I
Take two
Thr Mirripan Daily
Seventy-nine years of edIit oril freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
joints
go directly to
jail
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News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: MARTIN A. HIRSCHMANI
I
Focusing on peace
SENATE ASSEMBLY'S decision Monday
to back the Vietnam moratorium
scheduled for one week from today was
a surprising and commendable one.
Although the assembly did not Tequest
that the administration shut down the
University as part of a national day of
protest, the faculty did go a long way-
further than might have been expected-
in supporting the national anti-war
movement. The faculty members com-
prising the assembly-the highest facul-
ty representative body-encouraged pro-
fessors to participate in the moratorium
events and "to consider ways in which
to focus the resources of the University
on the problems of war cessation."
This was not an easy stance for the
slow-moving, politically-moderate a s -
sembly to adopt. Faculty were in the dif-
ficult position of wishing to express anti-
war sentiment, but feeling constricted by
contractural and moral obligation to
teach. They were reluctant to support the
strike and risk labelling as pro-war those
who felt compelled to hold class for what-
ever reason. They were inhibited by the
traditional academic phobia against
meshing courses and politics.
THIS LATTER argument they partially
rejected, acknowledging that the hor-
ror of Vietnam warranted at least one
day of scrutiny by all members of the
community. Hopefully this feeble first
step will encourage many to voice their
opposition to this national tragedy. And
hopefully, it may - if followed on a na-
tional scale - prod the President into
making more substantial efforts to extri-
cate this country from the war.
-HENRY GRIX
Editor
(E:Iwro's NOTE: John Sinclair
is the Minister of Information for
the White Panther Party. His col-
umn, "Letters from Prison," will
appear as a regular feature in
The Daily. Sinclair notes that his
writing may be reprinted with
credit given to himself and The
Daily. Today's column is the first
of a three-part series on Sinclair's
arrest, trial and imprisonment for
ossesmtn of narijuana.)
By JOhN SINCLAIR
WTHEN I WAS arrested in Jan-
uary, 1967, for allegedly "dis-
pensing and possessing" two mar-
ijuana cigarettes, I still had some
faith in the so-called judicial pro-
cess, and I was eager to test the
constitutionality of Michigan's
archaic marijuana laws.
I had pled guilty twice before
to possession charges (reduced
from sale, the first time 1Decem-
ber, 1964) because I didn't know
any better, the second (February,
1966) because the attorney I had
retained refused to fight my case
in Recorder's Court and insisted
that I plead guilty to the reduced
charge of "possession" because, as
he said, the penalty for "sale of
marijuana" was too excessive to
risk the possibility of losing the
case. Any jury in Detroit, hie said.
no matter how strong and how
right our case is. will automatical-
ly find you guilty no matter what
you say because its the coP's word
against yours and they always be-
lieve the co.
IN MICHIGAN, a citizen con-
victed of possession of marijuana,
in whatever amount, is subject to
a prison sentence of from one to
ten years in the state penitentiary.
and the judge has the option of
ordering "probation" rather than
a prison sentence if he feels like
it. A conviction for sale, transfer,
dispensing without a license, or
giving away marijuana in what-
ever, amount automatically brings
a mandatory 20-year minimum
sentence, with up to life imprison-
ment as the maximum under law.
No probation is possible.
Usually in these cases the po-
lice don't bust people for posses-'
sion unless it's by accident: they
find marijuana in your possession
during a "routine search," or in
the event that you are on t h e
scene of an arrest in a friend's
house when the police are raiding
it, something like that.
Maybe, as has happened to a lot
of people I know, you are being
pulled over for a traffic offense,
have some grass on you, and
throw it out the window as you're
being pulled over to the curb.
BUT THE POLICE usually push
for a sales warrant, and to g e t
these they almost always employ
undercover agents of one type or
another.
These undercover spies, who
may be ither police officers or
insane private citirns who work
for the police out of some weird
sense of loyalty to a cause I can't
begin to fathom, go to elaborate
extremes in order to buy or other-
wise obtain marijuana fron the
real dealers of marijuana, or, more
frequently, from someone who has
a little stash of his own but can
be persuaded to part with some of
it. either gratuitously or f o r a
small sum of money-usually just
enough to cover what he paid for
it
WHEN A suspect is persuaded
or entrapped, as is usually the
case - into giving or selling some
marijuana to an undercover
agent, the arrest may be made on
the spot, a few minutes later, or
at any time thereafter.
Often an undercover agent is
working on a number of "sus-
pects" at the same time and waits
until he makes a number of pur-
chases before "blowing his cover"
and making a mass arrest, In
these cases a huge police raiding
crew descends on the criminals'
lairs) and rounds up all the vic-
tims on a big "dope raid."
At these times, large groups of
otherwise innocent people ath'e
often rounded up to increase, the
shock value of the arrest se-
quence and guarantee bigger and
better headlines in the next day's
papers.
These people are usually held
overnight and released in t h e
morning, without charge, after the
papers hit the stands - unless,
of course ,they were unfortunate
enough to have been holding a
couple of joints themselves, in
which case they are charged with
possession, arraigned, and releas-
ed on bond if they can post it
pending a trial date.
THE NEXT step is the court
procedings, which rarely end in a
full-scale trial for sales or dis-
pensing. First is the arraignment,
where the defendant is charged
with the crime or crimes, and a
"reasonable bond" is set by the
arraigning magistrate. Often this
bond ranges from $1000 to $25,000,
depending solely on the judge's
personal discretion.
The next step is the pre-trial
Student finan1cial power:
Taxation and representation1
ONE OF THE clearest examples of stu-
dent impotence in decision-making
lies in the lack of control students have
in determining the allocation of their
own money.
Three key examples lie in utilization
of student funds for the construction of
the Univeristy Events Building, t h e
money students are assessed to support
the Union and the League, and the de-
cision this summer of the Intramural
Advisory Board to finance the building of
a new Intramural Building from student
funds.
In none of these cases were students
asked where they wanted their money to
go. This assumes greater significance
when one considers that students are
theoretically the primary group the Uni-
versity exists to serve. It is they who the
institution seeks to educate and they who
pay a large portion of the funds which
keep it in operation.
THE UNIVERSITY Events Building was
constructed for students-but no prior
consultation was held with the student
body to see if, in fact, students actually
were willing to pay for its funding. Stu-
dents are being taxed $5 each term for
the next 30 years to repay the bond issue
on the building. Never were students ask-
ed as a whole if they would be interested
in paying such a tax.
The same holds for the Michigan
Union and the Women's League; female
students pay $4 a term for the League
and males $6 for the Union. Last year,
the $4 went toward air conditioning the
League. One wonders whether, if asked,
female students would have been willing
to give $4 each to air condition a build-
ing they rarely set foot in.
Both the Union and the League are
used little -- if at all - by students; in
fact, the Union is reserved during foot-
ball weekends exclusively for alumni. But
it is the students - and not the alumni
- who are taxed to support these build-
ings.
STUDENTS ARE also compelled to pay
$5 per term to support the new Ad-
ministration Building -- a structure stu-
dents seldom use. And once again, no one
has ever bothered to ask students whe-
ther or not they did consider such an
assessment worthwhile.
Similarly, the Intramural Advisory
Board's decision to finance the c o n-
struction of a second Intramural Build-
ing through a $15 maximum student fee
increase was made without a student
referendum.
IT IS INTERESTING that the adminis-
tration is making this decision on the
basis of space available and without con-
sidering whether or not the student con-
stituents even want the structure. The
Board concluded last summer that stu-
dents were interested in an IM Building--
but they based t h i s conclusion on an
amateurish survey conducted by a bio-
statistics class, not on a referendum of
the student body.
To its credit, the administration h a s
decided not to put the matter before the
Regents at their Oct. 16 meeting. But it
seems likely that the Regents will con-
sider the issue at their November session.
In order to make a j u s t decision for
students, the Regents must know wheth-
er students themselves would like a sec-
ond intramural building.
THE WAY to determine this is for Stu-
dent Government Council to ask stu-
dents in a November referendum if they
should be assessed up to $15 per term in
tuition to pay for a second intramural
building.
In addition, the question of continued
student support for the Union, League,
administration building and E v e n t s
Building must come before the students.
SGC should ask in a referendum wheth-
er students want to be assessed annually
to support t h e s e buildings, or whether
they want their fees to go for other caus-
es, such as low-cost student housing, or
for more scholarships.
The referendum must be held and the
administration m u s t honor its results.
There is no other way.
-RICK PERLOFF
letters
from
prison
on the books. The defendant, or
victim, is offered a deal by prose-
cutor, working through the defense
attorney, who tells his client that
the prosecutor and the judge have
agreed to drop the original charge
-usually "sale"---if the defendant
agrees to plead guilty to a lesser
charge-usually "possession."
If possession is the original
charge, the reduced charge. or
plea. can be "attempted posses-
sion"'1-5 years) or. in extreme
cases, "use and addiction" to nar-
cotics, which carries a maximum
one-year work-house or county
jail sentence and is technically a
misdemeanor. The other crimes
are all felonies.
