it up and take it to a trash container when I am confronted by this racist pig. He asked what I was doing there and if I was a citizen. I said that Puerto Rico qualified me for citizenship last I heard and told him he was a racist pig.”
“Why did you say that?”
“Because he was. I know the way these guys think, whether its New York or Boulder. If you white, that’s alright, if your black, get back, get back, get back. All you have to do is read the papers to know that. I’ve experienced it my whole life. This town ain’t no different. They just hide it better.”
He then testified how the officer asked about the bag, and when the defendant told him he could not look in the bag, the cop poked the bag with a pencil. Then the cop told him it looked like marijuana coming out and he was under arrest. And, he said, “Here we are.”
He was then cross examined by the DA. After several questions, that got him nowhere, the district attorney asked, “Do you expect this jury to believe that you came across two pounds of marijuana just lying in the streets and you were going to throw it in the trash?”
“I grew up in Harlem, man. You country clubbers haven’t experienced it. There was trash everywhere. In the streets, in the gutters, on the sidewalks and just everywhere. I vowed that if I ever was able to escape, I would never again tolerate trash anywhere I lived. So, when I saw the bag, I picked it up to throw it away. On the way, the pig stopped me, questioned me, stabbed the bag and arrested me.
“Are you saying that the office is lying.”
“He don’t look like no George Washington to me.”
At that point, he sat down, and the court was adjourned until the next day where we would the jury instructions would be read, and our closing arguments given. That night, we both went out and got drunk together.
The next morning, I was raring to go, but the DA overslept and was hung over. That was one defense tactic he wasn’t taught, but I educated him in a hurry. When he arrived, he didn’t look too good, but told the Judge that he was ready to proceed.
We gave final arguments. My opponent argued that it was the jury’s duty to stop the marijuana scourge and clean up the town. We should not tolerate drugs or the people that it brought to the town, pointing to my client’s supporters assembled in the back of the courtroom, in a rainbow of colors and beads. He summoned moral outrage and told the jury that it was there duty to protect the community from such trash. Then it was my turn. I slowly arose, shaking my head, looking bewildered. I slowly addressed the jury, starting in a soft voice, making them strain to hear me.
I agreed with the district attorney. Cases like this were significant and would define our community. But it was up to the jury to determine what type of a community we wanted to live in. Since the district attorney brought up the subject, I thought I would comment on the subject.
“What type of community do we want,” I asked rhetorically? I then described the dream middle class existence, with all white people, no crime or delinquency and with all youths with close shaved haircuts.
“There is ample precedent for such communities or societies. My father risked his life in a war to with such a society that wanted to discriminate, euthanize, and exterminate all the ‘others,’ to purify people and thoughts. That was what the DA was describing. But, is that what we want?
Or, do we want a society based upon tolerance and truth. I agree that my client isn’t the type of person that I would like my sister to marry. However, I don’t make decisions for her. Will we tolerate prejudice and lies to protect our daughters and sisters? Do we want police that believe that they can get away with lying because of the nature of the offense or the offender? Or, will we believe any person who has a uniform or a badge? Does a certificate of truth come with the badge? I want you to go into the jury room and look at the evidence. Calculate the probability that a pencil hole just happens to be in a bag, or was it added later? Pick up the flashlight. Shine it around. Point it at you fellow jurors and see if the flashlight is an x-ray flashlight. Can it see through a person? If, not, there can be only one conclusion. My client was right. He, ain’t no George Washington. So, if that is what you want, go ahead a convict the defendant. Very few people would care, and many would rejoice, not because of what he had done, but because he looks different, talks different, and is offensive. I don’t care. A year from now, I will be at some University teaching. So, the future is up to you.” I then sat down.
The jury was back in three hours. Surprisingly, the verdict was not guilty. I waited around the courthouse to talk to the jurors. One of the jurors whom I tried to exclude from the jury and started to talk. He was a farmer from Louisville, a small neighboring town. He looked old enough to be retired, but said he was still farming. I asked him, “Why the hell did you find the defendant not guilty? He looked at the district attorney and replied, “shit, we just couldn’t convict someone of having anything that grows wild in the ditches around here. We all agreed on that.
The next day, the District Attorney’s office announced that it was impossible to obtain a marijuana conviction in Boulder County. That was his conclusion. His mind just wasn’t clear enough to see that maybe the problem was his constituency, not the community. No community likes a police force that bullies or allows perjury. Of course, one who worships law enforcement and owes his political existence to police would never think of that. Oh, well, at least I won.

