8 20 256 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/b9d2a997244edac4ac1f8a89e35d67d8.jpg 73769b513e3e0baf9ba48e72afc153d5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Kowalewski, Carolyn Text Any textual data included in the document Letters Dear Editor, Dr. Thomas Johnson’s reiteration of his belief that THE BULLET is “anything but an example of a free press” deserves comment. His letter of January 31 makes essentially two assertions: first, that the administration, through the Board of Publications, censors THE BULLET; second, that the MWC newspaper should correct this situation by declaring its financial independence by refusing to accept any of the student activity fee and funding itself solely by advertising. This first view is patently untrue, and the second is unrealistic. Dr. Johnson does not seem to understand the role and purpose of the MWC Board of Publications. First, the Board is neither a “school administrative body” nor an “official element of the administration,” as Dr. Johnson would have us believe. The Board is composed of 15 members: the editors, business managers and the advisors of THE BULLET, BATTLEFIELD, and AUBADE, the SA Vice President, two students and one faculty member-at-large, the Comptroller, and the Director of Information Services. As a simple head count will reveal, nine members of the Board are students, three are members of the faculty, one is the editor of The Free Lance-Star and only two are members of the administration. Since most decisions of the Board require no more than a simple majority, it is clear that the Board is not a “school administrative body.” Secondly, Dr. Johnson seems to be under the mistaken impression that the Board of Publication grants THE BULLET its funding. The Board only recommends a proposed budget for the newspaper to the SA Senate Finance Committee; it is Finance, not the Board of Publications, that decides what portion of the student activities fee THE BULLET will receive each year. Needless to say, the Senate Finance Committee is composed exclusively of students and is presided over a chairman who is elected by the campus-at-large. Thirdly, Dr. Johnson is wrong to claim that THE BULLET is “censored” by the Publication Board. On the contrary, The Handbook comes closer to the truth when it states that the Board “guarantees editorial freedom for the student publications to maintain their integrity of purpose as vehicles for free inquiry and free expression.” The Board meets infrequently and never sees the layout of the BULLET prior to publication. Its Constitution does not grant it the power to veto any piece of copy for any reason. How then, may it censor? Dr. Johnson suggests that THE BULLET will never be a free press until it gains its revenue solely from “advertisers, purchasers or contributors.” As an example of such a “free press,” Dr. Johnson cites PROMETHEUS, which receives no MWC funding at all. If Prometheus can do it, then why can’t THE BULLET, asks Dr. Johnson. The absurdity of this question is underscored by a brief comparison of the two publications. PROMETHEUS prints every two weeks; the Bullet goes to press weekly. PROMETHUES prints 500 copies per issue; THE BULLET prints 3000. A standard 12-page issue of PROMETHUES costs $100; a four page BULLET costs $316; a six-page paper costs $473; an eight-page paper costs $580; a ten-page paper costs $770. One page of PROMETHEUS is 7” x 8 ½” as compared to the BULLET’S 15” x 22 ½”. In other words, an entire 12-page issue of PROMETHEUS would almost fit on two pages of the BULLET. As Fate would have it, the BULLET is presently an example of a free press, even by Dr. Johnson’s strict definition. Due to the incompetence of THE BULLET’S former business manager, the paper has completely exhausted its Finance Committee allotment for the year and is now being supported solely by advertising revenue. An intensive ad campaign has increased advertising revenue by 700 percent since the beginning of the semester (from six ads per issue to 42. But even with this intensive effort, the BULLET still had a $140 deficit for last week’s issue. There is no stronger testimony to the absurdity of Dr. Johnson’s position that THE BULLET should finance itself solely by “advertisers, purchasers or contributors.” Once again, Dr. Johnson idealism has blinded him to the real world. Dr. Johnson claims that the administration censors our campus newspaper. But if this is true, then how does THE BULLET manage to print such pieces as “Blame Enough For All” in the November 11, 1977 issue. Helen McFalls’ December 8 editorial on Kathy Mayer, and Elliott Wentz’s article on the Pam Burrows Honor Trial? Why are Gary Webb (who termed the “Westmoreland Four” trial a “Kangaroo Court”) and Thomas Vandever (who wrote that this year’s DVIR was “truly a war criminal”) both still holding positions of importance on the staff of the newspaper? The BULLET IS an example of a free press, and they are proof. Michael Mello Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letters Subject The topic of the resource College student newspapers and periodicals Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978- 02-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Bullet Description An account of the resource Michael Mello's response to Dr. Thomas Johnson's belief that The Bullet is no an example of a free press. He believes it to be censored by the Board of Publications. https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/814f0d8e02cb55f57ccdebc8a2b84ac4.jpg f23c77535c4a51e941eee9ede939878d https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/30e01863363776e4c2d3c8abf4c97c54.jpg bd2fe399ae9e66f4159098b0b7c2cbe5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Dear Editor: Sue Peters made several astute observations in her editorial "The Hopeless Quest for Student Power" (October 18, 1977). She proved that "economic force will not be effective in our quest for authority"; her rejection of violence is equally valid. However, I must disagree with the basic these of her piece: that having a student on the Board of Visitors would not enhance our position vis-a-vis the administration. Miss Peter's statement that "power is not totally in the hands of the administration" is incorrect. The deans of the college are the administrators that most directly affect our lives, but they are elected by the President: a B.O.V resolution of February 8, 1975 states that "the President shall be the chief executive, administrative, and academic officer of the College, and as such he hereby is authorized, directed and empowered to appoint and employ, upon such terms as he shall think best, such administrative and staff personnel as he shall deem proper- to fix their duties and functions, and to discharge and such appointee or employee." So it would seem, at first glance, that the President is the real source of power here; this is not the case, however. He exercises his powers on "behalf of the Rector and Visitors of Mary Washington College." The President himself is thus only a conduit of power: it is the Board which, according to Section 23-91.40 of the Code of Virginia, has the power to "control and expend the funds of the College... make all needful rules and regulations... appoint the President... and all teachers, and fix their salaries." And yet even the Board is not the final reservoir of campus power. Section 23-91.34 of the Code of Virginia states that the B.O.V. is "under the control of the General Assembly." The General Assembly created the Board in 1972; it defined its role and powers; it can modify that role anytime it sees fit to do so. THAT is where the final source of power is, not in Fredericksburg at all, but rather, in Richmond. There presently exists a student organization which has as its purpose the presentation of M.W.C. student views to the General Assembly: the Student Lobby. The Lobby has been extremely active since it was founded; moreover, it has met with much success in its efforts. Recall the HB547 was defeated last year. The specific concept of student representation of the B.O.V. has had its advocates some delegates in the Assembly Representative Ira Lechner introduced a Bill (HB2044) on January 24 of this year, which would have put a student on the Board of all state-supported colleges and universities. The bill provided that "the student member shall have the same powers and duties and shall be subject to the same liabilities as any other member of the Board." The bill was defeated, but perhaps if the entire network of state student lobbies concerted their efforts (as they successfully did with HB547), a similar proposal might fare better in the future. Certainly it seems incorrect to say that "there is no reason to bring up the possibilities of student representation," as Miss Peters did. She further states that "power is never given, it must be taken." This is certainly true; none will voluntarily surrender power. But it is for this very reason that we must petition the General Assembly. The administration is not likely to give us power parity with themselves; nor is the Board. So we must raise our sights higher and take our case to the delegates in Richmond. They are the only ones who might change the power relationship here by putting a student on the B.O.V. So the possibility of getting a student on the Board, is not as Miss Peters suggests, impossible. But the question still remains: is it desirable to have a student on that body? She thinks not: "the final goal is power, specifically the power to make necessary changes in our academic environment without capricious veto by the administration. One student on a large Board of Visitors would hardly obtain this power...it would bring us no closer to the final goal of self-determination." I disagree. Having a student on the highest operational governing body of the school would greatly increase our position. It would do so in two ways. Firstly, it would guarantee that at least one student view would be heard; at present, it is too easy for the Board to simply shun student opinions (particularly during deliberation). The infrequent, limited output we now have with that body which so affects our everyday lives can be no substitute for the guaranteed continuous student input that a student member of the B.O.V. would provide. This would give us power; not the naked, coercive power of the mob, but rather the power of democracy, the power to actively take part in the decisions which affect us. When one group that has been previously totally subservient to another is allowed into the councils of its masters as co-equal, it has gained power. Secondly, a program like that proposed by Delegate Lechner would give the student member full voting privileges. There are presently 12 members on the Board; a student on the body could be the tie-breaking vote. True, we would only compose 1/3 of the total vote; but our power would still be increased from what it is now. To take an analogous example blacks compose only 11% of the population in the U.S., yet their acquisition of the vote certainly gave them increased power. Of course this principle followed by its extreme would give the students about 85% of the vote on the Board, faculty about 10% and administration about 5%. But that is a different issue altogether. Having one student on the B.O.V. would not instantly give us all that we want; it would not give us "self-determination." But it certainly would be a step in that direction. At the very least, it would give us a real voice on the largest conduit of campus power. The thing about Miss Peter's editorial that bothered me the most was that she offered no alternatives of her own. Until something better is suggested, I shall continue to support the principles embodied in HB2044. Respectfully, Michael Mello Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Perrigan, Christina Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letters Subject The topic of the resource Student admittance on the Board of Visitors Description An account of the resource A letter to the editor in response to a previously written article regarding Mary Washington College students' struggles for more power. Specifically addressing the significance of students being members of the Board of Visitors. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mello, Michael A. "Letters". Mary Washington College Bullet, Tuesday, November 1, 1977, Michael A. Mello Papers, 1957 - 2008, Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1977-11-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 JPG 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Mary Washington Bullet Mary Washington College Michael Mello student activism Student Government https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/d1ade5530d7d23b076f06cf44bedb414.jpg 78724736fd66ee4a328cfa24fc072e34 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/f245068acaef7ec3325e554eca7c8320.jpg 29660a40c9335b998d38df5948553d7b https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/5bc3180fe96899061c544da32a60f7b1.jpg 56889b10c935d904de6ad44590cc3ecd https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/fa2d1eb7e6e59d8edb0ce58e9bc88626.jpg 3f4c213947e17e2430b70bc7fd02dee5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Dear Editor: Recently, both THE BULLET and PROMETHEUS have printed articles and letters concerning injustices in the Honor System and violations of the S.A. Constitution. Serious questions were raised by the two publications-questions which should cause all MWC students to become concerned about the effectiveness of their elected representatives. Mary Washington students have been denied the benefit of an honest and open discussion of the issues; however, for neither S.A. President Kathy Mayer nor Honor Council President Janet de la Concepcion has responded publicly to the changes leveled against them. Does silence imply affirmation? If Ms. Mayer does not feel she is violating the S.A. Constitution by holding office while taking only 10 hours of classes (instead of the 12 required under Article IV, Section 4 of the S.A. Constitution, which states that a member of Executive Cabinet must be a full-time student) she should respond in either THE BULLET or PROMETHEUS. If Ms. de la Concepcion does not believe that under her leadership the Honor Council has been prone to incompetence she should respond publicly. The students have a right to know. Gary Webb Editor: In Ms. Hayes’ recent editorial “MWC Honor-A Call for a Closer Look” (THE BULLET, November 15)she began by discussing the ethics of journalism. Not trying to be picky, but if Ms. Hayes were exercising ethical journalism, she should have submitted the editorial about my article to the publication in which it was printed, Beyond ethics, a further reason why she should not have stated her ideas