Earlier this month (September 2009), Gilligan was arraigned on a charge of felonious sexual misconduct.Thanks to the inexplicable leniency of the prosecution and the unwonted generosity of the Idaho Sex Offender Classification Board, Gilligan will not have to register as a sex offender. Nor will he face prosecution on the sex charge.
In fact, there's a very good chance he won't serve any prison time. This is because the Ada County Prosecutor's office, in collaboration with4th District Judge Ronald Wilper, arranged an agreement in which Gilligan was permitted to plead guilty to a charge of burglary -- despite the fact that the only thing the offender may have taken by force was a captive woman's self-respect.
The Sex Offender Classification Board helped out by relieving Gilligan of the prospect of being a registered sex offender, or even a violent sexual predator (VSP). This decision was supposedly made on account of the results of a "psycho-sexual evaluation" carried out by SANE Solutions, a quasi-private psychological counseling service that provides such evaluations and supervises treatment of convicted sex offenders.
Gilligan, who worked as a "psychiatric technician" in the prison system subsequent to his admitted offenses, may have known how to game that system. Then again, it's obvious that Gilligan's erstwhile colleagues in the criminal "justice" system have extended every conceivable professional courtesy in the effort to avoid ruining his life by forcing him to register as a sex offender.In sex abuse cases not involving employees of the state criminal "justice" system, the Ada County prosecutor's office has distinguished itself for its zeal, at considerable expense to due process.
One splendid example among many that could be cited to illustrate that tendency was the bizarre trial of David Dutt, who was convicted of sexual misconduct with a child based solely on the self-contradictory account of the adolescent accuser -- and despite physical evidence (the existence of an intact hymeneal membrane in the purported victim) that was sufficient not only to provide reasonable doubt, but to prove the innocence of the accused.
Somehow, the Ada County Prosecutor's office managed to convince a criminally credulous jury that the "victim" in the Dutt Case possessed a uniquely resilient anatomy, one that permitted her to regenerate her traumatized and violated hymen in much the same way that certain lizards can re-grow severed tails. That, coupled with the theatrical, tearful summation of prosecutor Jean Fisher (who suggested that the jury would be party to the little girl's abuse if they didn't believe her allegations), was enough to convict an innocent man and send him to prison for up to 30 years.
The Dutt Case illustrates how the Ada County Prosecutor's office can arrange a sex offense conviction in the absence of evidence. Thus it's astonishing to see the same office refuse to prosecute Gilligan for sex crimes to which he has admitted guilt.
To understand the role played by the Idaho Sex Offender Classification Board in the Gilligan case, one must first understand that its rulings are entirely capricious. This was entirely by design, a fact that was admitted on the recordduring a May 19, 2006 meeting of the Board.
"The statutory vagueness regarding VSP [Violent Sexual Predator] designations was intended to provide for the board to use its discretion in considering cases," reports the official minutes of that meeting. "A designation criteria checklist is not feasible due to the wide variation of sexual offense/offender behavior. As such, each case is different and considered on its own merits."
Gilligan's conduct -- using his position of power over a captive and (apparently) unwilling woman to force her into sex -- is difficult to describe as anything other than that of a violent sexual predator. Yet the Board didn't see the "merit" in applying that designation to Gilligan, despite his admissions.
One is tempted to think that this validates a comment made not long ago on Idaho Public Television by Idaho state senator DentonDarrington: "I'm concerned ... that we don't get pranksters on the Sex Offender registry, but that we do get those who are deviant on the Sex Offender registry. In other words we don't want the fraternity kid on the football team who's doing a prank to go on the registry."
Granted, it would be difficult to prove that Gilligan's acts were non-consensual. But they were professional compromising and at the very least suggestive of a derangement in his character that made him a potential danger to others.
Whether this is sufficient to warrant prosecution is a matter about which reasonable people can disagree. But this much is incontestable: Given that there are people (such as David Dutt) in prison and on the sex offender rolls in Idaho whose guilt was not reasonably established, the solicitude displayed toward Gilligan screams and reeks of official corruption.