STOP THE RICH FROM KILLING US

Dennis comments ♦ May 19, 2020 ♦ 1 Comment

HOW LONG DO WE LET THEM STEAL, CHEAT AND I INJURE US BEFORE WE SAY ENOUGH?      

                It is extremely interesting how the public has become brainwashed to believe that we do not deserve anything, while the Rich and privileged deserve everything.  We are conditioned to believe that anything that trickle down from above his largess that we should appreciate.  We are conditioned to believe that the people that allow anything to trickle down are magnificent and generous precluding us from any criticism.

                It is time for us to wake up.  When this country first started, to escape liability, corporations were formed and allowed to exist as long as they benefited the people.  The purpose wasn’t for profit.  It was hoped that profit would occur, but the main reason for incorporating it so that an investor would only lose what he put into the venture and not his whole estate.  Initially, corporations were created to build turnpikes, canals, and other works that serve the people.  Various ventures were incorporated such as mining interests, utilities, distributors, etc. a corporation was a good way in which to develop and expand our country and incentives were given for that purpose.  For instance, the Constitution says that the government shall create and maintain post ways post offices post roads, etc.  This was a constitutional mandate to connect the country and to connect the people.  When railroads entered the picture, they are perceived as the best way to connect the country and to move people and goods around.  So, in order to finance the great cost of building roads, Congress gave Landgraf’s to the railroads to pay for the cost of the railroads.  However, after the railroads were est. and operating well and starting to get costly to maintain, railroads turned into real estate development companies, tour of the tracks and sold land profiting by the land grants contrary to the reason for them to have been granted.

                , And the main advantages of railroads were to move mail and cargo from one point to another arose had mail cars and they were contracts with the railroad to transport mail.  It was sorted on the cars and delivered at various locations.  As in Europe, roads and railroads were created for the purpose of communication, mail be in one part of it.  Later, Airlines came into being.  They were developed and subsidized by contracts to carry the mail.  It is necessary for a nation to exist as a nation to be able to communicate from region to region and person-to-person and group to group.  However, there seems to be a conscious effort to sabotage that: to about to divide and conquer; to so dissension; to promote isolation is him, thus fragmenting our society.  It seems to be working. 

Propagandist have been trying for decades to blacken government mischaracterizing democratic functioning as inefficient inefficiency.  We have been conditioned to believe that a government as the enemy interfering with all kinds are greedy bastards, who want to make a profit at our expense.  We are taught to believe that is better for an entity, like Raytheon to reap billions and profits for Rich people who can invest rather than provide for a workforce which now is viewed as expendable.  Even in the Middle Ages, the nobility had an obligation to the peasantry.  Enterprise is destroyed that.  Commerce is destroyed that, leaving as in a state of nature referred to as Neal liberalism, where money and economy counts, but people and civilization don’t.  We are now not even afforded the status of surfs.

                If you look at Europe, there are old buildings preserved through the ages and still in.  My grandfather’s church in England, for instance, was built by Saxon’s in the year.  850.  It still in use.  There are many castles and large edifices in Europe that are decaying, but there are also many that are still functioning and used.  The Europeans didn’t have the luxury of throwing a thing that he didn’t need because they were plentiful.  They had to conserve and reuse things, not only raw material, but people.  However, in this country, we could import immigrants and use them or consume them at will, readily replacing them with others.  While I don’t feel I’m expendable.  I don’t believe that people should soil so that others can sit on their assess in a comfortable fashion, supported by the blood, sweat, and tears, of the people.  Our elected leaders are whoring themselves to the ruling Elite, allowing the citizenry to become ill and maybe even die corporations who can raise money by issuing stock selling assets or loans are getting subsidized while waiters, bartenders, tradespeople, construction workers and other laborers are allowed to suffer, starve, lose their housing, and contract plague I suppose I would feel differently if I perceived in the guilt or embarrassment by these people.  But I see no evidence of such all my sense is a sense of entitlement that was there is theirs and what’s hours is theirs for the taking.  I don’t think we the people of the United States should eat cake because there is no bread.  I honestly believe that if they don’t want to share, they don’t deserve to be members of society and should live beyond the bounds of society in a state of nature.  I believe they should be held up to ridicule and abuse, and forced to wear masks like sheets and greedy people that in the Middle Ages

