In Search of a Constitution

Things were still as screwed up as ever in July of 1999. I had been visiting with my two older kids on the phone, since they lived in Illinois. I decided how things were going for my eleven year-old. I went to see him. We had a pretty good visit. We discussed the situation about Pfeiffer and the breakdown of the whole system. He didn't understand how these people who had caused him this much trouble were getting off without any consequences. In addition to that, my sister and brother were also upset because this accusation had damaged the entire family. It was an attack on the entire family tree.

My youngest son was clearly depressed over this. He now wore the stain of being the child of an accused child molester. Everybody knew about it. It was a shadow that followed him everywhere.

We talked about this problem at length. He, rightly so, had lost faith in the entire system. We discussed the constitution and the rights of free speech and I told him that I would again challenge Lee Pfeiffer and the accusation she had made. I told him that the constitution allowed me to protest and call attention to mess she had made and nothing could happen because of the right of the First Amendment. Later, I found that the constitution and what it stood for was just a myth. Politics and lies were more powerful.

I loaded my car with a sign that had a few quotes from the Bible, ("Bear not false witness against thy neighbor") and one from Governor Janklow on one of his State of the State addresses, "Take responsibility for you actions."

Got to Rapid City and parked in front of Pfeiffer's office on 615 Kansas City Street, gave a letter to Pfeiffer's secretary, stuck my little poster board sign on the front of my car, put my little American flag up, put money into the meter, and went to the library which was just a short distance. I returned later and put more money in the meter and returned to the library.

The next time I returned I was greeted by two cops who put me under arrest for stalking! The next thing I knew I was hand cuffed, my car was being towed away and my little American flag and I were headed for the Pennington County Jail. We were both locked up. This was only the beginning of the oncoming total breakdown of the SYSTEM of justice.

The next day I was hauled down to court and expected to plead guilty. I refused. I would have liked to handle this case myself, but that is not how the system is designed to work. Lawyers have a monopoly on the legal system and I realized that neither I nor any other citizen can navigate on their own because lawyers have designed the system to insure their existence and, as I later found, pay the down payment on the plans for, in my case, his new dream home.

Jail is a very interesting place. It was a lesson in how things are designed not to work. I learned nobody should be allowed to vote on any legislation for putting anyone in jail until they have spent a couple weeks there to understand how it doesn’t work.

What a defendant needs in a legal situation is good fast communications and information. The jail system is there to prevent that. The only calls anyone can make are collect long distance at an unbelievable cost. Communication is made as difficult as possible.

My situation was now in the hands of fate. As it turned out, fate was not kind. The power of bad luck appeared again.

Since I didn't have any information as to who was a competent (if there is such a thing) or not, I had to choose from the yellow pages. I finally picked Dennis Groff who advertised his experience with the DA's office. Later I found that he had been fired out of the office himself and now he was trying to represent people in a court system he failed in himself.

Groff came up and we visited about the service he was to give. When I asked him what the cost per hour was, he said he didn't work that way. He said he wanted $ 1590 to bring the case to trial. We also agreed that the agreed price was not to be exceeded under any circumstances. I wondered what ever happened to the other ten bucks. I was not in a position to argue. Court was the next day.

We went to court. Just before my case was to come up, he handed me this paper and asked me to sign it. It allowed the court to keep me in jail until he returned from his vacation, which was going to be two weeks. It was down hill from there.

I refused to submit to legalized extortion, and told Groff that I did not want to post bail. He couldn't believe it. I was not afraid of jail, although I had no desire to be there. The next two weeks were to be as interesting as anything in Crazy College.