Are we watching? Do we care? - by Judge Jim Gray

In the April 18 edition of Newsweek, columnist Philip K. Howard published a "Dear Congress" letter setting forth several national policies that are broken, and demanding that they be addressed and fixed. This is similar to the open letter that was published in this space on April 3 that "gently but firmly" demanded strong leadership from Rep. John Campbell to address and resolve the problems with illegal immigration.

As a practical matter, with all of the political polarization and other problems facing our great country, mostly there is no one left but "We the People" to take action. Are we watching? Do we care? If so, we need to persuade our public leaders that getting and staying elected is not the same thing as governing.

In addition to illegal immigration, some of those areas that must be addressed are sunset provisions for all federal agencies, the reduction of the welfare system for both the poor and the wealthy, requiring new public employees to invest in 401(k) programs for their retirement, just like workers in the private sector, and the failed and hopeless policy of drug prohibition. All of these have an enormous negative impact upon our federal budget deficit, and there appears to be no good faith effort by Congress even to address, much less resolve them.

Two additional areas that simply must be addressed are the entitlements of Social Security and Medicare. Painful as it could be, we must understand that if Congress had indexed the retirement age of 65 to increases of life expectancy when it implemented these programs in 1935, people would not be eligible today for these entitlements until they reached their middle 70s. So since the national government simply cannot remain solvent by paying entitlements at this rate, we simply must increase the ages of eligibility.

But when addressing our budget deficits, there remains a huge issue that is almost never even mentioned that will go a long way in helping us regain fiscal solvency, and that is the federal ownership of land. Most people do not realize this, but today the federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, almost 30% of our country! This property is held as national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, Indian reservations and military reservations, and for the good of the country's economic health, this landowning should be reassessed.

Of course, no one is proposing to sell Yellowstone, Yosemite or any of our other national treasures or military reservations that are necessary for our security. But the federal government also owns huge tracts of forests, deserts, meadows, mountains and shore lands. It would be better for everyone if that ownership were significantly reduced. (And if it is Native American land, give it back to them and let them run it!)

What would happen if some of this land were to be sold to the private sector? In addition to the monies received from the sales, the privately held land would also generate property, sales and income taxes, all of which would reduce the government's financial deficits.

But the benefits would be much more than financial. Not only is the federal government the largest polluter of land in the country, it virtually never manages property nearly as well as people do in the private sector. Why? Today the Bureau of Land Management, for example, leases out public grazing lands at artificially low rates to politically powerful people, who, in turn, have no incentive to keep from overgrazing it.

Put yourself in their place. If you had a lease to graze your cattle on government land for five years, you would want to maximize your short-term revenues as much as you could, without consideration of what it might do to the land. So you would tend to overgraze it. But if you were the owner, you would have incentives to husband the land, because if you didn't, it would decrease in utility and value.

As another example, in England many trout streams have been privatized, which means that, among other things, the owners can sue anyone who pollutes them upstream. As a result, the property is carefully husbanded, because a clean, beautiful and natural stream full of trout is more valuable for bringing in visitors and people who fish than one that is less so. Other examples are abundant, particularly in Africa with their wild animals.

That is not at all to say that the government should not have laws regarding things like pollution. The biggest example of that would be drilling for oil. It should mostly be allowed, but anyone drilling anywhere should first be required to post a significant bond with a financially strong and stable company that will be forced to pay for the cleanup and other ramifications of every drop of oil that is spilled. That way the bonding company will rigorously supervise all of the drilling, because its own money would be at stake.

So there is a better way. Are we watching? Do we care? If so, please join me in writing a letter to your member of Congress demanding that he or she take steps that will actually fix these problems. As we have said before, it is our government, and if it isn't working, it is nobody's fault but our own.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Political correctness pulls us apart - by Judge Jim Gray

It's A Gray Area: Political correctness pulls us apart - by Judge Jim Gray

A feeling of resentment by many minority groups smolders beneath the surface of some of our country's laws.

These minorities feel relegated into second-class citizenship. Why?

Because some of our laws appear to make some groups more important or worthy of protection than others.