in The BULLET is that probably many people who read THE BULLET did not see my article at all. PROMETHEUS puts out about 500 copies per issue, allowing for “passing around” of any particular copy. Far less than one half the students of MWC actually saw my article in print. To this end, I have received many requests for a reprint of my article as a result of Ms. Hayes’ editorial. I feel that I have suffered an injustice at the hands of THE BULLET through their decision not to print my article, and at the same time to comment upon it. To help clear up any misinterpretations of my expose, I respectfully request that THE BULLET reprint my article “Recent Honor Trial Shows Need for Changes” in full so that everyone may judge my ideas for himself. In Ms. Hayes’ editorial she was able to pick out of context anything she thought significant. Speaking in Ms. Hayes terms, she has put a “slant” on the issue. Ms. Hayes’ assumption “…the intent of the article was to put under public scrutiny the names of our S.A. and Honor Council President ,” misses the mark. The article was, as stated, to inform students, and since the Honor Council President is so wrapped up in anything the Honor Council does, it is only natural that her name and actions by mentioned due to the fact that she is an Please see page three Letters (Con.) S.A. official with much power and influence. And, as Michael Mello pointed out in his Letter to the Editor of two weeks ago, the accuser “… should have known better.” These reasons do not even mention the fact that any representative of citizens has already put himself on a pedestal to be examined. I merely informed the student body about the trial of Pam Burrows in the way in which I saw it. As to defacing the names of the Characters involved should my speculations be withheld in a free community? Ms. Hayes stated in her editorial that my editorial style article was inappropriate, because a news-type article on the trials had not first been published. My article states that there should be provisions made for publishing details of all trials: “An open, public approach to the Honor and Judicial processes would serve as a check on the system and it’s implementers.” Outside the college community in courts of law, reporters are allowed to be present at most trials, and to report the details from them. The public has a right to know these details, and the same situation applies to our trial system. Ms. Hayes questioned this application to trials at MWC: “Doesn’t the accuser, as well as the accused have any say as to how the contents of the trials are distributed?” My answer to this question is that neither person has a right to decide what neither person has a right to decide what will be published. The details of the trials by right belong to the public-this is a practice entrenched in the Judicial System of the United States of America. If a person has put himself in a conspicuous enough position to warrant a trial or indeed if the person has committed an offense, the public must know who he is so that proper treatment may be affected. As for the accuser, he or she is standing up for the cherished (and legal) Judicial System: thus what possible justifiable reason could an accuser have for remaining incognito? Due to the fact that many offenses on this campus are not set down as illegal in the outside world, (an example of this is the curfew law on campus), I propose that we not rely on the unfair system under which we now live, which was devised by legally unsophisticated students of the past. We should model our trial system after a functional and long-lived set of procedure such as the United States Judicial System. Elliot Wentz Please see page four Editor: Ms. Hayes seems to have misunderstood my letter (November 22, THE BULLET). She writes that “In a democratic society, we should all be treated as equals (referring to both the accuser and defendant before the bar of justice-MM) Right? Apparently not, says Mello ….. Doesn’t the accuser, as well as the accused , have any say as to how the contents of trials are distributed?” Yet in my letter, which appeared on the page next to that statement by Ms. Hayes, I wrote: “Personally, I don’t feel that a citizen acquires any additional rights by becoming an accuser. Of course, that same person doesn’t lose any rights either. The fact of the matter is that Kathy Mayer has the same right as Wentz: the right to present her side of the issue in the campus media, if Ms. Mayer chooses to waive this right and remain silent, then that is not the fault of either Mr. Wentz or PROMETHEUS.” Ms. Hayes is still troubled by the basic discrepancy in the MWC Honor Constitution, that no rights are granted to the accuser in Honor Trials.” In fact, Ms. Hayes feels that this situation is so serious that if should be “Corrected before further Honor Trials are held.” Yet, once again, Ms. Hayes fails to say what these “rights” should be. Merely to criticize without offering possible alternatives or solutions seems to me to be idle and unproductive. As Patricia Ringle, News Editor of THE BULLET wrote editorially earlier this year: “If you desire change, it is necessary to do something more than merely expect it to occur. It is only after you offer precise suggestions and more importantly action, that you will experience the benefits of knowing what you have contributed to the improvement. Michael Mello Editor’s Note: Perhaps Michael Mello would like to have a synopsis of my last Editor’s Note BULLET-Nov. 22) which was written in response to this Letter to the Editor concerning the editorial “M.W.C. Honor –A Call for a Closer Look.” In regard to Mello’s request for the rights of an accuser in an MWC honor Trial, hopefully the following statements will clear up any confusion. It was stated last week that “perhaps Ms. Mayer does not deserve any rights as the accuser.” Maybe she doesn’t. If Mello took the time to read to the end of this paragraph he would have realized that an observation was indeed made concerning the rights of the accuser. What bothered me was that the accuser has no say as to how the contents of an Honor Trials are distributed. Isn’t this right? Perhaps the word “rights” was ambiguous –“right” would have been a better choice. It certainly seems unfair that Elliot Wentz’s article “Recent Honor Trial Shows Need for Changes” appeared in PROMETHEUS before 90% of the campus had formed an opinion or even heard about the case. The definitive slant this article put on the case, as was stated in “MWC- A Call for a Closer Look,” seems unjust. The concern with the discrepancies pf the M.W.C. Honor Code and the leaders who are supposed to enforce it was the major thesis of my editorial. If the whole editorial was not taken as a criticism of the present Honor Code and the method in which Pam Burrow’s Honor Trial was brought to public attention, then the purpose was defeated. There is definitely a need of change in the present M.W.C. Honor Code. Thanks to Wentz’s article, these discrepancies are now being studied by the Honor Council. It is enlightening to know that the Code is presently being revised. A.F.H. Dear Editor: I was particularly struck by your recent comment (THE BULLET, Nov 15) that “a free and responsible press is a vital aspect of the environment. The point is inarguable” I would certainly agree. But THE BULLET is anything but an example of a free press. A free press does not operate at the forced expense of its readers, does not use public facilities free of charge as its office of operation and does not have a Board of Publication overseeing its operation. Each student at Mary Washington is required to pay a mandatory student fee, part of which is used to cover the costs of the publication of THE BULLET. The only revenue obtained voluntarily is that gained from advertisers. To force the citizens of any community (in this case the academic community) to pay the costs involved in the publication of any newspaper is to obliterate that newspaper’s position as an example of free press. THE BULLET also uses a room in a public building-Lee Hall-fir which no rent is paid. But taxpayers have been required to provide this facility and thus subsidize the operation of THE BULLET. Forcing any citizen to subsidize in any way a newspaper is to void its position as a free press publication. And to be overseen by a Board of Publications which has the potential of stopping publication (since it is the publisher) or censoring the newspaper is to also negate the possibility of having a free press. A comparable example would be the City Council of Fredericksburg to pass a law requiring all people who come to the Fredericksburg community to pay a mandatory citizen fee, part of which would be used to pay some of the cost of the publication of THE FREE LANCE-STAR. Also City Council would provide free facilities to the town newspaper in a city-owned building and set up a Board of Publications made up of members of the City Council and prominent citizens in order to oversee the operation of THE FREE LANCE-STAR. If such conditions existed one could readily see that Fredericksburg would be lacking a free press. Unlike THE BULLET, PROMETHEUS is an example of a free press since it gains the money for its operations from voluntary contributions or from advertisers, uses its own facilities in which to work (if these are the dorm rooms they have paid rent on and does not have a Board to oversee its operations. If you recognize the need for a free press in any environment then it is high time that drastic alterations be made in the operation of THE BULLET so that it may someday become a free press publication. Thomas L. Johnson Professor of Biology Editor’s Note: We recognize that Thomas Johnson is a firm supporter of the abolition of the student activities fees. We surmise that the above letter was precipitated by Johnson’s opinions on the subject. We also realize that we are subsidized by mandatory fees and state aid and that we occupy office space in ACL provided “free of charge.” However, to assert that THE BULLET is anything but an example of a free press” is not a clear statement. During the time of our work on THE BULLET, we have maintained an open channel for publication despite controversial positions that may have been involved. We have been functioning as a free press with no overt censorship. What reasons exactly, does Johnson hold for questioning our freedom of publication? Some might feel that THE BULLET is censored covertly or subtly. Though attempts at this type of censorship might occur, THE BULLET is not required to stop the presses or retract any issues we feel are appropriately covered. We welcome Johnson’s suggestions concerning the “drastic alterations” that he advises. We are interested in his criticism and intend to pursue the matter in order to clarify the issue for ourselves and our readers. The Editorial Board Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Copperthite, Ike Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letters Subject The topic of the resource Student newspapers and periodicals Description An account of the resource Letters from Mike Mellow concerning the Bullet newspaper and the PROMETHEUS newspaper and articles previously written in the Bullet. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mello, Michael A. "Letters". Mary Washington College Bullet, Thursday, December 8, 1977, Michael A. Mello Papers, 1957 - 2008, Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1977-12-08 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 4 JPG 300 dp Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Michael A. Mello PROMETHEUS The Bullet https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/836a05af9d889ad3cda1e094096d3b6c.jpg 50b772d92effeeb86a669ec505d05bf9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 2, 1983-1994 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Your article on attorneys representing death row inmates ("The Last Defense" by John Greenya in the November/December 1987 issue) is typical of the sentiment of our liberal legal establishment. The nine-page article makes no mention of the agony endured by survivors of murdered family or friends, nor, in the specific cases cited, to the evidence that persuaded the jurors to convict. But why should trivial considerations like murder victims and prosecutorial evidence be dis- cussed in an article seeking to convince its readers that the real victims are the con-demned murderers themselves. Attorney Mello, in gleefully explaining how he saved one Steve Booker from the electric chair, neglected to share with the readers just why Mr. Booker is on death row. Presumably, he wasn't condemned for jaywalking. Although not familiar with the Booker case, I do know something about the murder committed by Mello's late client, Ronnie Straight. Consequently, I found Mello's talk of Straight's "altruism" to be rather puzzling. Straight was con-victed of the beating and stabbing death of a furniture store owner who had declined to hire him. Hardly the deed of an altruist. Mr. Mello proudly states that he was a pallbearer at Straight's funeral after Straight's execution. I would wager that in his zeal to save Straight, he forgot about a sympathy card for the store owner's family. David Kendall's assertion that "the system is skewed against" death penalty lawyers is absurd. Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Booth v. Mary-land (No. 86-5020), that a man convicted of capital murder in the stabbing deaths of an elderly Baltimore couple could introduce any and all witnesses of his choice to testify on his behalf as to why he should not be sentenced to death. However, the victims' surviving family members could neither ut-ter nor write one word about how the murders affected them. I agree with Mr. Kendall—the system is skewed, but certain-ly not against condemned killers. John Booth's death sentence was overturned. The plethora of mitigating factors con-sidered at a capital sentencing, coupled with federal decisions like Booth v. Maryland, demonstrates that the system is skewed in favor of death row inmates. Finally, two points concerning the author's research. He writes that the District of Columbia has the death penalty. This is absolutely false. Washington, D.C., does not have the death penalty and hasn't had it for a long time. The author also refers to the Washington Post as "generally pro-death." The Washington Post is on record, and has been for as long as I can remember, as being totally opposed to capital punishment in all cases. Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letters: Death penalty law Subject The topic of the resource Mello, Michael Description An account of the resource A letter to the editor of The Washington Lawyer in response to an article titled "The Last Defense" by John Greenya which critiqued the stance of the article in relation to criminal justice, specifically referring death penalty cases. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wallace, Scott M. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Washington Lawyer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Language A language of the resource English Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January/February 1988 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1987-1988 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/402cd23a1f4646ac3b74a24f69647409.jpg b4addf861b8d243cc51e29416b391647 Text Text Any textual data included in the document [Title] Library offers Unabomber’s papers [Subtitle] But manifesto not part of collection [Authors] By Kevin Johnson [Roles] USA Today Staff Writer ANN ARBOR, Mich. — They come to a University of Michigan library here from across the USA: scholars, political theorists, lawyers and prospective authors, all seeking some meaning in the rantings of the Montana recluse whose letter bombs once terrorized a nation. It’s an academic exercise that could be called Unabomber 101. Their focus is an obscure collection called the Ted Kaczynski Papers, which includes letters, legal documents and homemade greeting cards the convicted killer has donated to the university at the behest of a persistent curator. Visitors to the ever-expanding collection of Kaczynski writings at the university’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library won’t find his most famous work: the rambling discourse blasting technology as a threat to nature and individual dignity that is known as the “Unabomber Manifesto.” Instead, the Kaczynski collection, held in acid-free boxes, is dominated by correspondence with pen pals on subjects ranging from philosophy to the best ways to fertilize beets. The collection has attracted scholars across the nation, many of whom say they want insight into what they view as a man with a brilliant mind who went horribly astray. Some academics, whether interested in Kaczynski’s views on technology or lessons learned from his legal case, have come to derive lessons from the material. Professor Michael Mello of Vermont Law School is among those examining the documents as part of legal and ethical discussions surrounding Kaczynski’s trial and appeals. The article also discusses debate among academics over the value of studying Kaczynski’s writings, with some emphasizing their intellectual content and others stressing that his violent actions outweigh any scholarly significance. Curator Julie Herrada explains that the collection has potential value for studying political imprisonment, mental health, and environmental thought. The materials continue to arrive from Kaczynski’s prison in Colorado. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Briones-Sosa, Marcus Roldan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Library offers Unabomber’s papers Subject The topic of the resource Unabomber; Theodore Kaczynski; University of Michigan; Criminal justice; Domestic terrorism; Archival collections Description An account of the resource This newspaper article reports on the University of Michigan’s acquisition of papers belonging to Theodore “Unabomber” Kaczynski. Donated while Kaczynski was serving a life sentence in prison, the collection includes letters, legal documents, and personal writings, but notably excludes his infamous manifesto. The article explains how scholars, lawyers, and academics are using the materials to study Kaczynski’s ideas, legal arguments, and psychological state. It also highlights debate surrounding the academic value of the collection, questions of morality, and the challenges of interpreting the writings of a convicted domestic terrorist. Additionally, the piece discusses Kaczynski’s background, his legal appeals, and the role of the university curator in securing the donation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Johnson, Kevin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived USA Today Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 299, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-02-20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/355 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Michigan, United States https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/39a98655ad64cee8e1af83df1ffbaf1b.jpg 15be4435ae982b9aa6ab4e49c2044e16 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 2, 1983-1994 Text Text Any textual data included in the document [image - Supreme Court political cartoon drawing] Some people say the composition of the Supreme Court defies political labels. But those who oppose the death penalty are not among that number, and a recent decision that allows prosecutors to exclude capital punishment abolitionists is confirmation that the justices are primarily a conservative lot. The court’s decisions and its logic are riddled with contradictions. Justice Thurgood Marshall, the only Black member on the court and the most consistent, said the death penalty ruling gives “the prosecution license to empanel a jury” to virtually insure a guilty verdict. Marshall was joined by Justices William Brennan and John Paul Stevens in dissenting from the 6-3 majority decision. “Because I believe that such a blatant disregard for the rights of a capital defendant offends logic, fairness and the Constitution, I dissent,” Marshall wrote. He added that “the court upholds a practice that allows the state a special advantage in those prosecutions where the charges are the most serious and the possible punishments the most severe.” On April 30, one week earlier, the court handed down three important decisions regarding criminal prosecution. In one instance, which has been praised as a step forward by civil rights organizations, the justices rightly ruled that prosecutors cannot exclude Blacks from juries on the basis of race. The decision limits the use of peremptory challenges, which in the past could not be questioned. Now a minority defendant may object to such a challenge, and the prosecutor has the burden of convincing the judge that the challenge is not racially motivated. Though Marshall agreed that the ruling is a “historic step toward eliminating the shameful practice of racial discrimination in the selection of juries, it did not go far enough.” Once challenged, contended Marshall, “any prosecutor can easily assert . . . neutral reasons for striking a juror, and trial courts are ill-equipped to second-guess those reasons.” It is well known that district attorneys have abused peremptory challenges to stack juries, so that Black defendants are usually judged by all-white panels. “The misuse of peremptories has become the standard method for excluding Blacks from jury service,” said Steve Ralston of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “The problem is nationwide in scope,” he added. But, as Marshall pointed out, the ruling should have been stronger. Instead, the decision exemplifies the half-hearted fairness that represents the best we can expect from the current majority. On the other hand, while the court is open to some long overdue concessions in the racially biased structure of the trial system, there is a deeply ingrained hostility against death-row prisoners. “Most disturbing,” says Mike Mello of Florida’s Capital Collateral Representatives, “was the tone of the ruling and the cavalier way the court approached the situation. It was another example of the court’s unwillingness to consider any systematic assault on the death penalty,” concludes Mello, who is an attorney for many of the state’s 200 prisoners on death row. At one time a trial judge could exclude anyone who happened to express the mildest reservation concerning the death penalty. But in 1968 the court ruled that only those who refused to vote for a death sentence were to be excluded—not from participating in the trial, only in the process of passing sentence. Now, any prospective juror who is against the death penalty can be barred from a capital case. “It is outrageous,” declared Henry Schwartzchild, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project. Mello said the decision forces attorneys for death-row prisoners into mainly “rearguard challenges.” “We are forced to avoid anything,” Mello told the Guardian, “that raises general issues and simply deal on a case-by-case basis.” As a consequence, most of the 1750 prisoners currently on death row have lost virtually all grounds for appealing their sentences. And that means the rate of executions will pick up sharply. In addition, we can expect a lot more convictions with death sentences, as prosecutors are given a freer hand to pick jurors predisposed to that outcome. That’s not justice—that’s lynch law. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Magazine Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Reschke, Daniel Student Editor of the Digital Item Dickinson, Terra Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lynch law justice Subject The topic of the resource Lynch law Capital punishment--United States--Periodicals Jury selection--United States Description An account of the resource A magazine article that discusses the United States Supreme Court's decision on attorneys' usage of peremptory challenges for minority jurors when the defendant is also a minority. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Guardian (New York) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-05-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 DPI Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant United States Henry Schwartzchild John Paul Stevens Mike Mello Steve Ralston Thurgood Marshall William Brennan https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/7cc96ba3b3728a01e37a244f4ef8ee9c.jpg bed2a41e8d5ac81680ab69ea943916a2 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/8ec77748ba0cabb567fb0662e969b1e7.jpg 19c349a2229af2dcbffc5adb2fe1e2d0 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/7ec2807136bf28e17ed4e6de51b7ae92.jpg f749512efecdd51478b5301ffc89300f https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/d20af6217302f37ccf5aab244eb45475.jpg f507a390a6f8a2759a8ac5cd05358f46 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/80e8cb5da952639251bbcaeb3e42c9a8.jpg d13af59feb4eaa43fe24ce805d44d827 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/fca7a495a6c210750fd116acae31c9d2.jpg a3f9744677aa9d0675a2035a5add4f6d https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/267a2c7bb69c87c407a6ae1b9821b986.jpg 3511dbd3b69368b9d204aa1bac628f8c https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/3194eb76a6870c7e5c3e3af7efad6fc9.jpg d26b2a4a38f873faedabeae8509d70f3 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/f421b8b06ce89bfb9e2c95683d5fc482.jpg d7cf73cb3a8844d70023c5f7943f0f3a https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/558212608f6a9e15e92e28448ca93a0b.jpg 0f0f23ecf83ff8aa4367451ad9a1da36 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/e1dc7544fcaf8833920925b45f670d5e.jpg b083930b9f2fceac32389eb47926d36f https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/500b71ba3610349fa7ccc4177bbdb7a2.jpg 8d71490211d7299c73de123a0f824e0e https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/9e3cf99d9a8e6b9a8c69b0b40ff55377.jpg ccf025b081ef3cf3a8b21097ac44f323 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/20837fce63abe70cea959b654faa7024.jpg 20381d58fb602b95ba2171aa464f095e https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/828c766cfec8e7b2fa24039e1410ab85.jpg 58114ca6321c0d60e1d1eba46e5b47d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 4 Text Text Any textual data included in the document FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                        Page 4 Citation                                  Search Result             Rank 7 of 63               Database 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                 ALLNEWS  6/1/96 Fla. Trend 36                                                                                               1996 WL 8832093                                                                                        (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) Florida Trend                                                                                                           COPYRIGHT 1996 Trend Magazines Inc. Saturday, June 1, 1996 Vol. 39, No. 2, ISSN: 0015-4326 Man, in the middle; a reappraisal. (Bob Graham) (Cover Story)                                 David Poppe As Bob Graham considers whether to run for governor again, it's time to take the measure of the man's record in Tallahassee and Washington. The question is: Is this inveterate moderate what Florida needs as it faces an extraordinary list of social and financial woes? In the grand ballroom of the St. Petersburg Hilton, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham tells an overflow crowd of political junkies about his work in Washington. Bland as a high school civics teacher, he talks of governing by finding "the center" of tough issues and then working his way out to build consensus. But the audience wants to know about the tension just below Graham's serene surface. Sure enough, when Graham opens the room for questions, the first person up asks if he'll quit the Senate to run for governor in 1998. Slightly pained, Graham gives his pat response: he won't decide until after the November elections. Later, his aides roll their eyes and profess bemusement. "It's the first thing everybody wants to know," says one wearily. A week later in Washington, when a reporter asks Graham over breakfast in the Senate dining room about what will influence his decision, Graham hardly looks up from his bowl of granola and strawberries. Not only is he not making his decision until year-end, he says, he's decided not even to think about it until then. A disingenuous answer, perhaps, but with his innocent brown eyes and his chubby cheeks, Bob Graham always comes across as sincere. "What he's doing is freezing people," asserts a Republican political operative who knows Graham well. "He is not only saying he's keeping his options open, he's telling the financial infrastructure of the Democratic Party to keep their options open, not to do anything right                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                        Page 5 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.)  now," says the strategist.  