                I don’t think reparations should be only for blacks brought here as slaves, but anyone brought here in a state of certitude.  This is not a racial matter, but a class matter an economic matter, the Rich would just as soon spread liability to a whole race or culture in which they can hire people to get them out of their obligation and impose the obligation on those who can least afford.  They ignore those that may have benefited, they should pay, they got Rich taking our resources from the ground, leaving us with the tab for cleanup.  They consolidate and make things efficient for the sake of profit only, neglecting what is good for the society in general.  I read in the paper about this crook or that crook making millions of dollars from foreign governments for selling our country out or screwing the citizenry, or other heinous things which the privilege class get away with. Society does not exist for the benefit of the privileged, but for the people I say enough is enough.

A LAWYER’S VIEW OF JUSTICE

Dennis comments ♦ April 27, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

Judge in Lyons

A NAIVE IDEALIST LAWYER’S INTRODUCTION TO LAW AND SOCIETY

  DLBlewitt, 4-2020

AS A town activist molded in the civil rights era and the post Assassination era, I had a different view of the legal system and how it related to the people and society than most freshly minted lawyers. I now know I was naive and gullible, as my early memories remind me. Most lawyers went to law school to become rich and famous, for prestige or other similar reasons. I was motivated by Kennedy’s inaugural address and the vision of a crusader. Over 50 years of law practice hasn’t changed that but has made me a little less conspicuous. Many lessons learned by me are ones that most practitioners don’t see or analyze., which is unfortunate.
While other lawyers are rich or at least well of by pecuniary gain, I am rich in experience and in the friends I have made along the way. One such experience was mu appointment as a municipal judge in a small town transitioning from a Justice of the Peace system administered by politicos compensated by assessing court costs on the convicted, which was 100 percent of the accused, to one paid by a municipal salary.
When I was appointed judge, I was probably untrained and full of all kinds of delusional idealism. I was the first municipal judge with a law degree to be appointed to serve in a small municipality. Before that, small municipalities had a system called justices of the peace. These members of the Justice system were caricatured with the Chief of Mayberry and Gomer Pyle, comedic characters from early TV programming. They arraigned and heard traffic cases brought to them by the Police Department’s and made their money by charging “court costs.” These were ten dollars to the Justice of the Peace (JP), and the fine went to the town. If the police brought 80 cases, that meant the magistrate or justices of peace would make rake in $800 in 1960 dollars. (Remember, this was in the late 60’’s. When the statutes changed creating municipal judges instead of justices of peace, the towns, and especially police, resisted.
The change occurred because the State was developing a reputation as a speed trap. Lafayette Colorado was listed as a town to avoid by AAA. The legislature decided to change the image. When the law made judges salaried and their pay wasn’t dependent upon whether or not they found somebody guilty, the number of acquittals miraculously went up dramatically in the Municipal Court. Of course, this did not make the police exactly ecstatic, particularly in smaller towns. The police desired money in their coffers to do things and buy toys such as tanks, water canons and Uzi’s. And they looked at the courts as the revenue generator. The police truly believed that they were doing a good thing by sticking it to the motorists for the benefit of the town. It also paid their salaries and gave them some degree of legitimacy, if not examined too closely. It was the classic form of corruption, a la Sheriff of Nottingham. The real tragedy is that the town officials didn‘t view the situation like that. They believed that it would teach motorists a lesson, and the fines were the equivalent of tuition.
However, nobody in the system really expected fundamental change. It was just political expediency for an extremely touchy situation that was attracting nationwide attention. Older lawyers knew better than to tarnish their images as a whore for a small town. When the doors to the town hall were not exactly kicked down with applicants, I was called. Wow, I thought. A judge already and I have only been sworn in for a month. I was going to be able to use my training as both a criminologist and a lawyer. I had assumed that the appointment was because my father had owned a movie house in the town. Well, I was mistaken. It was not quite what I expected.

