Jim's Articles

This past week I wrote a short note to some neighbors requesting that they consider removing their front yard Halloween display that has a witch lowering a little girl headfirst into a boiling cauldron of water. The thrust of the note was that some things simply are not funny or cute, and should not be shown to children as if they were. So that led me to thinking about couple of “popular” songs which, for many years, I have shunned for the same reason.

  The theme of this column is treating all people with a threshold of respect.  So I begin by adding one more story about my wonderful and even heroic father, Federal District Judge William P. Gray.  (I hope you remember and utilize his comment that “You have every right to disagree, but you have no right to be disagreeable.”)  But this new story is as follows: Many years ago my father was asked if he would agree to take a tour of the Federal Correctional Facility at Lompoc, California.  Naturally he agreed, and he took my mother with him.  While he was there the warden told him that, coincidentally, there would be a talent show later that afternoon presented by some of the inmates, so would they like to attend?

While on my recent vacation I read a book written by four members of the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) entitled NO WAY HOME: The Crisis of Homelessness and How to Fix It with Intelligence and Humanity (Encounter Books). And the title says it all. In that regard I hope you agree with me that having such a large homeless population is a blight upon who we are as a country. All lawful residents in our country should have a place of shelter for themselves and their possessions. But today California alone has more than 150,000 people who are homeless. Why?

I just returned from a reunion of my Class of 1962 at John Muir High School in Pasadena. Since pretty much all of us are or soon will be 80 years old our reunion was called our class’s 80th Birthday Party. And what a good time we had! Of course so many of our classmates either were too disabled to attend or were no longer on this earth. So that reminded me, as I am trying to remind you, to enjoy our lives while we have them, and to be appreciative of our good fortune at all times!

Some of the best people I have ever met in my life have come from my involvement in trying to help our country change its drug policy. One of those people is my friend James E. (Jim) Gierach, who is a former state prosecutor in Illinois and director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) who has just written a book entitled The Silver Bullet Solution: Is it time to end the War on Drugs? And Jim just sent out what he calls his “Gierach Drug Policy Declaration,” which I have his permission to forward on to our 2 Paragraphs Family for your consideration.

When I was seeking to become a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles part of the application process was to emphasize that, as a prosecutor, we were always to try to “Do the Right Thing for the Right Reason – Every Time!” If we made a mistake along the way, they would have our backs, but if we did things for political, personal or vindictive reasons, etc., we would be held accountable. After I became a trial court judge I have had many opportunities to speak to prosecutors and police officers, and I have often reaffirmed with them the importance of adhering to that challenge.

There is an old saying that “In politics reality is irrelevant; it is only the voters’ perception of reality that matters.” And, regretfully, I believe that this is true. So when we have a housing shortage and people are homeless, many voters naturally look to the government for a resolution. And, since politicians live and die on voter approval, they hasten to enact programs that have the governments paying vast amounts of money to build new housing units.

As I have told you before, about five years ago I was on the syndicated radio show called “Coast to Coast” with George Noory discussing criminal justice issues. Soon thereafter I received letters from twelve men who are incarcerated in various prisons all around the country, so I started corresponding with them about prison conditions. Now the number has gone up to about 40. Most of the letters complain about all kinds of things.

Happily many people from widely different backgrounds and experiences have reached the same conclusions that I have about the failure of our country’s policy of Drug Prohibition. One of them is Ms. Christina Dent who lives with her young family in Mississippi. Ms. Dent has written a book entitled CURIOUS: A Foster Mom’s Discovery of an unexpected Solution to Drugs and Addiction..

As is said routinely, the purpose of this column is to stimulate thought and discussion. So in that pursuit I am passing along to you, with permission, a list of issues that one of our 2 Paragraphs Family members shared with me. Good stimulating questions, don’t you think? And please think about and pass along your answers to your circle of friends (including me). So here they are: