I have little in common with the gay community, except that they are human beings with human rights. I would not stand shoulder to shoulder with someone who wishes to do lewd acts in public. But I must stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone defending their human rights. Under the natural law. God’s law.  My Christian friends might object: “But it is a grave sin”.  My response comes from the scene just earlier in “A Man for All Seasons” which was the reason for the original quote and this was not about some third party but the man that would ultimately betray him and be responsible for being found guilty and his execution:

Margaret: Father, that man’s bad.
Sir Thomas: There’s no law against that.
Roper: There is: God’s law.
Sir Thomas: Then God can arrest him.

Such things are a matter for the confessional, not the constable.  What they do in private that doesn’t cause public disruption is none of the state’s business as their home is their castle.  Even civil disobedience and the disruption is often because people aren’t being left alone except when the defense by the law and authorities ought to be protecting them.

Almost. A man’s home is his castle in 49 states and where the Magna Carta  still prevails.  The exception in Indiana, as their state supreme court recently ruled that you cannot resist or defend yourself against an unlawful arrest.

“Cut down all the laws to get to the devil”.

Everyone should now be afraid.  This does more damage to the exclusionary rule than if it was overturned.  If a stop, detention, search, and/or arrest itself  is unlawful, then resisting it is lawful and the charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and battery on a police officer are thrown out as part of the whole.  Now the unlawful search and arrest that precipitates such defenses will allow all the charges created by the defense to stand.  I’m not sure what or where the recourse is to occur.  A deputy annoyed that he might have to pay child support because I talked his girlfriend out of aborting their child can find something, break down my door and if I resist at all – or he thinks I do or can get me to react (youtube has many examples) – I would be guilty of resisting arrest or battery and guilty until proven innocent as it would not matter that he had no warrant or cause to break down my door and accost me.  Or I have to find an attorney and use some unspecified or generic procedure to get …  justice?  compensation? … for the unlawful activity and transcend some new, unknown and possibly infinitely high barrier to be declared innocent of resisting arrest even if every other charge is immediately thrown out.

Yes, everyone.  Maybe the Bible belt extends  into Indiana.  A few years ago, there was a case that made it to the Supreme Court on the Texas Sodomy law. In that case the policeman was invited in and practically led to the bedroom where the act was going on right in front of him making it hard to ignore.  Today some not so good old boy deputies can now simply bust in with Tasers, claim they resisted, and while they are recuperating and serving their sentences, maybe they can afford a lawyer – assuming they can find one in the Bible belt who will take their case, and go in front of a Bible-belt judge, and be heard, and maybe prevail.   Even in the buckle of the Bible belt, judges there would likely throw out everything if not actually sanction the behavior because they breached the stonewall of the castle doctrine.   Perhaps Texas and similar states can learn from Indiana that Man’s Law is better than reason and the Magna Carta.

Today, even with the thicket of laws designed to protect and constrain police there are dozens of abuses in the news across the US daily.  I would like a stronger barrier, not a weaker one.  There have even been moves to erode Miranda and the exclusionary rule.  I worry now that it might come down to a confession beaten out of a suspect will be admissible, but the convict is reassured that he can then take the police to court  for the beating, but not to expect that beating to invalidate any evidence or a confession.

We will see as this develops if the unpopular minorities on any side can “stand upright in the winds that would blow then“.  Pro-lifers  at least are at the edge or in the majority.   10% is overstating it but the LGBTQ (i.e., gay) community will never win democratically.  “Yes, I’d give the Devil“, or anyone from the LGBTQ community, petty criminals, people of color, the disabled, and everyone in their minority status, the “benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!“.

I will not support any action or power that I would not want my greatest earthly opponent to manage or decide.   I will support rules that might limit what I could do if I were in power, but that would limit my enemies equally.  I think Thomas More would too – and the Law itself protected him for a long time until the man who violated “God’s Law – God can arrest him” betrayed him.  Had the laws been thicker and stronger he would not have been executed.

The Occupy movement recognizes the enemy is the 1% that would control, oppress, and not do justice.  Progressives and Christians need to recognize that injustice, oppression, and discrimination are our common enemy, and the state itself, especially the courts which are often the only means of redress short of revolution, needs to make it harder to do injustice to anyone, allow anyone to combat oppression, and get fair treatment to end discrimination.  The scenes of police brutality now used against Occupy are familiar to pro-lifers – but no one spoke up when they were the ones being brutalized.

The ArchAngel Institute’s Executive Director filed a federal lawsuit on December 8, 2009 setting forth fifteen claims under the Federal Constitution and four claims under the State Constitution against the Supreme Court of Indiana, Terry Harrell and Tim Sudrovech of the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program and two of the doctors that said program mandated that the Plaintiff turn himself over to,  Dr. Steven Ross and Dr. Elizabeth Bowman.