Gilligan admitted to acts recognized as sex offenses under the law, and won't be prosecuted for them. Mark Wicklund, an attorney who transplanted himself to Idaho from the Midwest, was compelled to plead guilty to alleged sex offenses despite the absence of either an alleged victim or a witness. He was sentenced to seven years of probation under the supervision of the above-mentioned SANE Solutions.
On April 24, 2008, despite the fact that Wicklund had committed no additional act to justify such treatment, he was designated a Violent Sexual Predator by the Sex Offender Classification Board. That designation came close on the heels of a probation violation filed against Wicklund for maintaining an internet-based consulting business, which was described, incorrectly, as impermissible under the terms of his probation. As a result, his probation was extended an additional three years.
Wicklund contends, quite plausibly, that both of those actions were retaliation for his refusal to obey a warning he was given by Fourth District Judge Thomas Neville: "Stay away from the Dutt Case."
Judge Neville presided over both the Dutt Case and Wicklund's case.
A few years ago, Wicklund agreed to devote his considerable legal talents to organizing the evidence for David Dutt's post-conviction appeal. His work product lays out a deeply documented, multi-faceted case for overturning Dutt's conviction on numerous grounds -- including, but not limited to, ineffective representation of counsel, several instances of prosecutorial misconduct, and abuse of discretion by the trial judge -- that is, the same Judge Neville who later threatened Wicklund.
As Wicklund related his experience to me, his work on the David Dutt's post-conviction appeal triggered all kinds of punitive mistreatment from people connected to the Ada County prosecutor's office through SANE, the IDOC, the department of probation and parole, and other government and quasi-government entities.
Granted, Wicklund could be dismissed by some as an ax-grinding sex offender (one thus designated, recall, without either a victim or a witness). However, he has documented his allegations, and key elements are confirmed by officials in the state government's employ.Wicklund alleges that the probation violation and VSP designation caused both his mental and physical health to deteriorate rapidly.
This is confirmed by Dave Ferguson, a state-employed counselor assigned to Wicklund, who testified in an affidavit (see page one here, page two here) that he not only suffered from anxiety and depression, but that "his physical health also appeared to deteriorate.... [H]e had to call me from the hospital on at least two occasions after he had been admitted, to indicate that he would have to miss his meetings with me."
Wicklund suffers from congestive heart failure, and Ferguson recalled that following the probation extension and VSP designation Wicklund's weight increased "dramatically" as a result of edema related to his heart condition. Open sores and a staph infection developed in his legs owing to circulatory problems."The ongoing legal problems, the isolation, probation extension, and the stigma of the VSP designation" all detracted from Wicklund's mental and physical health, concluded Ferguson.
Parole Officer Sutherland: His Facebook page jocularly lists "S&M, chains, whips" among his "interests." Sure, it's a joke (I guess), but if he didn't work for the state as someone in charge of supervising sexual deviants, he'd probably be in trouble of some kind.
Another complication arose when Wicklund was taken to jail following his alleged probation violation.
For several years, Wicklund has taken a strong prescription narcotic called Norco to palliate chronic pain in his knees.
When he was taken to jail by Parole and Probation Officer Brandon Sutherland, the Officer denied Wicklund access to Norco; this led to an involuntary "de-tox from the drug without the benefit of medical supervision.After three days of compelled de-toxification in jail, Wicklund was rousted by Officer Sutherland and taken to undergo a polygraph examination -- paid for with an IDOC voucher -- to answer questions about his purported probation violation.
The exam was administered by Jim Page, at the time a partner with Chip Morgan in a state-contracted firm called Polygraph Associates.
When Morgan, caught a glimpse of Wicklund's condition, he urged Page not to administer the test. According to Morgan, Page dismissed Morgan's concerns -- which were dictated by the ethics of his profession -- with a shrug and the statement, "I really need the money." (Wicklund's original, four-page December 12, 2008 complaint can be seen here,here, here, and here.) here.)
That comment so alarmed Morgan that he dissolved the partnership immediately and started his own polygraph service.
"I observed that Mark Wicklund appeared physically ill," recalled Morgan in an affidavit. (See here, here, and here.) "He had sweated his jail-issued jumpsuit completely through, was visibly sweating all over his face, was panting heavily and was pasty white in complexion. He also appeared to be `in and out' of tracking with the conversation."
He obviously was in no condition to serve as the subject of a polygraph. Yet Page performed one anyway, and the results were used to uphold Wicklund's probation violation. This prompted Morgan to dissolve his partnership with Page and open his own shop, Morgan Polygraph. Jim Page continues to perform polygraph examinations on sex offenders, despite a patent conflict of interest: His wife, Tess Buttram, is a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney who works on sex crime prosecutions for the Ada County Prosecutor's Office.
Shortly after that incident, Wicklund was summoned to the Fourth District probation office for a meeting he described to me as being akin to "the Spanish Inquisition." In that meeting, Wicklund insists, he was told to "stand down" from his investigation of misconduct by the Ada County Prosecutor's Office and the misbehavior of Jim Page -- which seemed to share a pattern of abuses similar to those committed in the prosecution of David Dutt. If he didn't comply, Wicklund was warned, he would be jailed on "discretionary time," which would mean an open-ended jail term.
Wicklund didn't relent, and neither did his enemies. Earlier this year, his attorney filed a motion for early release from probation; that motion contained two supporting affidavits. According to Wicklund, "Individuals in the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney's Office ... gained access to the court file and removed the two supporting affidavits from the file and destroyed them. Further, individuals from the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney's Office gained access to the official register of court actions for [my] case and deleted the entry documenting the submission of the [two] affidavits."
At present, Judge Neville refuses to review any of the relevant evidence -- which, if Wicklund is correct in describing the judge's threats, isn't surprising.
All of this, once again, was allegedly done in retaliation for Wicklund's work dealing with David Dutt's post-conviction appeal. The Dutt Case appears to be a very sore spot for Judge Neville and the Ada County Prosecutor's Office, and for good reason: That case displays, in very compelling fashion, what critics of the Idaho "criminal justice" system perceive to be institutionalized corruption in the prosecution of sex crimes. How much of this can Wicklund prove? We're likely to find out quite soon.
On August 12 he filed a "Notice of Tort Claim" (available here, here, and here) giving ninety days' notice of his intent to file a lawsuit. He names as defendants the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney's Officer, the Idaho Department of Corrections, Ada County, and the State of Idaho.
By filing his suit Wicklund is taking a large club to an immense, over-stuffed pinata filled with dirty diapers and dead cats. The fallout, while exceptionally unpleasant, will be quite revealing.
What an unalloyed blessing it is to live under a government describing itself as a constitutional republic!
Unlike undisguised tyrannies of various flavors, the government ruling us often -- but not always -- briefly pretends to defer to the written document from which it derives a set of limited, revocable powers, before its enforcement and judicial personnel dispense with those limitations altogether and inflict whatever atrocities they choose on the rest of us.
Sure, the outcome isn't materially different from what we'd experience if we lived under an absolute monarchy, or any of a number of dictatorships. But ours is the singular privilege of knowing the specific constitutionally protected "unalienable" rights that are being violated by the government that blights our society.
Cue Lee Greenwood: "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free" -- a phrase that must qualify as one of the most puerile, "clap for Tinkerbell"-style acts of self-delusion ever recorded.
The U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of the various states purportedly offer ironclad, black-letter protection against unreasonable searches and compelled self-incrimination. Yet any American who operates an automobile may be stopped at any time by a uniformed tax-feeder and compelled to undergo a blood test -- if the donut-grazer in question affects to believe that the driver is intoxicated, whether or not there is evidence to support that belief.
Since incriminating Breathalyzer results are regarded as infallibly conclusive for the purpose of securing a conviction, a negative result offers immediate exoneration -- correct?