He certainly has people in Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay's camp on edge. Mackay, who has announced he will run in 1998, shares a circle of close friends and fund-raisers with Graham. "Graham won't make up his mind and that's what's making them mad," says a top MacKay adviser in Tallahassee. "I'll think the more he strings this out, the more divisive it will become." Or maybe, the longer Graham strings this out, the more likely nervous Democrats will be to beg him to run. "One problem the Democrats have in Florida is they are always looking for a 'deus ex machina' to bail them out. That's the role Chiles played in 1990, and it's the role they hope Bob Graham will play in 1998," says Robert L. Joffee, vice president with Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research in Miami. "It's a common belief among Democrats that, 'There's only one guy who can do this for us."' But if the Democrats need a man on a white horse, is Bob Graham really the right man? There is no diminishing his accomplishments and his enormous political capital. Fully 62% of Floridians have a favorable impression of him, according to the latest polls. "He may have some political enemies, but I don't know of any," says former Democratic Congressman Jim Bacchus, now a World Trade Organization judge. Graham has been a dominant political figure in Florida life over the last quarter century, and he is nearly the stuff of legend by now in some political quarters. Many Floridians remember Graham's two terms as governor as an era of honest progressive government combined with great promise and prosperity. It's tempting to assume that if Graham returned to Florida as governor, so would the good times that marked his first two administrations. A thought centrist Yet a close look at 59-year-old Graham's record and temperament suggests that he might not be much happier in Tallahassee then he has been in Washington, D.C., in recent years. When he governed before, Democrats controlled the Legislature, and the electorate didn't howl in outrage every time taxes rose. And while Graham did raise taxes to help pay for Florida's rapid growth, he failed to push for fundamental tax reform, something the next governor almost certainly will have to do. In a 1986 profile of several top Graham aides, FLORIDA TREND noted that even in less contentious times, Graham needed a tough-minded staff to help him deal with the Legislature. Until hard-nosed Jacksonville businessman Dick Burroughs became chief of staff in 1981, Graham's image was that of a dithered. A St. Petersburg Times editorial once dubbed him "Governor Jell-O."                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                        Page 6 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) In Washington, Graham has developed a reputation as a thoughtful centrist, but he has never sponsored a piece of major legislation that became law. If Florida is approaching a financial day of reckoning, as many believe, it is worth asking whether Graham would risk the enormous political capital he's built up over 30 years to push reforms on taxes, education, entitlements or growth management. Maddeningly, the person who could answer the question says he's not even thinking about it. In 1998, constitutional revision will be on the ballot for the first time since 1968, meaning voters could be asked to make changes to the state's tax system, the public school system, even to the balance of power between the governor, the legislature and the cabinet. Rod Petrey, president of the Collins Center, a Tallahassee think tank, predicts there could be competing proposals to revise Florida's tax system- which could either open up new revenue streams or severely limit the state's taxing powers- and to reduce the independence of Florida Cabinet officials, this increasing the governor's powers. "There could be a dramatic changeover in the next couple of years in the way Florida is governed," Petrey says. And because there proposals will go to a statewide vote, candidates for governor will have to endorse one set or another: Both parties will stress making government more efficient, but Democrats probably will ask for new taxes for schools, social services and infrastructure while Republicans will favor government that taxes less and offers less. "I think we are approaching a train wreck, where our population growth continues to accelerate and the need to take care of the most needy of our citizens-children, the people with tremendous the health problems, the elderly- continues to accelerate," says Board of Regents Chancellor Charles Reed, a former chief of staff to Graham in Tallahassee. To Reed, that means the day is coming when the university system will turn away qualified students for lack of space. In just the next dozen years, the number of students for lack of space. In just the next dozen years, the number of students graduating from Florida's public high schools and universities means paying more taxes or making draconian cuts in other government programs. In short, 1998 has all the makings of a dramatic race. "I think it's going to be a pivotal race," says MacKay. "I think candidates for governor are not going to be able to avoid saying how they would deal with these central issues."                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                        Page 7 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) Both MacKay and Jeb Bush, who is expected to be the GOP's choice for anither run at the state house in 1998, often speak with disarming candor about controversial issues. MacKay openly calls for higher fees on new development, for example, which makes him anathema to builders. Bush supports giving parents vouchers and forcing public schools to complete for students, an idea many educators hate. Graham, on the other hand, is as cautious as football coach with a two-touchdown lead. Asked a tough question, he's as likely to turn it around and ask a reporter's opinion as he is to answer it. He won't even respond when asked what were the most difficult two or three votes he's ever had to make in the Senate. In meetings with his staff, Graham plays a Socratic role, listening to an aide's report then asking questions, rarely injecting his own opinions. "he's very deliberative, the way he works things through," says Sen. Jay Rockefeller, one of Graham's close friends. And he eschewal confrontation when possible. "I don't think politics has to move from being competitive to being confrontational," he says. "If you end up laming enemies every time you disagree, you're not going to get anywhere." Even a few admirers admit Graham's style is better suited to synthesizing ideas than leading with his own. "I don't think that's his inclination, to be the first person out," says Tom Herndon, who was Gov. Graham's planning and budget director. "His instinctive caution probably prevents him from being the first person out of the box on some of these leading issues. Somebody who is less studious might jump out first, and then somebody like Graham comes in behind and addresses these questions others may have overlooked." Never discussed the death penalty  Graham is not just cautious, however. He's virtually opaque. A 1984 profile in the Miami Herald noted that many of Graham's longtime aides had never had a personal conversation with their boss. His wife said he'd never discussed with her his controversial support for the death penalty, even though protesters regularly disrupted his public events, including his 1980 nominating speech for Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention. For years, he's carried the now-famous small notebook everywhere, recording all the little details of his day. His wife of 37 years, Adele, tells the story of a flight in South America, when the pilot warned the startled passengers that the plane was about to crash. During what might've been their last moments on earth, Adele Graham                   Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                        Page 8 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                              (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) quaked while Bob jotted down the pilot's instructions on preparing for impact. "He doesn't have the kind of charisma that some people are born with or cultivate," allows Herndon. "But he is always there working harder than anybody else." Graham, like other politicians, has become adept at avoiding discussion of tough issues. For example, bring up the subject of Florida's mediocre public schools, and Graham doesn't talk about solutions such as vouchers or trimming a larded education bureaucracy, like Bush, or about addressing the stresses caused by population growth, like MacKay. Rather, he spins out an anecdote about one of his four daughters, Virginia teacher Suzanne Gibson. "If I can put it personally, my third daughter is a wonderful early childhood education teacher," he says over breakfast in Washington. "She taught for several years in Dade Country. Her last year at a new elementary school in northwest Dade, she had 38 students in her kindergarten class. The she got married and moved to Great Falls, Va., and taught in the Fairfax County system. The first year she taught kindergarten there, she had 24 students in her class. "That's a pretty dramatic example of the level of concern about primary education in those two communities, and if you are somebody who is deciding "Am I better off locating my software company in Great Falls, Va., or in Miami, Fla., '38-to-24 will be a figure that will be influential on your judgment as to the values of those communities." Does that mean Graham factors raising taxes to build more schools and hire more teachers? Hard to say. Before one can ask, he pulls out a photo of his daughter's one-year-old triplets. "Her class size went from 38 to 24 to three," he beams. Similarly, Graham is a master at managing his image. Recent history shows no other Florida politician can match Graham's ability to connect with regular people, even though Graham himself is a Harvard-educated lawyer and a millionaire. Back in the 1970s, when Graham was a mere state senator, he was given to delivering high-minded lectures on the Senate floor. At the time, the "Doghouse Democrats," so-called because their progressive ideas irked the leadership. Back then, Graham reflected his constituents in Dade County, who were so liberal that they re-elected Claude Pepper, Dante Fascial and Bill Lehman to the U.S. Congress for more than a generation.                  Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                        Page 9 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) When Graham ran for governor in 1978, he overhauled his Dade persona to reflect the conservatism that existed in the state as a whole. He stopped calling himself D. Robert Graham, becoming simply Bob. And to counter the image of the wealthy WASP with a Harvard degree, Graham borrowed an idea from Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and began spending days working at ordinary jobs, many of them menial. On his way to the state house, Graham did 100 of these jobs and wrote an illustrated book about it called "Workdays." A sense of ordinary life Aided by this new populist image, Graham upset heavily favored Attorney General Robert Shevin in the Democratic primary, then beat drug store magnate Jack Eckerd in the general election. He still spends one day each month a workday. Many have called it a gimmick, but Graham says he genuinely enjoys it. Chancellor Reed claims it gives Graham a sense of ordinary life that most leaders lack. "It makes a tremendous difference in his decision making and how he looks at the world," Reed says. When Graham spent a recent workday building scenery at a new theme attraction near Daytona International Speedway, he pounded nails alongside a former rock musician. True to form, Graham looked for common ground with the younger man and found it: country music. Before the day ended, they had written a song together. "When you hear a song with the words 'I've got tension on the surface but I'm boiling just below, because of you hon,' that's my song, he recounts later to his amused staff. The image he created nearly two decades ago stuck, as Florida voters have come to see Graham as pleasing mix of Ivy League sense and old Florida sensibility. Even his omnipresent foulard necktie, imprinted with little images of Florida, bespeaks approachability and good humor. It's hard to imagine, for instance, Graham's fellow Harvard alumnus and proud intellectual, New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sporting little Empire State buildings on his ties-even if his re-election depended on it.  Everyone who knows Graham describes him as extremely smart. Former Congressman Bacchus calls him "extraordinarily bright, far brighter than most other people are in public office or who seek public office."  And while he is not averse to displaying his intellect among his peers, to Florida voters he's simply a rather modest, nice guy. In the wall above her desk, Graham’s press secretary has a description by biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a description                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 10 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) that age says reminds her of her boss: "In talking on the radio Roosevelt used simple words, concrete examples and every day analogies to make his points. He looked for words that he would use in informal conversations with one or two of his friends, words the average of American could easily understand."  