The plaintiff, Bryan J. Brown, was admitted to the practice of law in Kansas in 1996, where he yet enjoys good standing. He was passed for character and fitness in Montana in 1996, before the United States Supreme Court in 2000, by Missouri in 2006 and by the National Board of Law Examiners in 2006.

Brown was remanded from the Indiana Board of Law Examiners into the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program on January 25, 2008 (the Feast day of St. Paul) and subjected to that agency’s machinations until they remanded him back to the Indiana Board of Law Examiners on January 22, 2009 (the anniversary of Roe v. Wade).

Brown’s lawsuit is focused upon damages visited upon him, the Federal constitution and the Indiana constitution during those 362 days, as well as damages ongoing and damages threatened in the future.

This website will present regular and ongoing commentary on this lawsuit as the principal, principled project of the ArchAngel Michael Division in the months to follow.

That which follows in red is from the federal complaint:

INTRODUCTION OF CAUSES OF ACTION

1. This litigation, at core, alleges a conspiracy to discriminate against Plaintiff in the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program that culminated in the filing of fraudulent reports obtained through unconstitutional means with the Board of Law Examiners that influenced said governmental body to Plaintiff’s detriment.
2. The Indiana Supreme Court created JLAP.  Admission and Discipline Rule 31, Section 2.  The Board of Law Examines has authority to refer persons to JLAP “for assessment or treatment.”  Admission and Discipline Rule 31, Section 8(c).
3. JLAP and the Board are distinct entities that do not share offices, mission statements, personnel or immunities.
4. The currently named Defendants (other than the Chief Judge) are alleged to have been purposely and knowingly involved in acts taken under the color of law and through close affiliation with  JLAP,  along with other Doe Defendants (who may or may not be affiliated with JLAP) in which an end goal was commonly pursued because of, and not merely in spite of, its adverse effects upon Plaintiff’s free speech, free exercise, due process and/or equal protection rights under the federal and state constitutions as well as general statutory and common law protections afforded Plaintiff.
5. Plaintiff does not ask this Honorable Court to reverse or even review the ultimate outcome of his bid to become a licensed Indiana attorney.  As precedent makes clear, that case will be heard, if at all, by the United States Supreme Court.  This court simply lacks the subject matter jurisdiction to relieve the instant Plaintiff of the order that he not be admitted to the Indiana bar and not even seek admission again until 2014.
6. This suit is not focused upon the inaction of the Indiana Supreme Court or the action of the Indiana Board of Law Examiners.  This suit is instead focused upon the actions of the staff of the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program and the small cadre of hand-picked providers with whom they collaborate.  As such this case has applicability far beyond bar admission issues.
7. The actions alleged herein and the remedies sought herein are not the type that can be brought to the United States Supreme Court in an action seeking a reversal of the  Indiana Supreme Court’s denial of Plaintiff’s admission to its bar.  If the claims brought herein are not heard by this Honorable Court, the claims brought herein are unlikely to be heard in any court of law.
8. Plaintiff had communicated his intent to bring this litigation long before the Indiana Supreme Court issued its five sentence, law-free ruling on his 31 month application to add Indiana to the list of multiple jurisdictions that had found him of sufficient moral character and mental fitness to practice law.
9. Plaintiff had intended to bring this litigation whether Indiana found him possessed of such moral character and mental fitness or not.   Thus the fact that Indiana did not should not enter into the calculus of whether this case is rightly before the court.
10. What this Honorable Court is asked to consider in this litigation is whether JLAP, by charter, is involved in processing judges and attorneys through mental health assessments and treatments in difficult personal situations without due regard for the constitutional norms that define the American legal order.
11. This suit brings to the bar the actions of some of the small cadre of hand-picked experts that JLAP assigns to work its cases.  While JLAP may not be paying the monies directly to such mental health professionals, JLAP clearly mandates, as demonstrated infra, that such hand picked experts – and only such hand picked experts – will be the ones reviewing JLAP’s “assignees.”  JLAP furthermore dictates the significant terms of the sessions they supervise through mandatory pre-briefings that go so far as to dictate what terms and findings are not to appear in final reports.  (And, by extrapolation, what terms and finding are to appear in the final reports.)
12. The allegations contained herein cut a window into a process that (thanks to public shame and confidentiality rules) is seldom open to review by the public.  Plaintiff brings this action for the good of his profession and all of those who will follow him into the JLAP system because Plaintiff:  (1) has suffered much through the processing described herein; (2) believes, with Justice Louis D. Brandeis. that “Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant;” (3) is a twelve year licensed attorney fully dedicated the following: “As a public citizen  a lawyer should seek the improvement of the law, access to the legal system, the administration of justice and the quality of the service rendered by the legal system.”  Rules of Professional Conduct, Preamble; and finally, (4) [Plaintiff] perceives a duty to bring this litigation since he is under a “responsibility to assure that the regulations are conceived in the public interest and not in furtherance of parochial or self-interested concerns of the bar.” Id.

COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?  Call (260) 423-1771 or 800.399.4620 or email archangelinstitute@gmail.com