July 30, 2004
Re: Mr. R. Stanley's sentencing.
Dear Judge:
I am president of what is probably the largest in the country legal reform coalition, A Matter of Justice (AMOJ) (see www.amatterofjustice.org.) Although we are a grassroots organization, among us are many attorneys and even some law professors and judges.
A few words of relevant personal history ... I am a naturalized US citizen who came to the US in 1979 as a refugee from the former Soviet Union, where as a dissident college student I had been harassed and threatened by the KGB and the Communist Party. Needless to say, I have difficulties accepting the growing Orwellian tendencies in America, the country I embraced with my whole heart, for its people, its heritage and the traditions of liberty and justice.
This letter is in support of Mr. Stanley in his upcoming sentencing. I hope you will read it with an open mind and will have the moral courage not only to recognize the bitter truth expressed in it, but to constrain the measure of punishment you will impose on Mr. Stanley accordingly.
I have a rather grim view of the state of justice and liberty in America, and having met with a few top federal judges and other government officials can attest that some of them have positions not unlike mine. America has the greatest per capita prison population in the world. Its jails have many good, sometimes innocent people who have been betrayed by the system. Unaccountable judiciary is out of control and corruption is rampant in the courthouses throughout the country. The Chief Judge of the Fifth Federal Circuit, Edith Jones, told the Federalist Society of the Harvard School of Law (http://www.massnews.com/2003_Editions/3_March/030703_mn_american_legal_system_corrupt.shtml) that the legal system is corrupt beyond recognition. Statements abound of well known political leaders, academicians and judges that amount to a declaration that the Bill of Rights is on the death bed.
The Second Amendment was born in large part out of the framers' desire to empower citizens to discourage government tyranny. The Constitution of the State of Colorado also provides for the right of its citizens to bear arms. Given today's erosion of rights in America, many constitutionally minded citizens feel particularly strong about protecting the Second Amendment. Stanley is such a citizen.
It was, therefore, justifiable for Stanley to peacefully challenge the municipality that overruled -- unconstitutionally - the carrying of guns by law-abiding members of general public. The prosecution of Mr. Stanley for the challenge was likewise unconstitutional and the resulted conviction null and void. When the state legislature passed a law retroactively prohibiting state municipalities from enacting laws overriding the right to keep and bear arms, the enforcement by the municipal judge who presided over the trial of Stanley of the decrees he had issued regarding Stanley violated 18 USC 42. Therefore, the only criminal in the controversy became the judge.
What real remedies did Stanley have to protect himself from the lawless judge? Clearly, he was entitled to injunctive relief in both state and federal courts? But did he know this? Furthermore, did he have any faith that the courts would do the right thing given the recognition in the circles of constitutional activists that the courts are dishonest, reactionary and political?
The real issue that should be before your Honor is was the action by Stanley to threaten the judge with citizen arrest illegal? It was not, as it would not have been illegal for him to threaten with citizen arrest any other citizen criminally denying him his rights. However, Stanley acted foolishly in doing so - probably out of anger and lack of discipline -- particularly in the manner in which he did it: a) he had no means to effect the arrest, b) no prosecutor in the broken justice system would prosecute this judge or honestly present the case for his indictment to the grand jury, c) the bold and provocative tone of Stanley's threat to the judge made it virtually impossible for the judge, apparently an unremarkable man, to back down, as the law required him to do, and was likely to evoke the kind of reaction that Stanley is facing today in your court.
Stanley is not guilty of the crime of attempt to influence an official because the judge totally lacked jurisdiction to enforce his decrees against Stanley, especially after the Colorado legislature spoke unambiguously to the issue of the right of Colorado citizens to bear arms. Stanley would have been found innocent in your court had he been given full due process and were tried before an informed jury of his peers. The fresh-faced college co-eds should have been thoroughly briefed on the Bill of Rights, the supremacy of the federal and state constitutions over statutory and case law and the weightiness of the decision they were to make, given its implications beyond the fait of one citizen, Mr. Stanley. As it was, the jury was woefully inadequately for the task.
Millions of Americans feel powerless in the face of tyrannical power that robs them of their most cherished rights and freedoms; their families destroyed and possessions stolen by an out-of-control legal system which, in too many instances, has become nothing more than a mafia-like system of extortion, imprisonment and sometimes murder, all under color of law. Stanley refused to accept powerlessness and stood up for himself, and in so doing he stood up for America. His strong reaction to today's unprecedented assault by bureaucrats, functionaries, police and judges on what is supposed to be an unapproachable fortress -- the Second Amendment -- is understandable, even if his methods and language were ill-advised. He is a patriot, not a criminal. His sentence should be vacated.
Jacob Roginsky, Ph.D, President
A Matter of Justice Coalition