But this fixation on public opinion has led to criticism over the years that Graham is alarmingly malleable. In his 1995 book about the revival of death row in America, "Among the Lowest of the Dead," former Miami Herald reporter David Von Drehle portrayed Graham as "a protean genius" who signed death warrants on dozens of convicted killers to deflect criticism that he was too liberal for Florida. In 1979, when Graham took office, only one man, Gary Gilmore, had been executed in America in the previous decade. In Graham's eight years in office, Florida executed 16 convicted killers, more than any other state. Many more death warrants signed by Graham were stayed by courts because the defendants still had appeals available to them. "'Cynical' is the word that I have always used to describe Graham's use of the death penalty," says Michael Mello, a former West Palm Beach public defender and now a professor at Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vt. "He cynically exploited Floridians' legitimate fears of crime to further his own political career." At the same time, Graham eschewed the more expensive task of building prisons during his last term as governor. When he left office, Florida's prisons were filled to 99% of capacity. That forced his successor, Bob Martinez, to call a special session of the Legislature less than two weeks after his inauguration in 1987 to respond to the court-ordered mass release of inmates from overcrowded facilities. Graham's image and reality diverge in other areas as well. For one thing, though he's deservedly credited with guiding Florida through a period of unprecedented growth during the early 1980s, Graham shares responsibility for some of the problems besetting state government today. A month after Graham left Tallahassee in 1987, a 21-person committee of legislators and civic and business leaders headed by Charles Zwick, then chairman Southeast Bank, issued a devastating report on the state's inability to provide basic services and to cope with its exploding population. What's most troubling about the Zwick report, commissioned by the Legislature, is that all of the problems it cited, including a creaky                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 11 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) tax structure, a low-skill work force, a mediocre system of roads and highways and an economy based on growth and tourism, continue to plague the state to this day. And they will still be there when the next governor takes office. While that speaks poorly of Graham's administration- the Florida Growth Management Act of 1985- ultimately failed to rein in sprawling development. The law required cities and counties to show they could build infrastructure to support new development before issuing building permits, and gave the state new powers to prevent the issuing of permits. But the law's reliance on bureaucracy and red tape doomed it to failure. Today, the act has been gutted, and Florida has enough permitting in place to accommodate a population of 90 million people, more than six times the current figure. Graham also left tax reform to Bob Martinez, a governor with far less political capital. Martinez proposed an ill-fated services tax and implemented the lottery. Graham's style of governing exasperates some in his own party. Miami attorney Sonny Holtzman, a major Democratic fund-raiser and longtime confidante of Lawton Chiles, shakes his head when asked what a Graham run for governor would mean to Florida. After a moment he allows that if Graham quits Washington perhaps Florida could get a better senator. "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a couple of powerful senators who got things done and brought things home?" Holtzman asks, "What have er got now?" As for Graham's previous tenure as governor, Holtzman's not impressed. When Graham was governor before, he says, "it was all peaches and cream. Let's pass this and let's not pass that." He believes Graham would struggle in today's more contentious environment where Republicans share power with Democrats. Even if Graham was a governor who didn't take on all he might have, he still departed Tallahassee enormously popular with an unlimited future. As he arrived in Washington, there was even talk that he might one day run for president. And why not? He'd defeated an incumbent Republican, Paula Hawkins, during the middle of the popular Reagan administration. He looked like          Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 12 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) a Democrat: who might fare well in the Sunbelt in a national election. He was wealthy, untainted by scandal and even faintly glamorous-his famous sister-in-law, Katharine Graham, ran the Washington Post. But a funny thing happened on the way to the White House. Rather than hut the ground running, Graham landed inside the Beltway with a dull thud. He joined the Senate amid a large class of freshman Democrats, many of whom had moved over from the House of Representatives and knew more about the ways of Washington than he. Ending up with plain vanilla Graham's inherent formality seemed to return when he got to the nation's capital. Upon arriving therein 1986, freshman Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota paid a personal visit it Lloyd Bentsen, the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which writes policy on key matters like taxes, health care and Social Security, to pleaded for a seat. Graham sent out letters to top senators. Daschle's personal approach won out, gaining him the seat he wanted. Graham ended up with three plan vanilla assignments: Environment and Public Works; Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; and Veterans' Affairs. A decade later, Daschle is Senate minority leader. Graham did get a much-covered seat on the Finance Committee, but not until 1995. Graham also got the worst of it in a few scrapes with West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, which controls spending bills. Byrd has long opposed a balanced budget amendment and a presidential line-item veto. Graham supports both measures. Byrd is also thin-skinned and a notorious pork barreled. After Graham took to the Senate floor to chastise Byrd for inserting "little piglets" that grow into "giant hogs" in an appropriations bill, Byrd did not look kindly on Florida spending projects, Graham staffers say. Graham likely will cross paths with Byrd again next year, when the federal transportation spending program comes up for reauthorization. Florida currently gets less than 80 cents back for every dollar it pays in gasoline taxes, which one Graham staffer terms "a rip-off." For the most part, though, Graham seems to have avoided both confrontation and headline grabbing political events. Graham's image appears only occasionally on TV or in the press, even in Florida. After nearly a decade in Washington, Graham is so little-known there that during a recent stroll on the long block from the Capitol to his office, he elicited not so much as a hint of recognition from passers-by. To be sure, Graham has many admirers in Washington. They tend to be                 Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 13 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) people who abhor the current gridlock and applaud the senator's willingness to work with Republicans for the common good. "What I would say is he's done a terrific job in the Senate," says Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Almost everybody respects Graham as one of the thoughtful centrists, one of a handful of people who keeps things together and makes real contributions." Sen. Rockefeller describes Graham as fiercely independent, which his peers respect. "I think the thing about Bob Graham that is very important to understand is he marches to his own drummer," he says. In describing how Graham often keeps his own counsel even among fellow Senate Democrats, Rockefeller recalls a 1993 vote on the federal budget in which Graham's vote was crucial. Graham was unhappy with some Medicare cuts he deemed too drastic-cuts Rockefeller had negotiated personally. For days, Graham still kept silent. Rockefeller was afraid to lobby his friend. "A little voice inside of me said 'Jay, don't say a word to Bob. Don't say award. He is going to come to his own decision and if you come in and try to influence him, it's not going to be a happy result.' And that's from me, his friend," Rockefeller  says. At the last moment, Graham told fellow Democrats he'd vote for their budget. When Graham does move into the spotlight, it is almost invariably to address a Florida issue. He was uncharacteristically strident in opposing a recent Republican plan to make block grants to states for Medicaid that didn't include allowances for population growth in future years, for example. "He stood between that and passage and said, look at what you are doing to the growth states," says Mitchell W. Berger, the Democratic Party's Florida Finance Committee Chairman. Similarly, when President Clinton wanted the U.S. military to invade and occupy Haiti in 1994 to ensure the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, there was strong opposition in Congress. But Graham supported the plan. "Bob Graham was the person in the Senate who was rallying the cause," says Berger, a Tennessee transplant and close friend to Vice President Al Gore. The U.S. occupation, in turn, staved off a potential flood of illegal Haitian immigrants to Florida and probably saved the state millions of dollars in social services costs. But in his biggest national assignment, as 1994 chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, the result was unspectacular. Although his committee raised a record $25 million, including $13 million that went directly to candidates, it couldn't stop the                 Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 14 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) Republican stampede, as the G.O.P. won 10 Democratic seats to gain a 54-46 Senate majority. Arguably, there wasn't much Graham could do to reverse events-the Republicans won a majority of governorships for the first time in 40 years. But he still took criticism. "His shot at the big time was chairing the DSCC, and he blew it," says one Capitol Hill reporter who's followed Graham for years. "You could argue that if he had done a better job campaigning for Senate Democrats, they wouldn't have lost so much influence." On budget questions, Graham characterizes himself as a fiscal conservative, and compared to other Democrats he. Paul Hewitt, executive director of the National Taxpayers Union, says Graham voted to cut a net $2 billion from the federal budget during 1995. On its face, that sounds pretty good, but when compared to total federal spending, it amounts to only 0.125%. Hewitt says Graham's voting record puts him closer to the most conservative member of the Senate, Hank Brown (R-Colo.), who voted for the total spending reductions of $40.8 billion, than to the most liberal, Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), who voted for a net spending increase of $47.6 billion. But it's still safe to say he's in the middle of the road when it comes to cutting federal spending. During the year, Graham voted to cut foreign aid by $1.1 billion and defense by $4 billion. Plus, he favored tough welfare reform and even Medicare spending reductions. "He's obviously among the most fiscally conservative Democrats in the Senate," says Hewitt. Graham was faced earlier this year with a difficult vote on whether or not to renew the federal price support program for sugar. Graham grew up in northwest Dade on the fringes of the Everglades, and he takes great pride in his environmental record. Conservationists urged him not to back the price support program, which has enabled farmers to plant some 500,000 acres south of Lake Okeechobee. But confronted by intense lobbying from Florida's powerful sugar growers, Graham voted to keep the program, arguing two contradictory points: that Florida farmers would keep growing sugarcane whether or not the price supports existed and that since the European Union subsidizes its sugar farmers the U.S. shouldn't abandon price supports. Graham also voted in favor of a Farm Bill provision to give the Interior Department $200 million to buy up sugar farmland and return it to wetlands. The result: Graham's votes cost consumers $1.4 billion                 Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 15 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) annually in higher sugar prices, according to the government's General Accounting Office, and taxpayers $200 million for land acquisition. But Graham avoided making enemies. Stuart D. Strahl, executive director of the National Audubon Society's Everglades ecosystem restoration campaign, acknowledges disappointment over the senator's actions. "I'd say disappointment would be a good word, but we are certainly not surprised," Strahl says. If Graham has to struggle with tough decisions, he finds it even harder to talk about them. Om a conference call with a group of Florida reporters shortly after the Senate passed the Farm Bill, one asked his opinion on a proposed penny-per-pound tax on sugar to help pay for Everglades restoration. Graham wouldn't touch it "My focus has been on getting this $200 million entitlement" and the land sale provisions, he said. Reflecting his middle of the road philosophy, Graham works well with Republicans. He and Arizona Sen. John McCain, for example, have zeroed in on campaign finance reform, an issue that is not making either man especially popular on Capitol Hill right now. Sen. McCain, who also has teamed with Graham on mutual problems Arizona and Florida face obtaining sufficient Veterans Administration benefits, came to Washington with him in 1987. Then, Democrats held a Senate majority, but nevertheless, Graham sought McCain out. "When I was in the minority, he always showed me the greatest respect and included me on issues," McCain says. "That is not as common as you would think." Coming into his own at last  Graham takes special pride in his close relationship with Florida's Republican junior senator, Connie Mack. In what for Graham passes off as an outburst, he likened Mack to an "ideological wacko" during Mack's 1988 Senate campaign against Buddy MacKay. But today Graham counts Mack as a good friend. In some respects, Graham appears finally to be coming into his own in Washington. He got his Finance Committee seat in 1995, and with the unexpected retirements of Democratic Senators David Pryor and Bill Bradley this year, Graham will move in less than two years from back bench to middle of the committee in terms of seniority. He also made the Armed Services Committee in 1993, another high-profile assignment. If Graham is thinking about returning to Tallahassee, Ornstein suggests it is because life on Capitol Hill has become unpleasant for pragmatists like him. Republican Senators like Nancy Kassebaum, Alan Simpson and Bill Cohen all have chosen to retire this year. "It's not                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 16 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) just Democrats who are bailing out right now," he says. Graham says almost the same thing, noting that some 13 senators plan to retire this year, including respectful fellow Democrats like New Jerseys Bill Bradley and Georgia's Sam Nunn. "The past year and a half has not been one of the most productive times for the Congress," he says. If Graham is unhappy in the nation's capital, he retains a large and influential fan club in Florida. Former aides like Reed, Herndon and Villella believe he's likely to come back, and seem eager for it to happen. And some of Graham's longtime friends also suggest coming back to Tallahassee wouldn't necessarily be the final chapter of a storybook career. One Republican campaign strategist argues Graham's only hope of becoming president is to run for governor in 1998. It is the only way, the strategist says, he could hope to leapfrog people like Gore and Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey in the party hierarchy. "This is all about positioning," says the strategist of Graham's possible run for governor. "If he wants to be president, he has to run for governor." Friends and supporters believe Graham could use his consensus building powers to reach bipartisan solutions to some of Florida's structural problems. That, in turn, might polish his image as a strong executive. After all, no one since John F. Kennedy has stepped straight from the Senate to the Oval Office, through Bob Dole is trying. But plenty of governors have run, and won. Graham aides scoff at such reasoning. "Graham's not thinking about this stuff. He's not weighing all these arguments and won't until the year ends," protests one of his top staffers. Graham may want to look hard and long at perks, prospects and security of his present job compared to the one he may yearn for back in Tallahassee. Certainly not everyone will welcome him back with open arms. "If he wants to come home," says an adviser to Buddy MacKay, "then his record gets the spotlight shined on it." What's more, he may find that his caution and his centrism, which have made him uncomfortable in Washington's extremist climate, may be out of style in Tallahassee, too. "You know what's in the middle of the road these days?" asks Hewitt of the National Taxpayers Union. "Road kill." Related Article: Dade's "Best All-Around Boy"                Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 17 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.)  