For example, it is certainly true that a nation's laws are a statement of its values and what it holds dear. So when we pass laws about "hate crimes," we are dictating values that, not only do we not condone assaults based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender or otherwise, but that we will prosecute them.

It is the "otherwise" part that gets us into trouble. What people do not focus on is that this approach also divides us and pulls us apart. Why?

Because when one minority group gets recognized as being so "special" that it warrants a law expressly for its protection, that means that it is frequently and almost inescapably seen as denigrating other minority groups that have not been so designated.

Thus, although it may be counter-intuitive, we should repeal all "hate crime" laws. Our laws should not put one group into competition with another on the issue of who is more special, important or vulnerable.

Simply stated, things like an assault and battery should be crimes regardless of the identity of the victim, and those crimes should be prosecuted. Then only after the perpetrator has been convicted, the particular circumstances in that individual case — including possible situations of hate and prejudice — should be explored and argued to the judge for an appropriate sentence.

All cases are unique in some fashion, and basically this approach is designed to deal well and appropriately with each of them.

Yes, to assault a person who is black, Hispanic, gay, elderly, or a fan of the San Francisco Giants simply because of that condition is reprehensible, and the perpetrator should be punished. But is that assault necessarily worse than if the victim were to be Asian, Italian, straight, young, or a fan of the Boston Red Sox? I hope the answer to that question is plain. Besides, we can't continue to address every bad situation by simply passing another law.

Fundamentally we must understand that we will never run out of minority groups that could be victimized, so why should we go down that road at all? This approach simply pulls us apart at the exact time that we so badly need to be drawn together.

This situation is similar to the voters passing initiatives to fund specific good causes like research into stem cells or the causes of cancer or AIDS. Of course, those causes are noble, but are they inherently more so than Parkinson's Disease, sickle cell anemia or alcoholism?

To the degree reasonably possible all that should be funded, but if breast cancer — which usually afflicts women — is publicly funded, that often alienates many men who are fearful of testicular cancer. And since, as I understand it, sickle cell anemia more often affects the African-American community, not publicly funding research into its cause can be seen as an affront to those people. Is that what we want to do?

We run into the same problem with our state holidays. Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man who was pivotal to the history of our country and the world. To have a holiday to honor him and what he represents is certainly a good thing. But that was almost immediately seen as a slight to Hispanics, who obviously also have great men and women equally worthy of being honored with a holiday.

So since the Hispanic community is expanding in political power, it did not take too long for the California Legislature to address that problem by making Cesar Chavez's birthday a public holiday. Personally I agree with honoring Cesar Chavez, and actually met and did some work for him when I was at USC Law School.

But where will it end? There certainly are also heroes from other minority groups that are seen as equally worthy, so why should those groups be slighted?

Nowadays California courts close for 12 state holidays in the calendar year. While I was a sitting judge, I certainly appreciated the time off, but I always saw it as a situation that short-changed people in the private sector.

Today, our paid state holidays include the birthdays of Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, as well as the day of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.

But since having paid holidays is expensive and in many ways divisive, maybe our holidays should be more generic. We could still have paid public holidays for things like Presidents' Day, Veteran's Day, Independence Day and Thanksgiving, and then leave the celebration of the many worthy individual heroes in our society to the private world.

Without a doubt all of these are certainly sensitive areas, but we must understand that we will never run out of worthy victim groups to protect, noble causes to research and heroic people to celebrate. And the problem is that each time we pick one person or group, we divide ourselves that much more from each other.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Judge works to legalize marijuana - by DAVID WHITING

There are times when our convictions take us places we never wanted to go.

With the smell of marijuana wafting into the Anaheim Convention Center during last year's Know Your Rights Expo, an unlikely speaker walks past bongs, pipes and buxom women dressed as nurses.

Judge Jim Gray's office reveals a busy man, in spite of his having retired as a judge. Gray is a leader in the fight to legalize marijuana, has written a book, is an avid speaker, and now is heading the fight for the proposition on the next ballot. www.judgejimgray.com

ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Nearly everyone in the crowd wears T-shirts and jeans. The "nurses" hawk bargain-basement prices for medicinal marijuana cards.