Unfortunately, I learned that too late. As young judge, I tried to do what was right and, if I thought somebody wasn’t guilty, I would say so the cops who would take offense of my opinion as a personal attack on their integrity and honesty. To complicate things further was that speed limits, that is speeding over a posted limit, which constituted most offenses, were only prima facie indication of guilt. Speeding was defined as going as speed that was neither reasonable nor proper. The speed limit was suggested, but not absolute. That is, the determination of whether the speed the defendant was traveling was unreasonable and improper could be rebutted by testimony or other physical evidence.
For instance, in my jurisdiction, the speed limit was 10 miles an hour and road was designed for cars to go 30 miles an hour. 30 miles an hour then would be a reasonable and proper speed, depending on other conditions. That ambiguous clause about other attendant circumstances was generally used to find guilt. Judges knew why they were costumed in robes to impress citizens of their abilities, when, it was for image to allow the judges to screw the citizens.
The towns then set up a 15 miles an hour speed limit through the town, not so much as a traffic rule or for the protection of the pedestrians are other citizens, but as a speed trap to generate revenue and to placate my opinion of a 10 mile per speed limit. . One of the first things I did which when I took office and which endeared me to the citizenry’s and got to the hearts everybody victimized by the random tag team of JP and police was to indicate that I thought 25 miles an hour was a reasonable and proper speed for going through town. Of course, the police were terribly upset about this because it cut out revenue substantial. No more toys for the officers to play with. They wouldn’t be getting their tank or water cannon.

At night after I held court, I would take the officers to coffee. I wanted feedback from the officers; criticisms and the opportunity to educate them. a little bit about criminal law. They understood all right, but they took a more pragmatic approach. The town needed the money and it really wasn’t hurting anybody to issue traffic tickets, especially if the transcripts which were sent to the motor vehicle department rarely affected driving rights. Besides, the town was small and there wasn’t much going on, so the only thing police had to do was to write traffic tickets. When I found cases or drivers not guilty, it took away from whatever little status I had and that branded me as “liberal.” That was about this time when antiwar press or protests started to escalate a little bit, the hippie movement was getting into full swing, and the stream of patriotism was running rampant within the police. In the spirit of patriotism and as their symbol of backing Nixon, they all showed up wearing American flags on their sleeves. Ironic because while the police started wearing flags on their sleeves as a sign of patriotism, hippies were being prosecuted for wearing flags on the seat of their pants for flag mutilation and disrespect, like one of my clients. He was arrested and prosecuted for desecration of the Flag. The arresting officer had a flag sewn on his sleeve. Flag desecration depends on who’s wearing the flag and where it is worn.
The main lesson that I learned was that officials viewed a Court as a profit center and not a place where fairness is demanded or even expected. I learned that there were outsiders who were generally regarded as fair game. The interesting thing I learned was that the agency who raises the money gets to keep the lion’s share. The town really needed other things rather than riot gear and cop toys. Many school children had no lunch, there was no public health official there, and the infrastructure was in need of repair.

