By Mark David Blum, Esq.
As a practitioner of one of our nation’s most hallowed professions, I am of late ashamed of the behaviors of my peers and colleagues. By fiat and oath, we are defenders of the Constitution. It is through our efforts and energies that our system of law has thrived. By our labors, the rights and protections naturally inherent to each of us are staunchly defended against encroachment. But when voices and public policy discussions are willfully shut down and silenced by lawyers and judges, our national integrity is at risk.
Just this past week, a founder and retired police captain of an organization of police, prosecutors, and judges – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc) had been invited to be the keynote speaker at the Law Day celebration for a Bar Association in Ohio. Invited by the President of that Bar Association, the speaker travelled at the organization’s expense to give the presentation. At the last minute, the speech was cancelled because judges and prosecutors refused to participate in the Law Day festivities if the speaker spoke.
Last year, with the rise of local attorney David Pellow to the Presidency of the Onondaga County Bar Association, at his first public appearance, he promised the Bar Association would engage in a discussion about regulation and legalization and ending the Drug War. More than one year later, that discussion never took place. Our Bar Association flatly refused to discuss or debate the issue. In our local courts, while the One Free Walk Rule seems to have gotten traction, even sitting judges will not discuss the issue. Judge Anthony Aloi came closest one day during motion arguments but even he said the issue is legislative and beyond judicial review. Notwithstanding the hard cold facts about the disparate application of the drug laws in Onondaga County, Hon. John Brunetti summarily dismissed the issue; refusing to entertain oral argument thereon. Making Judge Brunetti’s posture noteworthy is that normally he is willing to engage and debate and even give counsel an opportunity to supplement a missing argument. On the issue of the Drug War, all discussion is precluded.
What does it say about lawyering and the state of the law when judges and lawyers refuse to even consider or discuss an issue of great public importance? I fully expect the closed minded and ignorant to maintain a status quo and refuse to debate. For a Bar Association to cancel a speaker or a judge to refuse to consider argument establishes a very dangerous precedent. We become the voices of silencing dissent. As advocates and enforcers of the law, we lose our credibility when ideas are foreclosed from any discussion.
Here in Onondaga County, more than ten percent of the Syracuse Police Department’s annual budget is consumed by drug law enforcement. Black males have almost a 40x greater chance of being arrested for a drug felony here than anywhere else in the State. The cost of Anslinger’s and Nixon’s War on Drugs has been in the trillions of dollars, millions of lives, and the nation’s drug problem is worse now than ever. The City of Syracuse commissions study after study; each coming back with the same result yet they take no action.
When policies are failing, it is incumbent upon us as front line warriors in this epic battle to speak up and make known the disaster and damages caused by a lost war. Republican presidential candidate John McCain may want to support his war for the next 100 years. I question whether the law and its practitioners will likewise stand aside for the same period as we fight a lost war here at home. The only difference between McCain’s war and the War on Drugs, is that in McCain’s war, more Iraqis die than Americans. Here at home, though we declare war on drugs, it is Americans whose lives are being lost, whose freedom is being taken, and whose families are being destroyed. Then there is the ever rising cost of prosecuting this war.
Still, it is a dark day in the history of American jurisprudence when the chief protagonists of a society based on law and order refuse to enable public debate on matters of policy. Darker still are days when judges and prosecutors quash free expression. It is the ultimate irony Law Day, the day designated by President Eisenhower to celebrate a nation under law, is chosen by lawyers as the day they refuse to hear debate or discussion.
I have talked myself blue in the face and at times I feel as though I am the lone voice in the wilderness. My District Attorney, Hon. Wm. Fitzpatrick refuses to debate or discuss this issue publicly. The Onondaga County Legislature is more interested in the age at which cigarettes can be purchased than it is in saving millions of dollars and thousands of lives. They refuse to allow the discussion and in fact, have blocked “legalization advocates” when nominated to serve on committees.
If lawyers and their respective Bar Associations, if members of the judiciary, and if police and prosecutors refuse to even allow a discussion to occur or participate therein, we have created not a public policy, but a religious sacrament. When lawyers sanction censorship of public debate, Americans are all to be damned as our Bill of Rights will be no more.
