Welcome to the Barry Beach College of Law and Justice...

A Blewett Law School?  How about Barry Beach College of Law and Justice, instead?

Notes on the School to Prison Pipeline, ALEC, and the end of Democracy in America...

If you're not up on the condition of today's "criminal justice system" which costs the economy $100's of billions a year, and destroys countless lives to feed the maw of for-profit prisons and other police state jobs and contractors, read the following article first...

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40 Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People
by BILL QUIGLEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/02/40-reasons-our-jails-and-prisons-are-full-of-black-and-poor-people/


The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation’s jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the US, totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults. We are far and away the world leader in putting our own people in jail. Most of the people inside are poor and Black. Here are 40 reasons why....

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I listen to the university Regents meetings whenever I get a chance, on 21-5 - which is included with our MT-PBS signal (a sort of local C-Span, but not dependent on the cable industry). 

I've always been highly critical of school and university administrations, and the "public education culture" in general - especially as it develops in a place like Great Falls, with a large ethnic population (historically exploited) and little interest in developing a world-class education system which would actually prepare people for a sustainable future (instead of the corporate/military/prison system which they now support).   

The micromanagement is staggering.  How do they possibly expect anyone to succeed in teaching difficult material (not to mention patriotism and loyalty) if we get nothing but lies and excuses from our elected officials and the media, not to mention those already employed in the school system?  And teachers are forced to "assume" or "obey" all sorts of nonsense which we know is harmful to our students and the community at large.  

Today's "topic" is the acceptance of the Zander Blewett "gift" of $10 mill to rename the UM Law School for Mr. Blewett and his wife.   His former law partner, John Hoyt, was a well-known local ambulance chaser and oil speculator (he claimed he lost money on the latter ventures), who gave enough to the Griz Football Program that they actually named the "field" after him (while the Stadium is named for Dennis Washington, the main investor and controller in the Max Baucus machine).   Now that Max is Ambassador to China, where Mr. Washington has huge contracts and a fleet of container ships to bring home the loot, the value of a name has gone way up.  But isn't a football stadium a little different?  Should we actually name the Law School (not just a building, but the School, itself) after a particular lawyer who became vastly wealthy from his political and social connections? 

Not that Hoyt and Blewett were not Baucus people, too.  Friendly rivals, one might say, but all Democrats.  [Correction:   his son, who is now a State Senator, claimed to be the first Democrat in the family....   The plot thickens...]  Baucuses in Great Falls were lawyers for 2 generations before Max (who was raised in Helena).  I'm not sure what party the older Baucuses preferred, if any.  Great Falls was a strongly Democratic city up to the 1960's, though. 

Perhaps this is to forestall naming the Law School after Baucus (which would certainly be even more ridiculous).  But Max used dirty tricks to win his first Senate primary (D) over local Judge Paul Hatfield (a former Jardine, Stephenson partner, I believe - possibly before the first Blewett joined that firm).   I have historic family connections, both pro and con, with all of the above.  

Another bizarre twist was that Zander's father and the Jardine, Stephenson, Blewett and Weaver firm was a Homeland Security "rendition" contractor which was identified early-on by the international authorities policing torture and other war crimes.  Mr. Bjelland of that firm (who is also on the board of the McLaughlin Institute) was the "registered representative" for the "rendition express", last I heard.  This was a private contractor for the CIA, to take torture victims to "friendly" countries - including Libya and former Communist countries which were better-equipped to torture people "off the books."  But the planes could be identified and their ownership traced by their registration numbers....

Most of John Hoyt's accumulated wealth came from buying up a number of bankrupt farmers and ranchers (myself included) and then forming a 10,000 acre ranch called "The Jolly Roger" - named for his WWII B-24 from which he rained havoc on various targets in Europe.  Nearly all his legal work was "worker's comp" claims, for which he received a fourth to a third of the payments for the rest of the worker's life.  I believe this system no longer exists, but it created a legal "establishment" which still seems to dominate the field in Montana.  

One of the Regents, Ms. Shea, who is apparently a lawyer, herself, found fault with the whole process, done in secret, and basically giving the Blewett firm unprecedented clout in the future education and practice of lawyers in Montana.  She's right.  The name should be left off, and Mr. Blewett should hang his head in shame for promoting such self-glorification.  

Otherwise, his motives may be pure, or at least geared to the long-standing interests of the legal profession.  The "criminal justice system" in Montana has absolutely nothing to be proud of, and to spend a good part of this $10 million "recruiting" more people from the Liberal Arts and other "humanistic" backgrounds to become lawyers is probably an excellent idea, except that it will only turn them into the legal illiterates who presently pack the rolls of the Montana Bar Association.  If there are any who don't fit this description, they're lying low, and refusing to jeopardize their future prospects as millionaires. 

What is needed is a totally different law school which actually sees the role of lawyers as DEFENDERS rather than predators on a rapidly-collapsing welfare/labor state.  My long-standing proposal was to simply close or suspend the UM Law School until such time that it can select a staff and program which actually benefits the people of Montana, our lives, our freedom, and our economic and environmental sustainability.  

At present, it serves nothing but corporate interests, from the prison industry to the military industrial complex, and now the National Security State.  If a judge makes a correct decision, he is immediately charged with all sorts of malfeasance, and removed.  With only a few exceptions, the whole "criminal justice system" is beneath contempt, and even the tiniest reforms are strenuously resisted by an almost united front.  

One such reform (which is only a restoration of traditional jury rights and duties) is jury nullification or a "fully informed jury" law, where jurors can ask questions and otherwise pursue the truth of the case rather than just doing what judges and prosecutors tell them to do.   And they can also judge the applicability of a law to the particular case, or even the legitimacy of the law, itself (most of which are now written by lobbyists for the prison industry, insurance companies, and other corporate interests). 

Tell Zander to keep his money, or donate it to scholarships or an endowed chair which reflects his philosophy or views (which seems to be the core of his proposal, anyway).  How about $1 mill to the Fully Informed Jury Foundation or whatever it is, started by Montanan Larry Dodge?  Leave the naming and "monument-building" to others....