SINCE the penalty for "s a l e"
or "dispensing'" '1giving away t
marijuana carries a minimum-
mandatory 20-year sentence on
conviction, few lawyers and few
defendants are anxious to take
their cases to trial. and a "plea."
or 'cop-out" "copping a plea" is
another way to put it'), can easily
be arranged in most cases.
Exceptions are when there is
what the prosecutors call "too
much publicity" involved, which is
wierd because they're always the
ones who call the papers and gen-
erate the publicity in the f i r s t
place.
But then little of this process
makes any objective sense -- these
people live in a whole wierd' world
of their own.
THE prosecutors and judges are
usually anenable to a guilty plea
to a reduced charge because they
then have little work to do and
get a free conviction on the books.
which makes them look good in
the statistics race.
Prosecutors hate to dismiss the
charges in any criminal case be-
'ause it makes them and the po-
lice look bad at year's end - their
ideal is a conviction for e%,ery ar-
rest.
The more convictions they get,
the tmore efficient they look and
examination, at which time the
state, or prosecuting attorney.
demonstrates why you are being
charged with a crime and asks the
judge that you be "bound over"
for trial. The police witnesses test-
ify at this examination, and their
task is to show that a crime has
been committed and they have
reason to believe that you com-
mitted the crime.
Rarely does the defense offer
any explanation of your point of
view at this juncture, unless your
attorneys feel that the case can
be thrown out before it gets to
trial.
TIM NEXT stage is the dealing
sage. where your attorney and
the prosecutor get together to fig-
ure out how tho get out of a full-
scale trial but still get a conviction
the public is more easily convinc-
ed that crime is on the rise and
the whole business of arrests and
prosecutions, probations and jails
and paroles is necessary and vital
to "law enforcement" and jus-
tice."
After the plea is agreed upon,
the defendant pays his lawyer
some more money, gets a haircut
and a shave, puts on a suit and
tie and goes, to accept his sen-
tence.
The magistrate, generally in a
haughty, self-righteous mood for
this final degradation of the de-
fendant, insists that the v i c t i m
has made this choice of his own
free will, has not been promised
leniency by anyone involved, and
is truly guilty of the crime he is
charged with, (This gets a little
ludicrous when the "crime" is
som thing like "attempted posses-
sion" or "addiction to marijuana."
but then the whole scene is pret-
ty ludicrous anyway unless you're
the unfortunate victim of the
hoax.
After the defendant lies through
his teeth with bowed head aid
shameful demeanor, the judge
then gives him a little lecture on
morality and sentences him to a
term of two or three or five years'
probation and a few hundred dol-
lars' court costs, and the defend-
ant goes back to his old way of
life.
It gets scary at sentencing
sometimes because you never
know if the judge is going to fol-
low the official line, as your at-
torney has told you (and his
word is the only thing you have
to go on) , or if he will throw the
whole script out the window and
s nd ou away for 10 years.
I HAVE GONE through this
travesty of justice twice in my
life, although the second time I
was also given an additional bonus
ill the form of six months in the
Detroit House of Correction-the
judge, an old decrepit, doddering
fool shaking with age and im-
potence, muttered something to
the effect that "he had a plan"
and "it will do you good." He also
threw in $300 "court costs." which
went with the $2500 "leal fee"
which coveed my valiant attor-
nt'y's dealings with tile prosecutor
and the judge.
As I said, I had inteneded to
fight the case but the lawyer
elhanged his mind after he'd al-
ready ripped me off for 51500
and it was two weeks before th'
scheduled trial date when he an-
'lounced that we couldn't possibly
try to will.
I had wanted to fight the case
on the grounds that I had been
tntrapped into making a purchase
of marijuana from a third party
or the undercover agent. who
called himself "Eddie."
"Eddie" had bugged me for more
than three weeks solid in the late
sumllmer of 1965 to sell, give, or
obtain some marijuana for him.
But after my first arrest almost
two years earlier I had quit deal-
ing in marijuana in any way be-
cause it was too much trouble- and
I didn't want to get busted again.
This cop "Eddie" was an un-
savory punk and I didn't trust
hiit or like him even. but he was
at my house or on the phone every
day, sometimes two or three times
a day, and I decided that the
best way to get rid of him was to
cop him some worthless weed and
beat him for the money (over-
charge him) so he'd leave me
alone in the future.
Of course I didn't know that
he was a cop, but I did know that
whatever he was, I didn't ever
want to see his ugly face again.