The speaker, retired Superior Court Judge Jim Gray wears a blue blazer, light slacks and a button-down shirt as he takes the stage. He is there to advocate legalizing marijuana, or as he puts it, "ending prohibition on illicit drugs."

I expect wild applause. After all, Gray once sentenced dozens to prison for selling drugs.

Instead, the retired judge is met with criticism for supporting legalization, particularly from underground marijuana growers interested in protecting their incomes. Gray's unfazed. He's suffered worse.

Nearly 20 years ago, Gray stood on the steps of the Orange County Courthouse and called for an end to the war on drugs. It was a bold and brave move. Gray's family, even his father – a venerable federal judge who died shortly before his son's speech – strongly advised against taking a public stand.

But Gray decided to move forward with what he believes to be his duty. As he saw it, billions of tax dollars and tens of thousands of lives were at stake.

Now, as the 2012 election less than 18 months away, Gray smells victory.

•••

Let's clear the air about one thing. Does the judge inhale?

Gray says he's never taken an illicit drug. I believe him. After asking the question different ways, I got a taste of the judge's tone with repeat offenders.

Steely impatience.

Gray says his drug of choice is a glass of wine at dinner. Alcohol, he says, is far worse than marijuana.

But the retired judge, now a private mediator for ADR Services, softens as his dog, Devon, a golden lab, wags his tail.

Recalling his first public statements against the drug war, Gray offers, "Dad didn't want me to hurt myself."

Gray knew his public stance meant he would never receive an appointment above superior court judge, that he would be ostracized, that he might face recall, that he could receive death threats.

But, sworn to uphold the law, Gray concluded that he and thousands of other judges were sending people to prison for no good reason.

"I felt then as I do now, that drug prohibition is the biggest failed policy in the United States, second only to slavery."

•••

When discussing the war on drugs, Gray has the bearing of a military man. At one point, he tells me he wrote to President Obama offering his services, stating, "I know how to give orders and I know how to take orders."

After living in a fraternity and graduating UCLA in 1966, Gray served two years in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. Then he joined the Navy. He is careful to acknowledge that he volunteered, in part, to control his destiny during a draft.

Such frankness is typical. So is an ability to exist and even thrive in seemingly contradictory worlds.

In 1970, a month before being sent to Vietnam where he patrolled rivers, the former ROTC officer let his superiors know he was planning to march in an anti-war rally. They told him not to wear his uniform.

The warning was unnecessary. Gray would never dream of such a thing. He's a by-the-book guy.

In the Navy, Gray served in JAG Corps. He went on to become a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and, in 1983, was appointed to the bench by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian. As a municipal judge, he was exposed to the broader legal and social problems of alcoholics. It was an awakening.

Before taking the courthouse steps in 1992, Gray read legal briefs to ensure that condemning drug laws wouldn't affect his cases. He talked to the chief superior court judge and conferred with the state judicial ethics panel (it split).

Since then, Gray says, the war on drugs has accomplished nothing. In fact, he believes we're worse off today than, say, five years ago.

At the Anaheim Convention Center last August, he spoke publicly in favor of Proposition 19, the state initiative to legalize marijuana that was defeated in November. But, typically, Gray also was blunt about the proposal's inadequacies.

Working with others, particularly Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, he is crafting an improved proposal for the 2012 November election.

•••

Politics is nothing new for Gray. In 1998, he ran as a Republican for Congress. In 2004, he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian, mostly to have his point of view heard.

In his battle to end the drug war, Gray has cataloged more than 400 television and radio shows and public forums. And he's written a book, "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It."

But he also has other passions. First is family. He and his wife have four children, including a son, Ky, who Gray adopted as a 13-month old in Vietnam. Gray also continues his work with Peer Court, a teen diversion program he helped establish.

He's also a serious musician. In September, Vanguard University students will perform Gray's compositions, a show called "Americans All." And he just finished organizing the May 22 Heritage Music Festival to bring bluegrass and folk music to Orange County.

