UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
CASE # 95-1616 WAF
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PLAINTIFF - APPELLEE
REV. TOM BROWN
DEFENDANT - APPELLANT
BRIEF OF THE APPELLANT
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE DIVISION
BEFORE JUDGE FRANKLIN WATERS
DISTRICT COURT CASE # 94-50030-01
Rev. Tom Brown, Pro Per
04808-010
P.O. Box 4000
Springfield, Missouri 65801
STATEMENT OF INTRODUCTION
The Defendent / Appellant, Rev. Tom Brown Pro Per, seeks to introduce
this appeal by casting the eye of the Court on some issues that should be
kept in mind as the Court considers the case at hand. This case is only
one in a long series of battles of the vaunted War on Drugs. As in any
war, looking back over the past thirty years, we can see lots of
casualties. The question is, how many more bodies will be heaped on the
Alter of National Paranoia ? A wise man once said that those who refuse
to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps the Court could
look at another war we waged on ourselves, another war bred in ignorance
and fed on lies and corruption.
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. at page 700, Justice Taney
announces the decision of the Court saying:
"The question before us, is whether the class of persons
described in the plea of abatement compose a portion of this
people and are constituent members of this sovereignty. We
think they are not, and that they are not included under the
word citizen in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none
of the rights and priveleges which that instrument provides
for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the con-
trary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and
inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dom-
inant race, and whether emancipated or not, yet remained sub-
ject to their authority, and had no rights or priveleges but
such as those who held power and the government might grant
them.
It is not the providence of the Court to decide upon the
justice or injustice, the policy or the impolicy of these laws.
The decision of that question belonged to the political or
law making power; to those who formed the sovereignty and
framed the Constitution.
The language of the Declaration of independence is equa-
lly conclusive. It proceeds to say; 'We hold these truths to
be self evident; that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
among them is life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness;
that to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deri-
ving their just powers from the consent of the governed.'...
The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the
whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instru-
ment at this day, would so be understood. But it is too clear
for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended
to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed
and adopted this declaration; . . ."
The Court will see these words again in the decisions which have
refused to recognize the religous use of plants. Not all courts have
refused to recognize over 5,000 years of recorded human history, but the
words of those who have are redolent with the scent of the Dred Scott
decision, and the bodies of those who perished in the attempt to make up
for the cowardice of the Dred Scott court. Time after time those courts
strain to justify the denial of rights which no man can claim did not
exist and were not exercised among the peoples who wrote the Declaration
and the Constitution. And as Justice McLean's dissent shows below,
despicable and vile acts perpetrated by men who happen to occupy positions
of power are not unprecedented. There was no Truth to the assertion that
"no one thought of disputing" the issue of slavery at the time of the
revolution. There was no Truth to the statement that "they formed no part
of the people who framed and adopted this Declaration." In fact:
"Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first man killed by
the British in the Boston Massacre. The five thousand Negro
soldiers who fought in the revolution . . . Three quarters of
the Rhode Island Regiment passing in review at Yorktown in
1781 were Negroes. (Afro-American Encyclopedia, 1974)
But this truth was known in 1856 as we see in Justice McLean's dissent:
"In the Convention, it was proposed by a committee of
eleven to limit the importation of slaves to the year 1800,
when Mr. Pickney moved to extend the time to the year 1808.
This motion carried . . . In Opposition to the motion, Mr.
Madison said; 'Twenty years will produce all the mischief
that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves;
so long a term will be more dishonerable to the American
character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution'
Madison Papers.
But we know as a historical fact that James Madison, that
great and good man, a leading member in the Federal Convention,
was solicitous to guard the language of that instrument so as
not to convey the idea there could be property in Man."
So the lies and deceit of the Taney majority went on to result in a
war of unprecedented proportion on this soil. More died in it than in
WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam combined. And we paid a hard price for that
clever though despicable interpretation of History and precedent. The
question is posed here, what price will this Court chose to be paid. The
Rev. Brown comes to this Court as a Man of Honor, with empty hands and
outstretched arms. Rev. Brown comes before this Court as the result of an
act of conscience, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. The Court is
refered to the words of James Michner, in his book Covenent. As we
listen, a young African is asking an old adviser as to the choice of
weapons he should carry;
"How do I protect myself ?"
"Integrity is a good shield. He paused. Did I ever come
armed to your fathers krall ? Couldn't he have killed me in a
moment if he wished? Why didn't he? Because he knew that if he
killed a Man of Honor, he'd soon have on his hands, men with
none. And then the whole thing falls apart. (pg. 91)
Later in the book, another character is remembering her brother who
became a spy and sold the secrets of the government.
"When she tried to decipher how he had been seduced into
committing his mortal sin - the betrayal of his nation and his
peers - she began to think of the role words play in life. Our
family was keen on word games. Wexton and I played them const-
antly. I think I first came to suspect him when he cheated one
day. Altered the meaning of a word in order to win. At Cambridge
he altered the meanings of great words and ended a traitor.
Back in Salisbury, walking within the shadow of the Cathedral,
she thought: Integrity in words protects integrity in life.
If a word is corrupted, everything that stems from it will be
evil."
And so it is that we have evil in our own time, and in our own place.
A creeping, seductive evil that knows every nook and cranny of the
administrative, legislative and judicial branch of government. And it is
born in a series of little lies, lies told, lies repeated, and lies which
become the bricks of the foundation of our life. And the question is,
will this Court end the lies.
There are already over ten million marijuana felons in our nation.
We outnumber all the judges, prosecutors, police, drug bureaucrats, and
military by about two to one. How much longer will thirty perceent of our
population be treated as a "subordinate and inferior class of beings . . .
(who) had no rights or priveleges but such as those who held power and the
government might grant them." How much longer will we be expected to
suffer in peace while the abuses of our rights continue unabated? How
much longer will the courts decide questions of the burdening of religous
establishment and exercise one way for the Roman Catholic Church, and
another for Our Church ? Is it too soon to address the question, is the
issue not ripe enough ? You can dam the river, but you can't stop the
rain. Please, for God's sake and our own, stop the lies and live in the
truth !