Have you ever seen
'In the Name of the Father'? Great movie, based on the true story of Gerry Conlon as played by two-time Oscar-winner Daniel Day Lewis, and the sensational trial, false convictions and sentencing of the
Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven for a rash of IRA bombings that shook Britain to its core in the early 1970s.
If you haven't seen it, I could recommend few films higher. It wasn't just entertainment. It was both a public service and a cautionary tale.
Here's how it all played out. During the Irish
Troubles of the early 1970s, London began to suffer a rash of murderous bombings of which the Provisional IRA was suspected. They were culminated by the
Guildford Pub massacre of October 5, 1974, when the Provisional IRA planted bombs at the Horse and Groom and nearby Seven Stars pubs on North Street in Guildford, London. The pubs were frequented by British servicemen and women, which made them, in the eyes of the Provisional IRA, 'military targets.'
In those twin bombings, five people were killed and sixty-five injured. The British people screamed for blood. Not justice. Blood.
And boy, did they get it. Innocent blood, but blood nonetheless. Here were the results of the trials:
The Maguire Seven were tried and convicted on 4 March 1976 and received the following sentences:
Anne Maguire, aged 40, was sentenced to 14 years.
her husband Patrick Maguire, aged 42, was sentenced to 14 years.
their son Patrick Maguire, aged 14, was sentenced to four years.
their son Vincent, aged 17, was sentenced to five years.
William Smyth, brother to Anne Maguire, aged 37, received twelve years.
Patrick O'Neill, a family friend, aged 35, received twelve years.
Patrick "Giuseppe" Conlon, brother-in-law to Anne Maguire, aged 52, received twelve years. Conlon had travelled from Belfast to help his son Gerry Conlon in the Guildford Four trial.
Guiseppe Conlon, who had troubles with his lungs for many years, died in prison in January 1980, while the other six served their sentences and were released.
And this was the fate of the Guildford Four themselves:
Paul Hill, Gerry Conlon, Patrick 'Paddy' Armstrong and Carole Richardson, were arrested in 1974 and charged with the Guildford pub bombings. Hill and Armstrong were also charged with the Kings Arms, Woolwich bombing. After their arrest, they confessed to the bombing but at the trial they claimed they had been tortured by police until they had agreed to sign the confessions.
They were convicted in October 1975 for murder and received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.
Justice Donaldson, who also presided over the Maguire Seven trial, expressed regret that the Four had not been charged with treason, which then still had a mandatory death penalty.
Got all that? It gets worse. Much worse.
'In February 1977, during the trial of the Balcombe Street ASU, the four IRA men instructed their lawyers to "draw attention to the fact that four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences," referring to the Guildford Four.
'Despite claims to the police that they were responsible, they were never charged with these offences and the Guildford Four remained imprisoned for another twelve years.'
It came to light later that Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill had an alibi in the form of fellow Irish street vagabond
Charlie Burke, who were all settling in for the night on London park benches at the very moment the Guildford pubs were blasted into oblivion by IRA bombs.
The prosecution hid that key alibi from the defense. Didn't help their case any, did it? There were also allegations of torture and coerced confessions, to which 'Justice' Donaldson paid absolutely no mind.
Oh, yeah. And even when all this evidence came to light and was proven true, not one cop or government official ever paid their own price for the conspiracy to obstruct justice. The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were pardoned. The rest of it was all swept under the judicial and political rugs.
And it all started with an 'informant' taken in on a drug bust who fingered Gerry Conlon et al for the Guildford Pub bombings.
As for the Duke Rape Case, I don't think I need to hash over old ground. You all know the sad and tragic story. Instead, I'd just like to share a few public statements and
actions of the Duke lynch mob at the time. Might prove enlightening, considering that stunning turn of events. And today's.
'Duke University suspended the students when charges were filed, cancelled the entire remaining schedule of the lacrosse team for which they played, and got rid of the coach.
'Former Princeton University president William Bowen -- a critic of college athletics -- and the head of the local NAACP were called in to issue a report, which complained that Duke had not acted fast enough.
'Meanwhile, 88 members of the Duke faculty took out an ad in the campus newspaper denouncing racism. Among other things, the ad said, "what is apparent everyday now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism."
Here's the nurse who treated 'rape victim'
Crystal Mangum:
'Tara Levicy, the nurse who reported on the condition of Crystal Mangum after the alleged rape, shrugged off the absence of physical evidence of assault and the lack of lacrosse-player DNA with a feminist slogan: "Rape is about power, not passion."
One real investigative journalist, New York Times reporter
Joe Drape, was taken off the story shortly after concluding that the alleged rape looked like a hoax. He was replaced by another reporter, Duff Wilson, who hewed more closely to the pro-prosecution slant preferred by the Times.
Al Sharpton, former Democrat presidential candidate of
Tawana Brawley fame, had the following to say to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly on April 19, 2006:
SHARPTON: "I think that there are certainly a lot of racial factors. Whether it is directly in the case, we'll see, because some reports said that there was racial language used.