One would think so. And one would be wrong.
You see, Officer Brian Miller, being not only a hero (they're all heroes, don't you know) but something of an oracle, just knewLockard was drunk, despite the reading on his otherwise infallible device. So Miller obtained a "warrant" from a complaisant judge (a warrant being a permission slip from one government agent to another authorizing the violation of a citizen's rights) that authorized the kidnapping of Lockard for the purpose of forcibly extracting bodily fluids -- blood and urine. The former was drawn by a needle. The latter was siphoned from Lockard's body through the forced insertion of a catheter.
Those tests both confirmed what the initial roadside test had demonstrated: Lockard was, for purposes of the law, as sober as Carrie Nation. So the matter ended here -- correct?
Of course it didn't. Because Lockard had, in some unspecified and ineffective way, protested Officer Miller's actions, the uniformed pest vindictively charged him with "obstruction of justice" -- meaning that Lockard had the temerity to be legally sober and to maintain his innocence while undergoing the criminal indignities inflicted on him by Miller and his partners in official crime.
"He [Miller] took it too far," complained Lockard after filing a lawsuit in protest of his treatment. "He thought he could do whatever to me... that he wanted to."
Unfortunately, under what our rulers are pleased to call the "law," Miller is objectively right, even if the Constitution says otherwise. The prevailing assumption, as recently expressed in a Washington state supreme court ruling, is that by obtaining a driver's license an individual gives "implied consent" to searches of both his vehicle and person, and that refusal to do so constitutes revocation of the "privilege" of driving.
A year and a half ago, Dallas-area police announced that the Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays would be "no refusal weekends," during which officers would deal with "a suspect who is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving does not voluntarily submit to a breathalyzer or blood test" by asking a county judge "to immediately approve a search warrant to draw blood...."
Texas state law supposedly prohibits police from forcibly extracting a blood sample except in cases where an accident has occurred involving serious bodily injury. However, the most recent Texas state appeals court ruling on this subject pronounces, with the smug, hypocritical piety of a philandering priest, that this provision doesn't really recognize the right of an individual to refuse a blood sample.
This is because the implied consent law actually permits the taking of blood without a warrant or explicit consent, because this is "another method of conducting a constitutionally valid search.... It gives officers an additional weapon in their investigative arsenal, enabling them to draw blood in certain limited circumstances even without a search warrant." In substance, that statement means that any invasion of an individual's person is "constitutionally valid" if the government says so.
Naturally, a search warrant nullifies the protests of the victim of a compelled blood test, since it would be issued based "on `the informed and deliberate determinations' of a neutral and detached magistrate'" -- for instance, the officious gavel-fondlers who rubber-stamp every warrant request, sight unseen, made by a cop during a "no refusal weekend."
All of this is the noxious fruit of a diseased tree -- namely, the whole system of licensure governing the "privilege" of operating a motor vehicle. This is among the nastiest versions of the familiar trick in which government redefines a right -- in this case, freedom to travel, which is recognized in Anglo-Saxon Common Law at least as far back as Runnymede -- into a revocable "privilege."
Accordingly, the moment any of us steers a car onto a public street or highway, he becomes a Helot on Wheels, as it were.
An increasing number of police are permitted to draw blood themselves, rather than suborning competent medical professionals into criminal assaults on citizens under clinical conditions. With the support of money extracted at the gas pump, the federal government is actively abetting this practice -- which began in Arizona and Texas about a decade and a half ago -- through a special program training policemen to act as "officer phlebotomists."
Nampa, Idaho, an otherwise pleasant and attractive community of about 80,000 people, is afflicted with a federally subsidized pilot program in which ten officers have been authorized to draw blood from motorists who refuse a breath test. Not surprisingly, this program -- through which several dozen people have been assaulted so far -- is abetting unhealthy appetites on the part of the "elite" officers who have gone through the training.
When he pulls up alongside a driver, Officer DaryllDowell admitted, he finds himself "looking at people's arms and hands, thinking, `I could draw from that.'"
