Judge James D. Humphrey's Own Holocaust

Dan wrote his first blog since leaving Dearborn County on October 27, 2011. That has already been posted. He continued to write as his journey took him to the RDC for over 4 weeks. This is a collection of the blogs that he wrote, during November, 2011, while at the RDC. That is where everyone in the prison system starts out to be classified for their permanent placement.

Judge James. D. Humphrey’s Own Holocaust – Written around 11/4/11
Ironically, one of the first books I read in prison was The First Amendment, The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America by Nat Hentoff. In reading the book, I discovered that it appears Judge James D. Humphrey believes his family’s emotions, which were allegedly upset due to my verbose blogging about the family court system containing already public information, have a much greater entitlement to protection than the survivors of Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. As a judge, he was well aware of the First Amendment, is required to uphold it, and most certainly knew about one of the most controversial First Amendment cases in U.S. history, the Village of Skokie v. the National Socialist Party of America.
In 1977, the Chicago-based National Socialist Party of America focused on organizing demonstrations in areas with high Jewish populations. The Nazis set their sights on a village on the outskirts of Chicago named Skokie. The village, whose population of 70,000 people consisted of 45,500 Jews, 7,000 of which were Holocaust survivors, obtained a circuit court injunction prohibiting the Nazi demonstration. The village also passed an ordinance requiring that public assemblies consisting of over 50 people were required to purchase a $350,000 insurance policy to cover any potential public liability and damages. The cost of such a policy would be up to $900 depending on the risk. It was up to the prospective demonstrators to find an underwriter willing to insure the groups and even then the village council had the power to deny a permit for a demonstration if they felt the proposed assembly might create a “breach of the peace.” The village also banned public demonstrations by members of political parties wearing military-style uniforms. In addition, the village banned demonstrations that “incite violence, hatred, abuse, or hostility toward a person or group of persons by reason or reference to religious, racial, ethnic, national, or religious affiliation.” Though not named directly in the ordinance, the ordinance was aimed at prohibiting any future Nazi demonstrations.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ definition of the most basic principle of the Constitution was the protection of all free thought, including thought we hate. In a controversial decision, the ACLU represented the Nazis because they agreed with the opinion of Justice Holmes and found the actions of the Village of Skokie to be unconstitutional. The decision of the ACLU to represent the Nazi organization caused a 15% - 20% drop in the ACLU’s national membership but the decision was one that the ACLU and its executive director, Aryeh Neier, felt was necessary to protect the rights of all citizens.
“As a Jew, and a refugee from Nazi Germany, I have strong personal reasons for finding Nazis repugnant. Freedom of speech protects my right to denounce Nazis with all the vehemence I think proper. Despite my hatred of their doctrine, I realize that it is in my best interest to defend their right to preach it.” Those were the sentiments of ACLU executive director Aryeh Neier. Neier felt passionately about protecting the rights of a Nazi organization that applauded Adolf Hitler’s efforts to exterminate Neier’s own people.
The Illinois Supreme Court tackled the issues pertaining to the Nazis’ right to demonstrate. The Court stated, “It is firmly settled that under our constitution the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.” As for the argument that the public display of the swastika represents “fighting words” the Court ruled, we do not doubt that the sight of this symbol is abhorrent to the Jewish citizens of Skoki and that the survivors of the Nazi persecutions, tormented by their recollections, may have strong feelings regarding its display. Yet…courts have consistently refused to ban speech on the possibility of unlawful conduct by those opposed to the speaker’s philosophy… It has become patent that a hostile audience is not a basis for restraining otherwise legal First Amendment activity.”
In February 1978, Federal District Judge Bernard M. Decker of Chicago struck down Skokie’s assembly ordinance as unconstitutional. Judge Decker stated the village of Skokie has “no power to prevent [the Nationalist Socialist Party] from stating [its] political philosophy including [its] opinions of black and Jewish people, however obnoxious and reprehensible that philosophy may be.” Judge Decker went on to say, “In resolving this case in favor of the plaintiffs, the court is acutely aware of doctrines of racial and religious hatred.” In terms of the First Amendment, “it is better to allow those who preach racial hate to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than [for us to] be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear…The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy even of the hateful doctrines espoused by the plaintiffs without abandoning its commitment to freedom of speech and assembly is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country.”
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals sustained Judge Decker’s findings while taking troubling note of the many survivors of the Holocaust in Skokie, people with memories of family members being thrown into trains on the way to death camps. One Skokie resident had told of seeing his mother hurled on top of a mass of bodies in a hole in the ground and buried alive. The Court of Appeals stated it would be “grossly insensitive to deny, as we do not, that the proposed demonstration would seriously disturb, emotionally and mentally, at least some and probably many of the village’s residents.” But if the First Amendment rights “are to remain vital to all, they must protect not only those society deems acceptable, but also those whose ideas it quite justifiable rejects and despises.” The United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case. A few years later and a couple hundred miles away, a young James D. Humphrey would study First Amendment law at Indiana University in the early eighties where I’m certain he learned about one of the most controversial First Amendment cases in U.S. history.
Judge James D. Humphrey and Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard are well aware that the First Amendment protects a person’s ability, as horrific as it may be, to publicly praise the practices of Adolf Hitler in Hitler’s quest to exterminate all people of the Jewish faith from the face of the earth; however they claimed the First Amendment did not protect my harsh criticisms of Judge Humphrey. Prosecutor Negangard told the jury I used “fighting words.” In Gooding v. Wilson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brenan defined “fighting words: as words that “have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually the remark is addressed.” Put simply, Prosecutor Negangard accused me of typing words from my laptop that would “have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by” Judge James D. Humphrey. But Judge Humphrey wasn’t tormented by memories of death camps, of family members being buried alive; he suffered emotional hardships because I blogged about public officials, which was sufficient to jail me for my speech. Judge Humphrey was worried about his home address being on my website. Unfortunately Judge Humphries home address is a public record because he lacks the legal acumen to place his home in a trust.
Unfortunately this isn’t a joke and my situation is as unbelievable and outrageous as it appears. The First Freedom makes no mention of anyone ever being jailed for non-threatening writings that were not in violation of any specific law or act. Now it’s time for the appellate process and I have very little faith in the high courts of the State of Indiana. To rule against Negangard and Humphrey would also be a condemnation of the duo’s malicious desecration of the law and the United States Constitution. It would be a move that Judge Brian Hill was unwilling to do or lacked the backbone to do as he gave me a five year prison sentence for peacefully voicing my concerns about the family court system from a computer, while Nazis are free to march into Jewish communities and praise Hitler for trying to exterminate an entire ethnic group. If or when the high courts of Indiana rule against me, my case will go through the same court that protected the rights of Nazi demonstrators and it will demonstrate the repressive and ignorant practices of the Indiana Court System. And just a reminder to the taxpayers of Dearborn County, Indiana, as long as the State of Indiana continues to argue that my speech presents a much greater danger than a Nazi rally in a village full of Holocaust survivors it will only add to the tens of thousands of Dearborn County tax dollars that have been wasted on the witch hunt of Dan Brewington’s internet writings.
Finally, love me or hate me, I am far from finished concerning my blogging and my refusal to submit to the authority of elected criminals.
Thanks for the ongoing support and keep checking back for updates.
Feel free to contact the Brewington family at contactdanbrewington@gmail.com