However, fear and prejudice trumped reason. The townspeople were willing to sacrifice to make sure they had a police department and no
Hippies” would come to their town. There was also an extreme amount of bigotry within the police force, particularly against the hippies were moving in fact and flouting social convention such as haircuts, clean clothes and other conformist behavior. In fact, the whole town was somewhat prejudiced.
One night when I was holding court some local townspeople showed up to watch the proceedings. There were a few disturbing the peace tickets issued against hippies; not that they were disturbing the peace, but their hair disturbed some of the people and the towns-people want to see how tough I was on the hippies. Well, the real problem that evening was that the townspeople were a little bit inebriated. So, they showed up drunk and were making a lot of noise and being rowdy. The week before, they had captured a hippy and cut his hair off with sheep shares, not the electric ones either. The Boulder County Sheriff hosed them down with garden hoses when they were arrested and jailed. They believe that the arrest empowered them to assume and treat for lice and other insects. The treatment while stripped down, the sheriff could justify this based on a health precaution. They also gave a few haircuts to arrestees on the basis that long hair was unsanitary. There was a court case pending in District Court brought by the ACLU against the sheriff’s office for the practices. So the spectators were there to see how I would treat the hippies and what would happen to their buddy who was charged with misdemeanor assault for cutting a hippie’s hair and to the hippies up there for walking in public with long hair. As court was getting ready to start, the Cowboys started shuffling coins around and making a lot of noise. I asked them three times to put the coins away, quit making noise, and the be silent because I was trying to run a court. After 10 minutes of attempting to get them quiet, I ordered the Chief of the police to arrest them and haul them away until they promised to behave. This really did not make me extremely popular with townspeople. Particularly after I had to find the noisemakers in contempt of court. I gave them suspended jail sentence. Meanwhile, I found the hippies not guilty and the cowboy the who had cut the hair was fined $100. He was lucky I didn’t send him to jail, except I knew that the town had to pay the jail costs, which brings us to another point of corruption.
The city policeman would never write anybody up for driving under the influence because it mattered in whose court it was brought because the county took half of the funds. Therefore, they always wrote them up for reckless driving. In fact, that’s what the reckless driving offenses were. Real reckless driving charges were rare in town because it was really extremely hard to drive reckless within the city limits because the town was so small. It was well-known that anybody charged with reckless driving was probably drunk or at least well on his way to being so. When found guilty of reckless driving there was a pretty stiff fine penalty. However, the citizens were quite happy because they didn’t lose their driver’s license with a reckless driving charge as they would with driving under the influence.
Until the end of my tenure, there was a constant battle between the town the police because the revenues were down. Soon, however, the court wasn’t even making enough to pay for itself. The city, rather than kicking loose from the general fund started paying me and warrants which could be redeemed when the court bank account got to the point where it could pay them. This went on for approximately 8 months until I was elected out of office. The lesson I learned from this experience is that administrators view courts as a revenue source, not as a separate branch of government. People care less about justice than supporting good government. Most people are so prejudiced against taxes and supporting their government that they would rather impose injustice on others if it saves them money. Our priorities are way out of whack.

BOULDER DA OPENS INVESTIGATION ON 50-YEAR-OLD CASE

Dennis comments ♦ April 18, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

DENNISCOMMENTS
April, 2020
ADDENDUM TO RIHA’S GHOST
BOULDER COUNTY DA APPARANTLY RE-OPENS A 50-YEAR-OLD COLD CASE
FIFTY YEARS AGO, I WAS INVOLVED IN A PERPLEXING MYSSTERY THAT TOPPLED A GOVERNMENT, SPLIT FBI AND CIA, MADE NATIONAL NEWS FOR DECADES, AND WAS COVERED UP BY POLITICIANS AND OTHERS. I BELIEVE THAT MY CLIENT WAS MURDERED AND THERE HAS BEEN A COVERUP SINCE THEN.

Many of you know this story, but for those that don’t, I will briefly explain.  Early in my career, I had two clients, Mrs. Tannenbaum and Professor Riha.  They each had curious connections to separate Government clandestine agencies.  The war was raging, and they were all sorts of agents investigating students at University of Colorado, a hippie and activist paradise, riddled with Government operators and other drug dealers.
When one client was accused of offenses against another, I felt I had a conflict of interest.  This also was made clear to me by some agents who visited me at my office to explain the consequences of not recognizing this.  So, I referred one client to Mike Kokish, a Denver Journalist who had just opened a practice in Denver.  Mrs., Tannenbaum liked the idea because she was in PR.  Fred Gillis of the Denver paper, David Wise of Washington Post, Senate Select Committee (Watergate) investigated and reported on the incident.  After a trial in Boulder that was unsatisfactory to a mysterious force, Mrs. Tannenbaum was prosecuted a second time in Denver.  Two CIA domestic services agents and one FBI agent visited Denver DA Mike McDevitt regarding the case.  Later, McDevitt became a congressman and managed to snag a large grant for Denver to manufacture and fight an organized crime structure.  J. Edgar of FBI demanded Richard Helms of the CIA to disclose the identity of his agent and was told to piss up a rope.  Hoover, in a snot broke off all liaison with the CIA and Fired Sullivan, his liaison agent.
Well, this left Richard Nixon blind and scuttled his Huston plan.  So, he set up the Watergate bunglers, causing his political demise.  Meanwhile, in Denver Mrs. Tannenbaum was sent to the state hospital where she took 20 minutes to die of Cyanide poisoning.  It was declared a suicide.  Remember, this case touched on Nixon, Kissinger, Brzezinski, Phoenix project, project Rhyolite, Echelon, DEA, students recruited for the FBI and Military Intelligence, ONI, IRS, NRO, NSA and myriad other alphabetical combinations.
I ran for District Attorney on the platform that I would, if elected, call a grand jury and find out what happened.  About that time, some of my mail was accidentally diverted to the FBI for their approval.