"But I think that when you look at the racial atmosphere, when you look at the fact that there again were the allegations of racial statements, when you look at a lot of people feeling that they have been treated differently, where this girl has basically had a character charged in the media, there is a lot of racism that's in the air."
O'REILLY: "Why are we standing up for the girl if there is the possibility, based upon evidence, that the girl may have fabricated the story? Why don't we all pull back and let the authorities investigate and let the legal system work?"
SHARPTON: "First of all, the authorities have charged there was a crime, so they are not saying that at all. Second of all, people on any side of an argument have the right to advocate on behalf of who they believe. Thirdly, I think that when the prosecutors went forward, they clearly have said this girl is the victim, so why would we be trying the victim?
"But I think that all of the facts that you have laid out the DA had — and
I know this DA is probably not one that is crazy. He would not have proceeded if he did not feel that he could convict."
Now let's hear the great Jessie
'Hymietown' Jackson throw in his two cents worth.
"There's plenty of circumstantial evidence that something happened to (Crystal Mangum) at the March 13 party."
Also, in Mr. Jackson's 'Duke: Horror and Truth" OpEd for Black News Magazine, he states the following:
'Black women; white men. A stripper; and a team blowout. The wealthy white athletes – many from prep schools – of Duke; and the working class woman from historically black North Carolina Central. Race and class and sex. What happened? We don’t know for sure because the Duke players are maintaining a code of silence.
'The history of white men and black women – the special fantasies and realities of exploitation – goes back to the nation’s beginning and the arrival of slaves from Africa. The patterns associated with this history arouse fears and evoke too many bad memories.'
If you REALLY want to vomit, here's Mr. Jackson's Black News article
in its entirety. It's all right out of a
Jeremiah Wright 'sermon.'
And it all started with a hoax cry of 'RAPE!' from a disturbed woman. Sound familiar?
Oh, yeah. And it ended with Durham DA Mike Nifong's disbarment and conviction of obstructing justice. All the rest, Jackson, Sharpton and the Duke 88, walked away just like the officials involved in the Guildford Pub prosections. They are no doubt looking for fresh rich white Honkey game to lynch as we speak.
What do we REALLY know about the FLDS and what went on at the YFZ ranch? Let's take a look at some of the main players, and the particulars that have leaked through Judge Barbara Walther's gag order:
THE UNDERAGE GIRLS: CPS claims that they have discovered 'numerous underage girls who appear pregnant or are with child.'
I ask you: how do they know they're underage? There's no birth certificates, identity papers or anything else for solid evidence of that claim. YOU all all know how young teenage and young adult women can look. Where's the proof?
This hasn't yet been determined beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet many, including far too many here at DJ, already have the fathers, who have yet to be charged with a single crime, being gang-raped in their purty mouths and juicy butt-cherries by Big Bubba inmates to
Deliverance banjo music.
Last I checked, gang rape wasn't a valid sentence under the law. Do they want justice, or do they want blood? Do they want a fair trial, or a mob lynching?
Don't answer, they're rhetorical questions.
By the way, one DJ even wants to give Hoaxster Supreme Rozita Swinton a medal. Disgusting!
THE RITUAL SEX BED: Yet another sensational aspect of the case, to which an 18-year expert on the FLDS cult testified in court that it is not used for sex, but rest after prolonged and rigorous periods of worship, and are present in ALL FLDS temples.
Acoording to this expert, no sex has ever taken place within the confines of an FLDS temple.
Tell me the truth. Did that one have YOU going?
Forensic examination will reveal the truth of the matter, but to date only a single, supposedly female human hair has been found on the bed. To me, that's a perfect fit with the expert's testimony. We shall see.
FLORA JESSOP AND LINDA WALKER: Here you have two women who have as severe grudges against the FLDS as Jackson and Sharpton et al had against the Duke boys, if not more so. And they're being paraded around the media as objective experts.
They're objective sources? More in the line of hostile witnesses, in my humble opinion. I'm sure the FLDS defense lawyers will make that argument as well.
The only reporter I've seen ask even ONE tough question of Flora Jessop was Fox News' Greta van Susteren, regarding the hoax call. Flora Jessop blew it off as a good deed, all things considered. Here's the
transcript and interview.
SHERIFF DORAN: Here's a Smokey who's had a burr in his saddle ever since the FLDS set up shop in his jurisdiction in 2003. He's been to the ranch numerous times, and had the 'inside informant' Flora Jessop reporting to him from Hildale, Utah.
For years, despite numerous horror stories, and his own personal observations from many visits to the YFZ ranch, he just cant seem to gather the evidence for a legal search of the premises. Along comes 'Sarah' and Here Comes The Cavalry, with Smokey leading the charge and then hogging the microphones.
Yet it never occurred to him to run a check on the CPP and CPS telco phone logs to trace the source of the Sarah calls before launching the biggest armed raid of a private property since Waco, and what may turn out to be the largest custody case in US history?
Or didn't he want to know? It took the Texas Rangers and FBI all of two minutes to trace the calls to Colorado Springs and the esteemed Ms. Swinton.