The advertised purpose of the phleboto-officer program is to induce unwilling people to submit to breathalyzer tests -- which, as we've noted, are not considered definitive if they provide an exculpatory result. And as with every other policy that involves the violent imposition of force by police on citizens, the primary concern here is officer safety, not the well-being of the victim.
According to Nicole Watson, an instructor from the College of Western Idaho who trained Nampa's "officer phlebotomists," police "will draw blood of any suspected drunk driver who refuses a breath test. They'll use force if they have to, such as getting help from another officer to pin down a suspect and potentially strap them down...."
A helot displays the Krypteia's handiwork: Arizona resident Brian Sewell, who resisted when ordered to undergo a roadside blood test, displays some of the injuries he received when the police assaulted him with a Taser.
If all else fails to subdue an individual who refuses to permit this bodily violation, police can always deploy their preferred implement of punitive torture, the Portable Electro-Shock Torture device (PEST, more commonly called a Taser). That's what happened to Arizona resident Brian Sewell in May 2007. Officers demanded a blood draw after the motorist failed a field sobriety test. They didn't even deign to offer Sewell the option of a breath or urine test. When Sewell, who has a deathly fear of needles, refused to cooperate, he was repeatedly shot with a Taser, leaving scars that were visible weeks after the attack.
James Green, a resident of Pinal County, Arizona, was forced to undergo a needle stick by an inept Sheriff's deputy despite the fact that the traffic stop occurred within walking distance of a hospital. Two maladroitly administered needle sticks later, the officer had claimed his sample -- and left Green with an infection that lasted for months, causing him to miss work.
"Protected"? Nope -- infected: James Green, who fell into the hands of a particularly inept and sadistic cop, displays the infection he received from a needless roadside blood test.
This isn't surprising: Traffic enforcement officers are not medical personnel. While they are given rudimentary first aid training, they are not competent to conduct blood exams and aren't bound by Hippocratic ethics.
After many decades of metaphorically bleeding the public, police are now permitted to do so literally. At some point, one can hope, the public is going to start returning the favor.
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Battle-weary but resolute, American freedom fighter Robin McDermott stands in front of the Springfield, Missouri City Hall, the redoubt of a criminal clique she has been fighting for roughly a dozen years.
It is incredible how soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say ... that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. --
As a 45-year-old single mother of two who cared for a crippled brother, Robin McDermott was well-acquainted with adversity. When Robin's brother woke her up early in the morning on January 23, 1998 to tell her that her older son, Morgan Smith, was being arrested on a DUI charge, she knew things were about to get just a touch worse.
Bleary-eyed from lack of rest, clad in slippers and a nightshirt, Robin turned on the porch light and stepped outside to learn what was going on. She asked the officer who had conducted a field sobriety test if Morgan could briefly speak with her inside the house; she wanted to satisfy herself that her son had indeed been driving while intoxicated.
"He said, `Well, it's a little late for that. He's going to jail,'" Robin recalled in an interview with the Springfield News-Leader, mimicking Officer Tom Royal's smug, officious tone.
Understandably offended by the dismissive tax-feeder (or, to use her preferred description, "donut-burner") in her driveway, Robin found her mood worsening as the police deployed a drug-sniffing dog named Caesar to search Morgan's vehicle. She went into her house, put on some jeans, made a 911 call to protest the officers' behavior, and then went back out to her porch to confront them again.
As a student of constitutional law who was well acquainted with police tactics, Robin was justifiably suspicious that the officers -- five in all -- were looking for a pretext to forfeit the pickup truck and anything else on which they could put their hands. Her suspicion was sharpened when the police allowed the dog off its leash to roam freely around the property -- a violation of the city's "dog at large" ordinance.
Knowing that it was possible to tow the pickup truck to another location to continue the search, Robin ordered the police off her property. The officers refused, despite the fact -- confirmed in subsequent legal proceedings -- that they had already summoned a tow truck and had thus had no reason at all to conduct the search in the driveway.