SO I SET up a deal with a guy
I knew over on the west side (of
Detroit )who was selling weed for
a living, and I had "Eddie" drive
me across town to the guy's house
to cop. I went in, gave the dealer
Eddie's money, and took back an
ounce of terrible grass which I
gave to Eddie. He drove me back
to my house and dropped me of.
Five minutes later, just as my
wife and I were preparing to walk
out of the house to get something
to eat, the raiding team started
climbing through the windows and
busting down the doors, guns in
hand, handcuffing everybody in
sight and tearing the house apart.
They arrested everyone in the
house and took us down to "head-
quarters," as they so quaintly call
their downtown fortress, where I
was booked on "sales and possess-
ion" charges and everyone was
held overnight.
IN THE morning the newspapers
blared that the vanguard of "De-
troit's finest" has "smashed cam-
pus dope rin" and that I was the
"leader" of this notorious bunch.
Pictured of me and my beard dem-
onstrated the seriousness of my
offense, and the police revealed
that they had busted up a "smok-
ing session of beatniks." Innuen-
does were made about my "Ger-
man born wife" and a paragraph
at the end of the story told how
members from the Detroit Com-
mittee to End the War in Vietnam
stood outside the scene of the raid
and hollered about the "rights"
of the victims.
It was a masterful story, and
the citizens undoubtedly rested a
little easier in their homes that
nightkknowing that their police
were keeping tile city safe from
dope fiends and crimitals like me.
THE DETECTIVE who had
masterminded the big raid, a
plainclothes sergeant named
Warner Stringfellow, was promot-
ed to lieutenant shortly after my
arrest and "conviction" and I
saw him again by accident after
I was releas-'d from the House of
C-'rrection. He asked me if I
remembered him, and I told him
in no uncertain terms that I knew
exactly who he was and would
he please get the hell away from
tile. He got iad and ended our
conversation by promising to "get
tile again, and "this time we
won't be so easy on you. y o u
prick!"
Within ten days, according to
police records which were sub-
poenaed at my trial, Stringfellow
has assigned undercover a g e n t
Vahan Kapigian, alias "Louie," to
my neighborhood, with specific
instructions to "Get Sinclair."
. Tomorrow: Agent Kapagian
Alienation
in
the Great
American Middle
By STEVE KOPPMAN
"THEY DON'T care. We're j ust
peons. And if you don't like it,
there's always somebody waiting for
your job."
"They spend $50 million to send a
monkey around the moon and there
are people starving at home."
"Day after day, year after year.
climbing those same steps, punching
that time card. Standing in t h a t
same goddam s p o t grinding those
same goddam holes."
CAMPUS RADICALS? Black mili-
tants? Subversivies? No - these are
Newsweek's "A v e r n 2 Americam:
tiose who
American's"
threaten the "average
social-econonic status
and view of the world clearly should
not be interpreted as an attitude on
his part of implacable hostility to
social change,
RATHER, the view emerging from
the study is one of a nation deeply
dissatisfied with its government and
with the satis factions which life in
this society affords.
And while "average Americans" re-
sent students who break the rules
and scorn the values by which they
have charted their lives, they in fact
share with change-oriented students
"NIXON IS doing the best lie can
with the ability he has, w h1ichi I
don't think is too iuch." one man
observed.
Seventy per cent of the sample felt
t h a t our intervention in Vietnam
was a mistake. Few spoke any more
about spreading the "American Way
of Life" or of containing the Com-
mies.
"Our money just isn't used right."
The sample said that more gov-
ernment money should be spent or
job training, control of aim and water
pollution, medical care, schools and
housing. They opted for less spend-
ing on foreign military aid and space
the growiing awareness of the aliena-
tion and emptiness of their lives. The
hostility to strangers, the loss of
identity in the corporate monster.
the constant struggle for more ma-
terial goods - are bemoaned by
workers, salesmen and bureaucrats.
"It's a womb-to-womb life. They
lead you into the bathroom. You
piddle. And then you go back and do
your job. It becomes frustrating. You
go home wondering, 'What the hell
did I do today?' Sometime. I'd like
to see some good come of what I did
in a day. But you're such a small cog
in such a big wheel that it all gets
lost in the whole mishmash."
est complaints maintained confi-
dence that America can and w i 1
change. "Change isn't bad, observed
a Mississippi cattle raiser, "but there
may be a period of time when things
worsen before we settle on a course
again."
"We won't just sit around and let
the country go down the drain" an
aircraft inspector said.
THE ENORMOUS anger and bit-
terness which Americans have dis-
played against blacks and young peo-
ple who they perceive to threaten
them has led m a n y to label the
American majority as hopelessly re-
actionary. But while it appears that