You have to wonder. Is Sheriff Doran a bumbling Inspector Clouseau, or a conspiring
Vic Mackey?
By the way, I emailed FLDS attorney Rod Parker with every last technical detail on how telecom and E911 Emergency Cell Locator systems work, and what MY big questions were about them. Whether he was already following up on that information, I don't know. I'm sure he was. He's no dummy. But it wasn't long after that Ms.Swinton got raided.
That was the most unpleasant task it has ever been my duty to perform. But you know what? My duty isn't to seeing the FLDS fathers getting gang-raped in prison before they're even charged. My duty is to justice, the truth and the Constitution, which I swore to some 20-odd years ago as a US serviceman.
That oath didn't expire upon my discharge from the service. And a lot of the circumstances surrounding those 'Sarah' calls and the ensuing YFZ raid stank to high hell based on my twenty years of hands-on technical experience and training on telco and E911 systems, and the facts of the case as I knew them at that time.
THE FLDS MATERIALS IN ROZITA SWINTON'S HOME
According to Flora Jessop and Linda Walker, the Texas Rangers seized TONS of documents and materials at Ms. Swinton's residence. Even knew the names of most FLDS members. Said she seemed obsessed with the FLDS.
Where did those hard-to-get materials come from? Do you, as a black woman, just walk up to a whitebread FLDS temple and ask for Stacks of Stuff? I certainly hope the FBI and Rangers are checking all those documents for prints. I expect they are.
Also, Ms. Jessop stated that 'Sarah' called from numerous cellphones, which I suspect the Rangers and FBI have seized into evidence as well. They need to check every call she ever made from those phones to see who else may be implicated here.
I could go on and on about all the signs in this case that raise red flags for me. Let's face it, without those Sarah calls, there is no raid. Sheriff Doran says he was 'building a case.' You know what that means legally? Insufficient evidence.
Many who've spoken out here about the FLDS raid being such a good thing dismiss out of hand a blatantly criminal act by Rozita Swinton as being 'for the greater good.' All's well that ends well. But if that is justifiable, there are hundreds of thousands of cases 'being built' around the country law enforcement cannot act on.
Why don't we just plant kilos on drug dealers? We know they're destroying thousands of lives. That would be for the Greater Good, wouldn't it? Why don't we just place hoax phone calls on every FLDS temple there is? Let's go after the Amish next. Heard some bad things about them too. Incest, abuse,
you name it.
Better yet, why don't we place hoax phone calls on every neighbor with young kids we suspect are up no good? You know, blinds drawn, extreme and unusual desires for privacy, etc, etc. Sure looks suspicious to me.
That all works for sure, but before you know you it you're right back in the expedited justice of Josef Stalin's Soviet Union. During that era, a KGB officer was talking to a man just arrested. The man asked him why he was under suspicion. The KGB officer said, 'You're here because you're guilty," then pointed out the window to the bustling crowds in downtown Moscow and concluded, 'those are the ones under suspicion."
I'm going to take a lot of heat for this. I know it. I'm going to be hung up on a rope and jabbed with pitchforks as surely as the FLDS fathers have been. And just as the Guildford Pub and Duke defense lawyers no doubt suffered extreme harassment and death threats for DARING to defend the worst of the worst.
Or New York Times sports reporter Joe Drape, who was removed from the Duke case for standing apart from the mob, looking at the whole picture with objective eyes and drawing back from the stink that began to fill his nostrils.
That wasn't what the New York Times wanted, so they put their own Mike Nifong on the case.
All things considered, that puts me in pretty distinguished and honorable company. Unlike, say, the FLDS lynch mobs who can't see the FLDS fathers gang-raped soon enough for their liking.
Lastly, I fear for the FLDS children. Not from their parents, but from the social workers who may be grilling them relentlessly in the third degree day and night until they get the stories they want to hear, and are ready to testify for the prosecution.
Paranoia? Ever hear of the
Fells Acres day care scandal? Happened right in my backyard. That one even had ME wanting blood. Lot of jail time handed out on that one.
Turns out the kids
may have been coached by social workers and the prosecution into testifying as they did. The FLDS aren't the only ones capable of brainwashing, you know.
Why would they do such a thing? Look at the political, legal and financial stakes involved here. If they succeed, they expand their budgets and foster home systems enormously, as well as their own
Raison d'être.
And they all get to be heroes.
If they fail, they're looking at some serious blowback, mega-civil suits and ruined careers and reputations. They can't afford to fail.
In fact, that particular problem is so widespread, Wall Street Journal Senior Editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote a book on the subject entitled
'No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times.'
The title stems from a quote in 1742 by Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, who wrote, "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.'
My sentiments exactly. Here's another: Justice Dies Where Interest Lies.
You know, the only thing I hate more than the Communist terrorist-loving Islamofascist-enabling
NAMBLA-defending
ACLU is how much the FLDS lynch mobs are making me sound just like them.
I will never forgive them for that. Ever.
In the meantime, I'm willing to ignore the more sensational aspects of the FLDS case and let justice take its due and legal course. If the State of Texas and others will allow it to, that is.
Are you?
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