| In September 17, 2007 the defense attorney
Dr. Rex Curry argued in federal appellate court that the government lacked
jurisdiction to prosecute a bizarre and notorious sex-torture-murder case
in Tampa, Florida. In comparison, Dr. Curry argued that jurisdiction did
exist to prosecute federal officials for murder in the Iraq War. Months later (on May 26, 2008), arguments that are similar to Dr. Curry's were made by Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, a former prosecutor, in the book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." As a defense lawyer who is dedicated to seeking justice, Dr. Curry, in his inimitable style, delivered a non-partisan argument, free from party lines and instead based upon hard facts and pure objectivity. Dr. Curry calls for the United States of America to return to the great nation it once was and can be again. He believes the first step to achieving this goal is to bring those people who are most responsible for mass murder (government officials) to justice. http://rexcurry.net/serial-killers-worlds-worst-murderers.html Dr. Curry's work is bolstered by Bugliosi's presentation of a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight. http://rexcurry.net/police-state.html A searing indictment of the President and his administration, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder also outlines a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions, thereby creating a framework for future occupants of the oval office. ****************** Jacob G. Hornberger Hornberger’s Blog July 16, 2008 The Fourth Circuit’s Ominous Decision Led by conservative judges, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has just affirmed the Bush administration’s “enemy combatant” doctrine, a doctrine that allows President Bush and his military forces to designate anyone anywhere in the world as an “enemy combatant” in the so-called war on terrorism and treat him accordingly. While the case that the Court was deciding involved a foreigner, Ali al-Marri, the Court’s reasoning applies to American citizens as well. Al-Marri is a citizen of Qatar. He was under federal court indictment for terrorist-related charges and actually preparing for trial under the principles of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. federal court system. Before the trial was permitted to begin, U.S. officials yanked Al-Marri out of the federal court system and sent him into the clutches of the U.S. military. The government took the position that ever since 9/11 it had the power to treat suspected terrorists in one of two alternative ways as a federal court defendant or as an “enemy combatant.” While they initially chose the first route with al-Marri, they ended up employing the second route. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has now upheld the government’s position and the government’s actions. That means that the president and the Pentagon now wield the same power wielded by totalitarian and authoritarian regimes around the world: the power to sweep into neighborhoods across the land and arbitrarily take citizens into custody as “enemy combatants.” After all, don’t forget the government’s argument, an argument that has now been upheld by a federal court of appeals: In the global war on terror, the entire United States is part of the battlefield. Do people taken into custody by the military have any recourse? Yes, but it is extremely limited. They still have the right to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus to challenge the government’s designation of them as “enemy combatants.” But as soon as the government provides some evidence indicating that the detainee is a terrorist, then the government’s detention of him will be upheld and the courts will sustain the detention. And don’t forget the government’s argument: that in “war” the courts should defer to the wartime decisions of the commander in chief and his military. Prior to 9/11, terrorism had always been considered a criminal offense. In fact, it’s still on the federal statute books as a criminal offense. That’s why, for example, terrorists such as Ramzi Yousef (the 1993 WTC terrorist), Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City terrorist), and Zacharias Moussaoui (the 9/11 terrorist) were prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced in federal district court. After 9/11, the president unilaterally adopted a new order of things here in the United States, without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment. From that point on, the president and the Pentagon would have the option of treating suspected terrorists, including Americans, as “enemy combatants” and treating them accordingly. Soon afterward, they established their torture and sex abuse camp for suspected terrorists in Cuba and later took an American citizen, Jose Padilla, into military custody as an “enemy combatant.” Will Americans be concerned about the al-Marri decision? Not likely. Most of them will continue their sheep-like or ostrich-like way of life. The reason is that since the president and the military aren’t arresting Americans en masse and carting them into concentration centers, the standard attitude is, “Why worry?” But if there is another big terrorist attack, then it is a virtual certainty that Americans will get to witness the full exercise of the power that has now been sustained by the Fourth Circuit. Orders for round-ups will be issued, and the troops will loyally and obediently follow those orders. In the midst of the fear and panic generated by such an attack, American sheep, both male and female, will not object to the round-ups of hundreds or thousands of American “terrorists” and “terrorist sympathizers.” For the sheep, the fear of being among those rounded up will be worse than the fear of “the terrorists.” How will the Pentagon treat American “enemy combatants” in such a “crisis”? Well, just ask John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla, two Americans who were tortured after being arrested. The fact is that U.S. personnel, both in the CIA and the military, view American “enemy combatants” in a much worse light than foreign “enemy combatants” because of the traitor aspect. Given the decision in al-Marri, the government’s torture and sex abuse policy and its rendition policy now become more important for Americans. There is absolutely no reason that U.S. officials cannot treat American “enemy combatants” the same way they treat foreign enemy combatants. And everyone knows by now what they do to people they think are foreign “enemy combatants.” Isn’t it amazing how the embrace of an imperial foreign policy can wreak such major changes in life at home? The president and his military go abroad and poke hornet’s nests. The hornets finally strike back. The retaliation enables the president and the military to revolutionize America’s judicial system through the unilateral assumption of omnipotent power over the citizenry by the president and the military. The courts uphold the assumption of power on the ground that the U.S. is now at “war” with the hornets, which attacked in the first place because the president and the military were poking their nests. When will ordinary Americans finally start fighting back? When will they finally begin defending their own fundamental rights and liberties? When will they conquer their fears of both the government and “the terrorists”? When will they stop falling for the lies and deceptions? When will they finally begin behaving like men and women and not like sheep? Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2008-07-16.asp |
On October 29, 2003 a motion
was filed by Attorney Rex Curry in the case of John Lee Grady that
contained arguments similar to those arguments adopted two weeks later (on
November 13, 2003) in the Ninth Circuit's opinion (authored by Judge Alex
Kozinski) in United States v. Stewart, that is viewable at http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/ 90B5FFB18A092A6F88256DDD000000FE/$file/0210318.pdf?openelement The publication of Stewart was one of those moments that would swell the ego of most attorneys under the same circumstances. Some of the same arguments in Dr.Curry's motion were adopted and applied by the Ninth Circuit when it declared that home made machine-guns are legal (it’s about time!). The Ninth Circuit overturned a Mesa, Arizona man's federal conviction of possessing five machine guns. The three-judge panel reversed the conviction, ruling that the congressional ban does not apply to homemade machine guns and their parts because they were never in the stream of commerce and that Congress did not have the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate homemade guns crafted from scratch. A case discussed in Dr. Curry's motion, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was also analyzed similarly in the Ninth Circuit decision. The Ninth Circuit made the following citation: "Leonard Read’s famous essay tracing the genealogy of a pencil illustrates this point well: I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove.... . . . . My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink! (Leonard E. Read, I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read, The Freeman, Dec. 1958, reprinted in The Freeman, May 1996, Vol. 46, No. 5, available at http://www.libertyhaven.com/thinkers/leonarderead/ipencil.html " (See Stewart at 16065). The same arguments were made by Dr. Curry in the case of Tyree Wilson. According to the government’s allegation in that defendant's case, an adult agent of the government purchased from the defendant some cocaine base that was made from scratch in the privacy of a residence after the government initiated the transaction and under the agent’s own volition (without being forced or threatened to do so by the defendant) but while the agent was being paid money by the government to do so, and while the government agent stood by allegedly watching cocaine being manufactured from scratch into cocaine base. The Eleventh Circuit has held that “possession and sale of illegal drugs impacts upon interstate commerce,” see United States v. Bernard, 47 F.3d 1101, 1103 (11th Cir. 1995), and that Congress “has authority under the Commerce Clause to criminalize and punish drug-related activity,” see United States v. Jackson, 111 F.3d 101, 102 (11th Cir. 1997). The Former Fifth Circuit concluded that Congress acted within its power under the Commerce Clause in enacting 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(I) and 846. See Lopez, 459 F.2d at 953. (In Bonner v. City of Prichard, Ala., 661 F.2d 1206,1207(11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), the Eleventh Circuit adopted as binding precedent the decisions of the Fifth Circuit rendered prior to 1 October 1981). The Eleventh Circuit cases should be reconsidered under the reasoning of Lawrence v. Texas, 2003 U.S. LEXIS 5013,*;123 S. Ct. 2472; 156 L. Ed. 2d 508;71 U.S.L.W. 4574 (2003) with Stewart and the commerce clause, and the court should conclude that the “war on drugs” by the national government is unconstitutional. The allegations in Tyree Wilson's case and in many cases are hand-to-hand transactions that occurred entirely within a single state between consenting adults in the privacy of a residence and such cases provide no basis for jurisdiction under the commerce clause. Even to the extent that any “commercial transaction” occurred involving “cocaine base” it would be “jurisdiction” that was outrageously manufactured by a paid government agent who induced others to turn “cocaine” into “cocaine base” for the government agent's own purchase. Therefore, the additional argument is made that the specific charge involving “cocaine base” is unconstitutional under the circumstances manufactured by the government. For more reasons why drug laws are unconstitutional visit http://rexcurry.net |