After losing the election, a friendly police officer’s wife got word to me to lie low. The excrement hit the revolving blades ad I found myself under investigation for jewel robbery, kidnapping, arson, and sitting on the side walk. To insure I got the message, I was audited by the IRS for 87 consecutive weeks as an excuse for the Government to notify all my clients that I was investigated. Of course, that did not help my practice.
When I lost my election (by 221 votes), my opponent graciously allowed me to examine the file on the case. In it I found, letters addressed to me, an autopsy report, some notes, etc. The letters to me by Ms. Tannenbaum explained her double-cross and begged me to see her so that she “could blow the lid off the whole thing. Of course, when I received the letters, it was too late.
Lately, several writers, investigators, producers, and others have been hounding me for either interviews, statements, of live TV recording. I suspect some of it is related to current events in Washington, but it also is a curious unsolved case. The Boulder police has treated it occasionally as a cold case and have told to me. Mr. Kokish’s files rest in the archives of the State of Colorado, an mine await my demise. My hope is that someone doesn’t try to expedite that situation,
However recently, representatives from Netflix and some independents have requested video interviews about the case. After 4 decades, my memory is not what it had been, so I requested an opportunity to review the file, which has been afforded me by prior DA’s. However, when I requested recently when the requests started, one of which had a Connection to the Teller center, I requested another look at the file.
I was informed that this 50 year case was a current case and access was denied by DA Mike Daugherty on the basis that it was an ongoing investigation. This was after a front page story in the Boulder Camera about the case and that a TV documentary was being made Is there a separate coverup in the works, or is it a continuation. I would like to know. I hope many of you inquire of both the Camera and the DA.
Credit…The New York Times Archives
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DENVER, March 9—Mrs. Gloria Tannenbaum, the central figure in two unsolved Colorado mysteries, has ‘died in a state hospital for the insane, apparently a suicide.
Mrs. Tannenbaum, 39 years old, once regarded as a suspect in two poisoning death’s and in the disappearance of a. University of Colorado professor of Russian history, died Sunday at the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo.
The hospital authorities confirmed today, after earlier denials, that a suicide note had been found in a pocket of Mrs. Tannenbaum’s dress.
Although an autopsy report Will not be available until Thursday, the cause of death was believed to have been cyanide, the poison that killed two of Mrs. Tannenbaum’s neighbors in Denver in 1969.
The woman, who once claimed to be a general doing intelligence work and bragged of her friendships in influential places, gave some of her possessions to fellow patients and wrote farewell letters to friends and family before she died.
In her suicide, note and a letter to her lawyer, John Kokish of Denver, Mrs. Tannenbaum again protested her innocence in the disappearance of Dr. Thomas Riha, 40, and the deaths of Gustav F. Ingwersen, 78, and Mrs. Barbara Egbert, 51.
The letter to Mr. Kokish said, “It doesn’t matter really, but will tell you this. I didn’t do Tom or Gus or Barb in. I went nuts with hurt, over losing them.”
Dr. Riha, who lived near the university campus in Boulder, disappeared March 14, 1969, and Mrs. Tannenbaum was subsequently charged in both Boulder and Denver in four separate felonies involving the disposal of his property.
As a result of one of those charges, that she had forged Dr: Riha’s name to a $300 check, Mrs. Tannenbaum was found by a Boulder District Court jury to be legally insane and was ordered confined.
In the following months, the police in the Denver‐Boulder area made a wide search for his body. They looked into abandoned mountain mine shafts and along isolated roads, and dug up the basement of an East Denver home once oc cupied by Mrs. Tannenbaum. But the missing professor has never been found,
In the poisoning deaths, no evidence was developed that could support charges against Mrs. Tannenbaum.
Mr. Kokish said here today that a grand jury should be asked to investigate how Mrs. Tannenbaum obtained the poison that killed her. He said that ‘the grand jury should also investigate complaints made to him in letters from Mrs. Tannenbaum that she had been mistreated and persecuted by the hospital staff.
Mr. Kokish said that his client was apparently looked upon at Pueblo “as a kind of the witch of the ward.”
He quoted her final letter to him as saying, “Everything that has made me feel good about myself has been taken away. Life is very cheap.”