By this time, Robin's fuses were thoroughly blown, a fact reflected in the increasingly salty language she used to demand explanations from the police -- particularly regarding the large, potentially violent dog that they were permitting to run loose in her front yard.
Robin never budged from her front porch -- meaning that she was more than thirty feet away from the scene of the search. As a federal court would observe later: "At no point did she offer any force or violence, or threat thereof, nor did she seek to close the distance between herself and police."
Nonetheless, Robin was thrown face-down on the ground by Officer Royal, handcuffed, and arrested under a city ordinance forbidding citizens to "resist or obstruct a city officer making an arrest or serving any legal writ, warrant or process or attempting to execute any other duty imposed on him by law."
No, not that Springfield -- although Springfield, Missouri's municipal, while just as inept as the one depicted in The Simpsons, is much more corrupt.
Robin's "resistance" or "obstruction" consisted of heckling a knot of self-important armed bureaucrats who were acting as petty tyrants by seeking a pretext to expand their DUI-related search.
Her "crime" was to display insufficient docility in the face of armed aggression by agents of the state. As she commented in a telephone interview with Pro Libertate, "I wasn't cordial enough for their tastes when they invaded my property."
"You would beat up an old grandma?" Robin protested as Royal rudely cuffed her wrists.
"If you're a grandma, why don't you act like one?" Royal reportedly replied.
While Royal assaulted and taunted her, Robin endured an even greater violation of her person: Caesar, who had been permitted to run free, vaulted onto the porch and bit Robin several times in the thigh and buttocks, leaving her with severe puncture wounds. She was shuttled to a local hospital and then to jail in a police wagon the interior of which was drenched in urine; this helps explain why the wounds inflicted by Caesar (and, indirectly, by his criminally negligent handler) would become infected and fester for weeks.
Released from jail the following morning, Robin's inchoate anger had been catalyzed into resolve.
"I went to bed that night thinking I was at least secure in my own bedroom, my own property," she recalled to Pro Libertate. "The next thing I know there are police -- armed men -- strutting across my property and arrogantly dismissing my rights. They just can't treat people that way."
As is the case with all ordinances of its kind, Springfield's edict against "resisting and obstructing" a police officer was designed to give cops a bludgeon to harass, intimidate, and punish people who annoy them without committing an actual crime.
Representing herself, with a public defender in an advisory role, Robin requested a jury trial -- which was heard in a county court, rather than by a Springfield municipal judge. She won acquittal on the charge of obstructing an officer and a second charge of third-degree assault (arising from an uncorroborated allegation that she bit one of the arresting officers while in the hospital, which, if true, would have required that Robin receive treatment for rabies).
Exonerated of any "criminal" behavior, Robin proceeded to give the city of Springfield unshirted hell.
With the benefit of a smattering of legal education and a full, foamy head of righteous rage, Robin filed a civil rights lawsuit against Springfield, Police Chief Lynn Rowe, several officers, and the assistant city prosecutor. This began a legal war of attrition that would last nine years, cost Springfield an estimated $11,587.16, exhaust the services of six city attorneys, and -- more importantly -- claim countless hours of Robin's life that she could have put to much better use had she not been needlessly assaulted on her own front porch that chilly January morning.
A wonderful creature perverted into a weapon of terror and repression: Police abuse of dogs both at home (left) and abroad (below, right). On two occasions, Robin's suit was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Dean Whipple, who ruled that she had been properly arrested.
Referring to Judge Whipple, Robin commented to Pro Libertate: "He's the onriest, most willful old cuss -- he's just as stubborn as I am. In spite of everything, I just adore him, because he was fair. He understood that I'm not an attorney, and he was willing to help me understand many of the difficult legal issues, but he didn't give me any latitude; he forced me to make my case. I think it would be fun to play a round of golf with him, or maybe spend some time shooting pool."