But his fight with drug laws is never far. If California legalizes marijuana, he believes other states will follow. He predicts that the multi-billion dollar bureaucracy that fights the drug war will implode.

If so, he says illicit drugs will be treated like alcohol. Dealers will disappear, the prison population will plummet and there will be tax dollars available for substance abuse treatment.

It may not be the future his father foresaw. But Gray moves forward with love. When Gray first became a judge, his father was the man who swore him in.

To his dying day, the aging federal judge said it was his proudest moment.

David Whiting's column appears four days a week; dwhiting@ocregister.com.


JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Regulate marijuana like wine - by Judge Jim Gray

In my public discussions about our nation's failed and hopeless policy of marijuana prohibition, I often say that Proposition 19 actually won the election last November, but we will simply be delaying implementation for two years.

I say that for two reasons. First, Proposition 19 was so successful in legitimizing the discussion about the failure of marijuana prohibition both statewide and nationwide, and even worldwide, that people for the first time have actually started to think seriously about the issue. And that is really all we need, because what we are doing today simply doesn't make sense.

Second, in some of my debates on Proposition 19, numbers of people, including several chiefs of police, stated publicly that they had no problem treating marijuana like alcohol, but they did not like some specific provisions of Proposition 19 and therefore opposed it. Many voters felt exactly the same way.

So since November, quite a few people involved in marijuana drug law reform have been working to craft a new initiative, the Regulate Marijuana like Wine Act of 2012, and its basic provisions are as follows:

All California laws that prohibit marijuana possession, use, sales, distribution, cultivation, etc. by people who are 21 and older would be repealed, except for those pertaining to driving a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana; using or being impaired by marijuana in public or in the workplace; the use, possession, sales, etc. of marijuana by people younger than 21; providing, transferring or selling marijuana to a person younger than 21; or any laws or regulations regarding medical marijuana as set forth by Proposition 215 and its related statutes. All of those laws and regulations would expressly remain in effect.

The proposal then breaks down what we now call marijuana into two classifications. The first is marijuana with a THC or "potency" level of 3% or higher, which would be governed by regulations, taxes and fees that use the wine industry as a model. But, importantly enough, the act would not permit state, county or city governments to use their taxing, zoning or licensing authority as a means to thwart the provisions of the initiative, unless those regulations would also be applicable to the wine industry.

Marijuana with a THC level of less than 3%. would be classified as hemp, and would be governed by the same regulations, taxes and fees that use the cotton industry as a model. Of course the hemp industry goes back thousands of years, such that in ancient Greek the word for "canvas" was the same word as "cannabis," or marijuana. Similarly, the plantations owned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many other planters grew large crops of hemp, which were used for things like rope, gunny sacks and coarse cloth.

Since the colonial period the uses of hemp have been greatly expanded. For example, today manufacturers can get four times the amount of paper pulp from an acre of hemp as they can from an acre of trees. Furthermore, the hemp crop can be raised in one season of about eight months, while it takes about 20 years to grow the trees. This means that the paper pulp industry in the northwest United States could be reclaimed, along with all of the jobs, revenues and taxes that this would entail.

The proposal would also prohibit all commercial advertising of the sales, distribution and use of marijuana, except for medical marijuana and products made from industrial hemp. This would go a long way in taking the glamour out of marijuana, especially for children.

After Holland decriminalized marijuana back in the 1970s, its minister of health stated that they had only half the marijuana usage per capita in their country as we do in ours — for both adults and for teenagers! And he went on to explain why by saying that "we have succeeded in making pot boring." A system in which marijuana is no longer sold illegally and also is not advertised commercially will achieve the same results.

Another main purpose of the initiative would be to deprive Mexican drug cartels, juvenile street gangs and other thugs of large amounts of money, while at the same time providing significant amounts of tax revenues to city, county and state governments to use for things like fixing potholes and educating children.

In addition, many medical and legal professionals believe that in many ways marijuana is actually less harmful than my drug of choice, alcohol. So if adults choose to use marijuana instead of alcohol, the governments, as a matter of freedom and liberty, should not be able to prohibit them from doing so.