After each dismissal, Robin -- displaying the tenacity of a Pitbull -- filed another appeal. On her third attempt she succeeded in getting a jury trial. In an odd turn of events, the same Judge Whipple who had twice dismissed Robin's case ruled that the Springfield anti-obstruction statute -- Ordinance 26-17 -- improperly allowed the police to criminalize constitutionally protected speech. This resulted in a judicial order that Springfield pay Robin $25,000 as punishment for violating her rights.
Displaying a dishonest child's gift for depraved creativity and a pathological indifference to truth, the Springfield municipal government had restructured its ordinance code; by the time Judge Whipple ruled against Springfield, the measure in question was not listed as Ordinance 26-17, but rather 78-32(1). This supposedly meant that the ruling didn't apply to the current law.
(The city government had earlier played a similar trick with the municipal "dog at large" ordinance, quietly revising it subsequent to Robin's arrest to provide an exception for the police.)
Not only did Judge Whipple not buy that argument, he was offended that Springfield was trying to sell it: On August 13 he issued an order barring enforcement of the ordinance, by whatever designation the city chose for it.
And yet, Springfield continues in its dilatory tactics.
"They haven't paid a cent," Robin reported to Pro Libertate. "They're trying to get me to sign a settlement document that would hold them `harmless,' and refusing to release the money to me until I do. They've gone so far as to send me a scanned copy of the check for $25,000 and said that all I have to do is get it is to sign a document dismissing any further claims against the city `with prejudice.'"
Robin is smart enough to understand that the officials making that offer are not negotiating from a position of strength, where the legal issues are concerned.
"I've filed a motion for civil contempt," she explains. "I'm requesting that the court impose a continuing penalty of $1,000 a day until they pay me what they owe me." Regrettably, those costs will be passed along to the productive residents of Springfield, rather than being extracted from the representatives of the parasite class responsible for the violation of Robin McDermott's rights -- but she isn't responsible for that fact.
Robin's long-sought and hard-won triumph shouldn't engender unrealistic hopes that we can beat the statist system by using that system; her happy outcome is a blessed anomaly. Had the same incident occurred in 2008, rather than 1998, it's entirely possible that some overgrown adolescent in uniform would have shot or tasered Robin to death.
During the decade that Robin battled for her rights in court, overkill has become institutionalized -- a fact of which she is painfully aware. "Our local Sheriff just applied for a grant to buy a grenade launcher with drug forfeiture funds," she complained to me. "Just what on earth does the Sheriff need with a grenade launcher?"
Robin McDermott, a small woman with burdens that would have daunted Atlas, is a "real American" -- an individual who, in the words of former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper, is willing to meet the police "at the threshold at home and [say], `no, you can't come in. Show me your warrant.'"
In this age of collectivist conformity, real Americans are tragically thin on the ground. One of them lives in Springfield, Missouri.
Video Extra
The Praetorian Presumption in full, malignant flower: "We're not on the same level. I'm up here, you're down there":
A note of thanks --
It is impossible for me to give adequate expression to the gratitude I feel, on behalf of my family, to all of you who have offered prayers, kind words, and many very generous gifts to us during our recent month from hell. I earnestly hope that I will be able to express thanks in a more personalized way.
My health is improving (I'm at about 80 percent right now -- not ready for a cage fight, certainly, but at least I'm no longer bleeding to death) and we've found a suitable new home at literally the last minute. With those concerns taken care of, our other problems will become tractable. Thank you, once again, for helping us in our time of dire need. -- Will
One is tempted to think that this validates a comment made not long ago on Idaho Public Television by Idaho state senator Denton Darrington: "I'm concerned ... that we don't get pranksters on the Sex Offender registry, but that we do get those who are deviant on the Sex Offender registry. In other words we don't want the fraternity kid on the football team who's doing a prank to go on the registry."
Parole Officer Sutherland: His Facebook page jocularly lists "S&M, chains, whips" among his "interests." Sure, it's a joke (I guess), but if he didn't work for the state as someone in charge of supervising sexual deviants, he'd probably be in trouble of some kind. 
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