Yes, the use, possession, growing and sale of marijuana and hemp would still be illegal under federal law, and the proposal recognizes that fact. But if the federal government still wants to enforce its laws of marijuana prohibition it will be forced to do so alone, because the proposal would prohibit anyone working for or contracting with any of our state, county or city governments from cooperating with any such investigations, prosecutions, punishments or forfeitures, as long as the subjects were acting within the provisions of the proposal.

So what are your thoughts? This proposal is still only in draft form, so give it some consideration. We would both appreciate and benefit from your suggestions and comments.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

An open letter to Rep. John Campbell - by Judge Jim Gray

As was discussed in this column on March 20, the immigration system in our country is not hard to repair, but the problem is that neither many Republicans nor Democrats actually want to do so. Why is that? Because many powerful Republicans want the continuing source of cheap labor, and many powerful Democrats want people to continue to come here illegally with the expectation that eventually they will vote for Democrats.

Of course this dysfunctional system has caused such frustration that states like Utah and Arizona have been forced to take measures into their own hands — and who can really blame them? Thus it is the purpose of this letter to motivate you, as the member of Congress in this area, to help to install a workable system. I know this is an emotionally sensitive and complex area, to say the least, and that there are political risks for even discussing it, so I am going to assist you by proposing a program which can serve as a model.

The first thing to do, as set forth more fully in the prior column, is to establish a fool-proof identification card for guest workers — call it an "Orange Card" — and then prosecute any employer who hires or continues to employ anyone who does not have proper identification showing they are here legally. This, along with disqualifying people who are here illegally from receiving such things as welfare payments, should go a long way effectively to closing our borders.

Why? Because most people come to this country to work, and if they cannot find or maintain employment, they will probably go elsewhere.

But secondly, and fully as critically, we must at the same time publish guidelines about a fair and equitable course of action that will be followed for people already in our country illegally. With some justification, many people see even a discussion of this issue as a direct attack upon them personally.

Why? Because this is not just a "close to home" issue, it actually is home!

Of course drawing up fair and effective guidelines is not easily done, but here is my attempt.

First, the burden should be on the federal government to show why people who can prove they have been in this country illegally but continuously for 15 or more years should not be offered citizenship. In this regard, their employment history, criminal record, if any, and general citizenship, etc., should all be considered.

Second, the burden should be on the federal government to show why all people who have been in this country illegally but continuously for 10 to 15 years should not be given a green card, or resident alien status, using the same criteria.

And finally those people who have been here illegally for less than five years should be deported, but given the opportunity to apply for an "Orange" or Green card.

A further requirement would be that all people who are here illegally must register with the federal government within the next six months, and anyone who does not so register will both be deported and permanently barred from becoming a citizen.

A final part of this program would be for Congress to interpret the clause of the 14th Amendment stating that one must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of our country, such that at least one parent of a child must be a citizen before that child can become a citizen simply by virtue of birth. But if a child is born to a parent who is here legally, that child shall automatically become a citizen if that parent becomes a citizen within five years after that birth.

Fundamentally the decision of who comes to our country, and how long they stay, should be made by our country. It should not be made by others who are either violating our laws, or, through some coincidence, happen to give birth to a child while within our borders. Of course, sometimes it is not a coincidence, as witnessed by a recent news story about numbers of pregnant Chinese women who came illegally into our country expressly so that their babies could become citizens. Allowing this situation to continue is simply crazy.

The supposed system that is in effect today is inflicting needless hardship and even danger upon hundreds of thousands of good people, and it should have been fixed decades ago. Of course, as stated above, the new program must both be fairly and equitably conceived and administered, such that people be willing to trust the government and come forward to register and apply for the benefits of citizenship or resident alien status.

But at the same time, the law must state that we will never again have a similar program unless passed by Congress with a two-thirds majority vote. That way, everyone will realize that this opportunity will probably never be repeated.

Rep. John Campbell (R-Newport Beach), this issue is important enough for us to say to you, gently but firmly, that if you don't show strong leadership and help us resolve this longstanding problem, we will fine and elect someone else who will.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.