Bob Graham is one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. Senate, thanks to a hurricane, the Great Depression and a shrewd older brother. Graham's father , Ernest R. "Cap" Graham, was a farmer, one-time gold miner and World War I Army captain who came to Dade County after the war to run a plantation in the Everglades for the Pennsylvania Sugar Co. Unfortunately for the company, but fortuitously for Graham, the 1926 hurricane devasted the sugar plantation, known as Pensacola. A few years later, the Great Depression stuck, again wiping out the farm. In the 1930s, the company agreed to give Cap Graham the 3,000-acre plantation to avoid paying property taxes on it. The elder Graham turned the land into a dairy farm and prospered. By 1936, when he was 51, his stature in the community was such that he won a seat in the Florida Legislature, where he served eight years. Cap Graham's first wife had died of cancer, and early in 1936 he married Hilda Simmons Graham. Ten months later in November, just days after he was elected to the Legislature, the youngest of his four children was born, Daniel Robert. The littlest Graham excelled even in his youth. When he was 16, Bob Graham named Dade County's "best all-around boy" by the Miami Senior High's student body and earned Phi Beta Kappa honors at University of Florida, where he also was admitted to the prestigious Blue Key society. At the University of Florida he met his future wife, Adele Khoury of Miami Shores, and as legend has it, told her he would be governor one day. They married in 1959, and he got a job in Washington interning for young Dade Congressman Dante Fascekk. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1963 and got elected to the state legislature in 1966, when he was 30. He became a state senator in 1970. Along the way, he and Adele raised four daughters. For all his talents, Bob Graham's political rise was aided in no small measure by his two older half-brothers at Harvard Law School and married Katherine Meyer, whose father owned the Washington Post. Phil Graham took over management of the paper from his father-in-law in the 1940s. But while Phil was brilliant at business, he was a manic-depressive. In 1963, he shot and killed himself, leaving Katherine Graham to run                 Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY                                                                      Page 18 6/1/96 FLATREND 36                                                                                (Publication page reference are not available for this document.) the Post and to become in her own right one of the best-known businesswomen in America. Today, the senator's nephew Donald Graham runs the publishing company. If Phil and Katherine Graham made the family name famous, second brother Bill, 12 years older than Bob, made his brother rich. In 1962, with Dade growing rapidly, Bill Graham began developing the Pensacola property. After law school, Bob Graham joined the family business until he took up politics full-time. Today, Miami Lakes is a five-square-mile planned community with 23,000 residents and 4.5 million square feet of office, commercial and industrial space, about one-third of which is still owned and managed by the Graham Cos. The company expects to build another 2 million square feet of office and commercial space over the next 15 to 20 years. The Graham Cos. still milk 2,100 cows in Moore Haven and operate a bull-breeding farm in Georgia. One of the few controversies that has dogged Bob Graham in his political career is the fact that the Graham Cos. benefit from a state law that lets them pay taxes on undeveloped Miami Lakes land as agricultural property, instead of commercial of residential land. In 1978, when Bob Graham wanted to run for governor, he financed his campaign in part by selling $500,000 worth of Graham Cos. stock. And although he's worked in public service since 1966, Sen. Graham today puts his net worth at between $5 million and $10 million. "We couldn't have done what we do in life if it had not been for Bill," Adele Graham has said of her business-savvy brother-in-law. TABULAR OR GRAPHIC MATERIAL SET FORTH IN THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT DISPLAYABLE  illustration photograph ---INDEX REFERENCES--- KEY WORDS: POLTICANS  NEWS SUJECT: Securities Registrations (REG) NEWS CATEGORY: COVER STORY Word Count: 6000 6/1/96 FLATREND END OF DOCUMENT                 Copr. West 1998 No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works   <o:p></o:p> Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Williams, Megan Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Magazine Article Vol. No./Issue No. Volume and issue number for the newspaper (if available) Vol. 39, No. 2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man in the middle, a reappraisal Subject The topic of the resource Graham, Bob Gubernatorial Election Description An account of the resource Article explores the political career of Bob Graham as he considers whether to run for governor again. In order, to measure his success the Florida Trend Magazine is looking at the his political record in both Tallahassee, FL and Washington, DC. Part of looking at Graham's career in Florida involved looking into his stance on the death penalty, which is when Michael Mello is quoted on page ten of this document. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Poppe, David Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Florida Trend (Trend Magazines Inc.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-06-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 15 JPGs 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Florida https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/09ceeb302051dbef3ec949a100afd0b4.jpg be24d5df9cdd7f3859d4f6606dcdc191 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Garcia, Lauren Text Any textual data included in the document Marijuana: 'Legalizing' Movement By Georgetta Sharman Special to the Times Fredericksburg- According to a 1975 U.S. government study, almost 30 million people in the United States have smoked marijuana. Of those 30 million, almost 5,000 Virginians were arrested and prosecuted under the current criminal law, costing Virginia taxpayers close to $6 million in law enforcement resources. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is working to change this situation by lobbying for the decriminalization of marijuana. The local chapter of NORML, based on Mary Washington College campus, was begun in the fall of 1976 and has approximately 15 regular members. And contrary to popular belief, according to president Mike Mello, the chapter is very conservative. "Most people think its the campus potheads who make up NORML," he said, "but they're the very ones who don't come because they're afraid they'll be discovered. A lot of people in NORML don't smoke marijuana." Still, most students are afraid to join NORML. One of the editors of last year's "Bullet," the campus newspaper, started what Mello termed a "wave of paranoia." "She had people believing they would get into some kind of trouble if they joined NORML," he said. Their common apprehension is that the administration would put their names on a "hate list" and keep them from getting into graduate schools or good jobs. Some are nervous about belonging to a "radical" organization or being thought a "pothead." In reality, however, the administration of the college has been no problem. "They bent over backward to let me start a chapter on this campus," said Mello. There are also several faculty advisors for the group. Most of NORML's activities center around education the campus and community about marijuana. During the 1976-77 academic year, NORML sponsored two speakers, John K. Zwerling, the Virginia state coordinator, and R. Keith Stroup, a member of NORML's board of directors; held a concert and bake sale to raise money; and showed two films. Money raised by the concert and bake sales goes into the defense fund. Similar activities are planned for this year. Mello also hopes the group can start a library about marijuana, both pro and con, that will be open to the public. A public debate on the legal, medical, and social aspects of pot is also being planned. Mello, though not a pot smoker when he started NORML last year, believes firmly that marijuana should be decriminalized. "I became interested in NORML for the same reason whites marched with blacks during Civil Rights ane straights supported gays against Anita Bryant," he explained. "The rationale behind the marijuana laws has been discredited; they're an anachoronism. Other anachronistic laws, like running 20 feet in front of a car with a red warning light, are no longer applied, but people are still going to jail for pot. And recent surveys show 86 per cent of the people are pro-decriminalization." Decriminalization would remove criminal penalties for the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana. Current state laws define possession as a misdemeanor, punishable by one year in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both; possession of larger amounts, termed "possession with intent to distribute," carries a fine of $25,000 or a jail term of 5 to 40 years, or both. While most states set one ounce as the dividing line between use and distribution, Virginia has no such guidelines. The penalty is left totally in the hands of the judge. Therefore, theoretically, it is possible to receive the maximum penalty for the possession of one joint, a marijuana cigarette, which contains less than one ounce of pot. Eight states have already decriminalized pot, substituting a citation-enforced fine, much like a traffic ticket, for the criminal penalties. President Carter's recent endorsement of decriminalization gives the issue more "respectability" according to Mello. Current laws and attitudes toward Marijuana were formed in the 1930's by such films as "Reefer Madness" and "Marijuana-Assassin of Youth", both of which were shown last year at MWC. The latter film was part of a 1936 campaign to have marijuana outlawed in the U.S. It presented fictionalized case histories in which pot, in and of itself, led men to, in Mello's words, "rape, pillage, and kill", the film also implied that pot was directly linked to organized crime. NORML does not advocate the use of marijuana or any other drug. It does feel however, that current penalties far outweigh the seriousness of the offense. Mello stated the MWC chapter's attitude very simply--"While marijuana is not good for you, prison is worse." Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marijuana: 'Legalizing' Movement Begins Description An account of the resource A newspaper article which states that according to a 1975 United States government study, about 30 million people have smoked marijuana. About 5,000 Virginians were arrested for smoking marijuana. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is lobbying for decriminalization of marijuana. NORML has 15 members at Mary Washington College. Many people did not join because they were afraid they would get in trouble, not be able to graduate and that people would think they use marijuana. Their goal is to educate about marijuana. Mike Mello believes that the usage of marijuana should not be considered a criminal act. In Virginia, judges choose what the penalty is for users of marijuana. Mello said "while marijuana is not good for you, prison is worse." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sharman, Georgetta Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1977-09-14 Subject The topic of the resource Marijuana--Law and Legislation Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Spotsylvania Times Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Marijuana Mary Washington College The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/abae9e73601630c0b5e87a43fa97fd41.jpg 2b06a1c6658ecf1db839700995d28c67 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 2, 1983-1994 Text Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Piazza, Rachel Text Any textual data included in the document Convicted killer Nollie Lee Martin, who was set to die in Florida’s electric chair today, was granted an indefinite stay by federal appeals court in Atlanta Thursday. The stay was granted by a three-justice panel at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which said it needed more time to study the case before making a ruling, attorneys for Martin said. “It means he’s not going to be executed at 7 a.m. as we had feared,” said Mike Mello, as assistant in the Palm Beach County Public Defender’s office. “We’re going to proceed with a normal appeal. We’re not going to be going to be going through three courts in four days.” Attorneys said it could be a year before the case is resolved. In 1978, Martin, 35, was convicted of fatally stabbing Patricia Ann Greenfield, a Boynton Beach college student who was abducted from the Delray Beach-area convenience store where she was working. The detective who led the investigation that resulted in the arrest of Martin and his cousin Gary Lee Forbes, who pleaded guilty to second- degree murder and received a life sentence, said he is undisturbed by the court’s decision to grant the stay. “The system’s just winding it’s way down,” said Sgt. J.J. Anderson of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. “It’s a big system and you just have to be patient.” Anderson said he expects that Martin will eventually be executed. “He’s not on the street and I don’t think he’ll ever get out,” Anderson said. Mello, who along with other attorneys representing Martin have been working day and night to obtain the stay, said it will be at least six months and probably a year before all appeals in the case are resolved. The appeals court decision came on the heels of a Wednesday decision by a federal judge in Miami who granted a 24-hour stay of execution while Martin’s attorneys appealed to the higher court. On Aug. 8, Gov. Bob Graham signed a death warrant for Martin. That warrant expires today but attorneys said another warrant can be issued later. Since the signing of the warrant, Martin’s attorneys have appealed to a Palm Beach County circuit court, the Florida Supreme Court, the federal district court in Miami and the federal appeals court. “The worst possible situation is litigating under an active warrant,” said Mello. “It’s very tough for any judge to resolve issues under [intense] time pressures.” He said the appeals court, in granting the indefinite stay, indicated the indefinite stay, indicated it needed more time to rule on the case. He said the court was presented with lengthy written arguments containing eight points. “The only issue before [the court] is whether any of the issues were substantial enough to grant a stay,” Mello said. “All they said is ‘we can’t do it in a day, we need more time’.” Mello said that when the appeals court rules on the case it can decide to grant Martin a new trial or a new sentencing or can send the cases to the lower federal court for an evidentiary hearing. He said if the appeals court panel rejects arguments presented to it by Martin’s attorneys, they will appeal to the full court and if necessary will take the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The attorneys for Martin have argued that evidence showing that Martin suffers from brain damage was not presented during his trial. They have contended that the evidence was recently discovered after tests were conducted by several doctors. Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Martin receives stay of execution Description An account of the resource Before Martins execution he was grated more time to study his case before making a final ruling. It could possibly be six months to one year before any final appeals in the case are resolved. With the time originally given it was highly impossible for any judge to make a final ruling in the time originally given. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pollack, Rich Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sunday- Sentinel Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-09-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 DPI Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Executions (Law) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Miami, FL 1978 Anderson appeals attorney brain damage case convicted doctors execution fedearl appeals Florida Forbes Graham judge Martin Mello Miami Palm Beach County resolved sentinel trial https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/2864a5d6f3b25e971ba1c11afc967008.jpg b48892c200e331f5bb484aaeec3bcae4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Mary Washington "Animals" Throw Toga Bash By CYNTHIA ANDERSON Bare legs, bare arms, bare shoulders, bare feet, and sheets barely covering the essentials graced the throng which participated in Hamel House's TOGA '79 in Seacobeck basement Friday night. In the tradition of National Lampoon's "Animal House," the "Hamsters" threw this fest in order to "let it all hangout." And it did. Prepster togas, adorned with alligators, striped belts, and topsiders were popular fashion items as well as the stranger concoctions: a space toga, which was adorned with a metallic cape and gloves, a prostitute toga with bangle and beads, a western toga topped with a cowboy hate and a striped tie businessman toga. Campus greenery such as ivy leaves, holly, and oak boughs graced the heads of many. The people-to-beer ration was one gallon per person (none was wasted), which helped to get the festivities off to an uproarious start. By stamping, shouting, dancing, and just plain going crazy the crowd mad Thunderbay's last performance a memorable one. The band, consisting of ex-MWC men, found calming the clamor impossible. Hamlet House awarded six-packs of beer to the best dressed in the categories of most formal toga (Ann Osborne), the best all-around toga (Beth Innis), most stylish toga (Buck Waters), and the toga which best exemplified John Belushi, the crude, rude, socially unacceptable star of "Animal House." (Chip Straley won that category hands down.) Being scantly clad in a sheet seemed to break down the throng's inhibitions even more. AVC-TV was on hand to film such antics as line dancing, beer baths, and the acrobatics of flipping over while diving into a trash can. Perhaps there was a unifying philosophy behind partygoers motive while the rallying cheer echoed "TOGA, TOGA, TOGA..." Speaking of philosophy, the festivities were visited by Dr. Van Stant, adorned in a "Fickett For Pro Counsul" toga, along with Ms. Hanna (in pink, complete with Cleopatra For Emperor-person buttons, of course.) Their wraps were awarded an honorable mention. Dr. Kramer also made an appearance. The toga party is not unique to Mary Washington, however. The Washington Post ran a two-page article which explored this phenomenon and stated that there are actual "toga representatives" which go to college to promote the parties and in doing so, promote the movie. TOGA '79, An "invitation only party," brought together just MWC students and their guests, which made the atmosphere familiar and the conditions less crowded, leaving plenty of room to pretzel. Patrick Everett, the Administrative Aide for the House, stated that the party was a success, and there is "a new theme trend in parties, exemplified by Madison's Pajama Keg Party in ACL Saturday night." It seemed as though the student body is looking for more creative names for the mundane title "keg party." The possibilities are endless. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Article Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Sanford, Shauna S. Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary Washington "Animals" Throw Toga Bash Subject The topic of the resource College Newspapers Description An account of the resource An article written for the Mary Washington Bullet by Cynthia Anderson detailing the toga party that was hosted by the "Animals." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anderson, Cynthia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Anderson, Cynthia. "Mary Washington 'Animals' Throw Toga Bash." Mary Washington Bullet, October 3,1979. A16, News Clippings, Box 1, April 19, 1976-October, 1979, Michael A. Mello Papers, 1957-2008, Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979-10-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 jpg 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context mello: 63 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Animal House College Newspaper Keg Party Mary Washington Bullet toga party https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/a996c376804e7aca5fe2b9b2c0906996.jpg cc014527cbe8a6547e9524496396e168 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 2, 1983-1994 Text Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper article Text Any textual data included in the document The faculty at Vermont Law School offers students a wide variety for legal study. Michael Mello, an Assistant Professor at VLS, brings both extensive research and work experience in the field of criminal law. Having graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in May, 1982, Professor Mello clerked with the Honorable Robert S. Vance, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Following this, Professor Mello worked as an Assistant Public Defender in the Office of the Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. His duties included all facets of capital litigation in state and federal courts in addition to being lead counsel in three capital cases and associate counsel in ten others. While working as Assistant Public Defender, Professor Mello represented death row inmates. His recent publication, “Facing Death Alone: The Post- Conviction Attorney Crisis on Death Row”, 37 American University Law Review 513 (1988), provides a definition of the counsel crisis in the post-conviction process of death row inmates and explores one state’s (Florida) legislative solution. The question of access to the courts in the post-conviction process is a complex one with which Professor Mello is continually involved. Florida’s death row population and the lack of counsel for the condemned became a crisis of epidemic proportions, especially in the mid-1980’s. Consequently, Florida experimented with a resource center known as the Office of the Capital Collateral Representative in Tallahasee, Florida. This agency had a statutory mandate to represent all indigent inmates on Florida’s death row. As Senior Assistant, Professor Mello was lead counsel in approximately 30 death row cases. His duties consisted primarily of crisis litigation in cases with imminent execution dates. Currently, Professor Mello teaches courses in criminal law and criminal procedure as well as a seminar on the death penalty and a section in the VLS General Practice Program on pretrial civil litigation. Professors Mello and Apel are also lead counsel in several capital cases including being principal drafters of the the Brief of Petitioner in High v. Zant, No. 87-5666 in the United States Supreme Court. Professor Mello is enthusiastic about his experience here at VLS and, with his extensive background and interests in criminal law, VLS students have invaluable resource from which to learn. In addition to his busy schedule, Professor Mello will be conducting a Facul-tea on Tuesday, March 14, 1989 at 3:30 p.m. at the South Royalton House. His talk will address the Ted Bundy case, of which Professor Mello is very familiar. All students and faculty are encouraged to attend this seminar. The seminar is a perfect opportunity for students to meet Michael Mello and learn about his interesting background and the many complexities facing our criminal justice system today. Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Emma Olson Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mello's expertise adds diversity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Aspland, Tricia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Forum Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-02-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 jpg Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Mello, Michael Vermont Law School Description An account of the resource This article discusses Mello's criminal justice resume, his fields of expertise and how he is beneficial as a professor at Vermont Law School. criminal justice law school lawyer Michael Mello https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/0773693afe182357745689c07bdfda94.jpg 5d21060d8cc9491394a6b6895616558e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Men at MWC: Second Class? Male students at Mary Washington College are faced with the problem of trying to overcome their status as second-class citizens. There are several areas in which female favoritism is obvious; in other areas the problem may be one more of attitude than provable discrimination. Nonetheless, the “place” of the male student at Mary Washington College remains a problem today, seven years after the College opened its’ doors to men. Some female students will cling to the finishing-school image of Mary Washington. They seem to long for the days when MWC was an exclusive, upper-crust, women’s school. Fortunately, the number of these backward-thinking students is small, and ever-decreasing. Concrete examples of female favoritism do exist, however. The French and Spanish houses are closed to qualified males who might wish to live there, as is males are thus being denied an equal opportunity for intense study in the subject of their choice. Does the College wish to say that women have more of a right than men to study French and Spanish? Dormitories provide another situation in which females are favored over males. Upperclassmen have no choice but to live in coed dorms if they live on campus. Women, however may live in either coed or single-sex dorms. Most men do not seem to mind coed dorms; however, in the interest of fairness, they should have a choice. The question of what would happen to Anne Fairfax annex in the unlikely event that a male were elected to a high SA office arouses ones curiosity. Would he be allowed to live there amongst-gasp!-women? Not Likely! Athletics presents another problem. Males are excluded from tennis, swimming and volleyball teams, among others. The College should stand by its’ claim that it “does not discriminate on the basis of…sex.” All qualified athletes should be given an equal chance to earn a position on an athletic team (including soccer, currently an all-male sport a MWC), complete and total fairness must be practiced. Males at Mary Washington are still a numerical minority. This is no excuse, however, for tradition or policy to stand in the way of a qualified male wishing to participate in the school-sponsored activity of his choice. Mary Washington College is supported by the taxpayers of Virginia, both male and female. The students of MWC, both male and female, deserve equal opportunity and fair competition for each position. If Mary Washington is to succeed in its’ mission to serve all student, fairness is a must. “Our republic and its press will rise or fail together.” Joseph Pulitzer. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Vol. No./Issue No. Volume and issue number for the newspaper (if available) Vol. 1, Issue 2 Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Loughery, Nate Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men at MWC: Second Class? Subject The topic of the resource Discrimination Description An account of the resource Students argue the state of gender equality among the students at MWC seven years after it was made coed. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodriguez, Chico Webb, Gary Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Rodriguez, Chico and Gary Webb, "Men at MWC: Second Class?" Prometheus, Volume 1, Issue 2, pages 2 and 11, October 17, 1977, News Clippings, Box 1, April 19, 1976-October, 1979, Michael A. Mello Papers, 1957-2008, Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1977-10-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA discrimination education favoritism male students second-class https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/f919ba6a2953f8e6b62a767d0120421a.jpg ae265b6ed02ba00aa6bf1239fffec601 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Mistake Nearly Cost A Life" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Neely Tucker Description An account of the resource Joseph Green Brown alias "Shabaka," a wrongly convicted rapist and murder on death row for 14 years, released in 1987, now struggles to enjoy his freedom while he lives in a society that he believes is a failed justice system that has prejudice towards minorities. Lawyer Michael A. Mello chimes in on the types of struggles Shabaka faces as a free man and praises his advocacy of the repeal of the death penalty throughout the country. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Florida Today Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available History 298. University of Mary Washington Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 jpeg Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Washington D.C. Subject The topic of the resource Criminal defense lawyers Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/f8d9516f18b88674adc067adfa54db5d.jpg f5bbe5c29cbb81802963c232ff9ab7af Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Mistake Nearly Cost A Life" Subject The topic of the resource Criminal defense lawyers Description An account of the resource Joseph Green Brown alias "Shabaka," a wrongly convicted rapist and murder on death row for 14 years, released in 1987, now struggles to enjoy his freedom while he lives in a society that he believes is a failed justice system that has prejudice towards minorities. Lawyer Michael A. Mello chimes in on the types of struggles Shabaka faces as a free man and praises his advocacy of the repeal of the death penalty throughout the country. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Neely Tucker Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Florida Today Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available History 298. University of Mary Washington Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 jpeg Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Washington D.C. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 2, 1983-1994 Text Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Jah, Ethan Text Any textual data included in the document [image - Joseph Green Brown] [image caption - Death row victor: Joseph Green Brown, also known as Shabaka, spent 13 years on Florida's death row for a crime he did not commit.] He walks the streets of the nation’s capital, white jacket loosely slung across his muscular shoulders, the image of a free man in a free country. Joseph Green Brown – call him by his Swahili name, Shabaka – bypasses the stately townhouses, the men and women in their greatcoats bustling against the winter chill. He doesn’t talk much. He watches a lot. On the street, he’s content to move unnoticed in the crowd. He jogs across the street and ducks into a café-bar for lunch. No one gives him a second glance. That’s fine. People tend to feel nervous when they know Shabaka’s past. For 13 years, thate state of Florida called this soft-spoken, philosophical man a rapist, robber and a killer. Prosecutors wouldn’t have wanted him ordering a hot sandwich and a beer in this nice, upscale luncheonette. Prosecutors wanted him dead. The governor signed his death warrant. Prison guards measured him for a funeral suit. Shabaka had 15 hours to live when an appeal finally netted a stay. Those execution attempts ended just nine months ago when Florida, in a startling announcement, said it had the wrong man. The state’s key witness recanted his testimony and the case against Shabaka collapsed. His conviction was overturned. At first, it was hard for him to step back into the spotlight and speak out against a death penalty system he believes in blatantly racist, immoral and illegal. But in a growing number of public appearances – he’s set to speak at colleges in Alabama, New York, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, and possibly at Harvard – his language is growing stronger, his town more forceful. “In slavery days, I’m what the old field hands would call an ‘indignant nigger,’” he said. “That was a slave they were going to have to beat today, tonight, tomorrow and the next week to keep in line. I’m not going to be quiet. I want to be the person law enforcement agencies call an embarrassment.” Combined with a study in the Stanford Law Review documenting more than 350 oher unjust death sentences this century – 23 resulting in executions – Shabaka hopes to shake up the system that convicted him and dozens of other innocent, impoverished minorities. He was tagged with the July 7, 1973 rape, robbery and murder of a Tampa children’s store owner. Police were still looking for clues in that crime when, miles away and hours [end page] [start page] later, two men broke into a local hotel room. They robbed a couple of jewelry and a few hundred dollars. At gunpoint, the woman was forced to disrobe. One of her assailants started to touch her, suddenly stopped, turned and f;ed/ Joseph “Shabaka” Green Brown, a former Black Panther member, flagged down a police car the next day. He had committed the Holiday Inn robbery, he said. Overcome with guilt, he wanted to turn himself in. It was his first criminal offense. But Brown’s accomplice in the hotel robbery, Ronald Floyd, was not at all pleased with being accused of the crime. Three and a half months later, in a plea bargain deal, he told police Brown was the killer in the earlier robbery. A judge and jury agreed, and they ordered brown electrocuted at the state penitentiary in Starke. From 1974 to March 5, 1987, prosecutors tried. When Floyd finally recanted, Brown was immediately set free. But because he wasn’t in a state facility, he didn’t qualify for rehabilitation programs, the state-granted suit and $100. Instead, he was ushered to the jail-front sidewalk eight minutes after the conviction was overturned. He had a cardboard box of legal papers under his arm and three quarters in his pocket. He was 23 when he flagged down the Tampa police officer. He was now a 37-year-old man. He had sout out Watergate, the “me” generation, disco, Iranian hostages, yuppies and Ronald Reagan. He had no friends, no family in the state, no idea of where the nearest phone booth was or the foggiest idea of how he was going to eat that night. Freedom has not proven to be an easy walk. As he braces himself for his first winter outside prison, he sits at the restaurant, saying he feels more like an exile in a strange and hostile land rather than the free man he embodies when he walks the streets about which he once only dreamed. “I feel lost a lot, kind of disconnected,” he said softly. “One day I was lying in bed, and it really hit me. I thought about them all on the row. … The closest friend I have is still on death row in Florida. And here I am, able to walk around outside and hear the birds, feel the warmth of the sun, watch people walking by on the street, hold a woman or pick up a little baby. I just can’t forget the guys I left behind. Nobody owns Shabaka. But I can’t feel free as long as they’re killing people.” But when he’s not making speeches, life is still a troubling thing for Shabaka. The talks, sporadic and spread out, are the only form of income he can muster. Though he said he’s applied at more than 50 positions – from rolling pizza dough to construction – no offers have been made. It’s barely enough to pay the rent for his corner room in another family’s house. His conscience stalks him. He remembers the woman in the motel room, the terror in her eye. The talks are personal therapy, but he hopes to work with poor teen-agers, giving them a reason to believe. “We’re always drilling it into kids to get and education, to get ahead,” he said. “But nobody tells that to the poor little child down on the wrong side of the block. Let’s say that kid grows up, commits a robbery, rape or worst of all, murder. And people sit back so pious and ask ‘Why? Why such a senseless, stupid act?’ My response is ‘Why not?’ Why should that child value your life or property, when no one ever treated them with any respect, or taught them they were an individual with a life worth living?” Michael Mello, a Washington lawyer who has helped with Shabaka’s readjustment, doesn’t think he’ll ever be the free man who fits into the crowd. “I’m not sure he’ll ever feel comfortable living his own life,” Mello said. “He knows he was just loucky to get out. He has a very strong sense of mission to help those guys back on death row. When hhe tells you he’s not going to let people forget them, he’s not kidding. You’re going to hear a lot from him. He’s like that line in a Joan Baez song, ‘Saviors are a nuisance to live with at home.’ I think that’s going to be America’s feeling for Shabaka.” Student Editor of the Digital Item Dickinson, Terra Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mistake Nearly Cost A Life Subject The topic of the resource Criminal defense lawyers Description An account of the resource Joseph Green Brown alias "Shabaka," a wrongly convicted rapist and murder on death row for 14 years, released in 1987, now struggles to enjoy his freedom while he lives in a society that he believes is a failed justice system that has prejudice towards minorities. Lawyer Michael A. Mello chimes in on the types of struggles Shabaka faces as a free man and praises his advocacy of the repeal of the death penalty throughout the country. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tucker, Neely Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Florida Today Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 JPGs 300 DPI Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Washington D.C. https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/f3995f39ba1b7eefdfa190b8acf0ba0f.jpg 17dbc5b3a05cf9224b7d9791bf2cc395 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/7689f7d7cb27dd4f6d8ec2c512c8f657.jpg 99627ce902a10d32c1bf954d8981c750 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Parsons, Carolyn Text Any textual data included in the document College Police officers have questioned three female Mary Washington College students about their involvement with one of the students recently arrested in connection with the drug raid on Madison Hall. The police, who tied the three women to the Madison situation by means of physical evidence confiscated during the raid, declined comment. The three were questioned by the police on March 28, and all invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. During the March 24 drug raid on Madison, police found three photographs. Each photo depicted a male lighting "bongs" for three different women. Two days after the raid the male in the photographs was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. And two days after that, the three women depicted in the photos were questioned by the College Police. The bong itself was not confiscated in the March 24 raid. one of the three women was interrogated told the Bullet that " the cops just wanted information from us so that they can nail (our friend) in Madison. They just don't have enough evidence on the guys and they wanted our help. I don't think they'll try to get us also, but we could be subpoenaed to testify against the Madison guys." Another of the three female students who were questioned by College Police asserted that "those pictures are worthless as evidence, and the cops know it. There's no way to tell from them that we were smoking anything in these bongs other than cigarette tobacco-which I believe, is still legal even in the state of Virginia." The three women have contacted a local attorney for advice. One of the students said that their lawyer had advised them that they were required to talk to "no one-not the cops, not Woodard, not any other campus officials. Unless we're subpoenaed, then we might begin to worry." Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource More Students Questioned Subject The topic of the resource Marijuana Michael Mello Description An account of the resource A newspaper article written by Michael Mello that describes students being questioned about police over suspected drug usage on campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mello, Michael. "More Students Questioned". The Bullet (Fredericksburg, VA), n.d. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 jpegs 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Marijuana Michael A. Mello student discipline https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/a1cb67e42236ac733275ae35f8ba80bb.jpg 627acdcdfe6472f704c0edd9325eb93e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document For the first time in Mary Washington College History, the student body here has a basic Bill of Rights: The Bill, a five-section Article within the Student Association Constitution, was overwhelmingly ratified in the campus-wide election last Tuesday. At last, we have a reasonably clear, lucid, and explicit statement of exactly what our rights are. The Constitutional Revision Committee, President Woodard, and the student body are to be commended. But the work must not stop here, for the Bill of Rights ratified last week is not perfect. While certainly a tremendous improvement in the SA Constitution, the Bill does have serious limitations which will hinder its effectiveness. The most glaring problem is simply that the Bill is an Article in the SA Constitution. The SA Constitution applies only to the Student Association; it in no way constrains the Administration from ignoring the provisions of the Bill of Rights. The Bill represents progress: now at least the elements of the student government cannot constitutionally violate our fundamental rights. But often it is the Administration, rather than the SA, that encroaches on the rights of students, and here the Bill offers no protection. Some of the provisions in the Bill seem hardly to concern SA activities at all. How, for example, may Executive Cabinet, Senate, or Judicial Court “abridge the rights of students to freedom of religion … or peaceful assembly?” How often does the SA search dormitory rooms? These matters fall within the jurisdiction of the Administration, not the Student Association. Further, the clause in the Bill guaranteeing “due process” to students accused of judicial infractions only applies to student judicial trials; Dr. Woodard insisted that the crucial word “student” be inserted in the provision. Thus, the “due process’ clause does not apply where we perhaps need it the most—in Administrative Hearings. The Section of the Bill pertaining to student clubs is worse than useless; it may even be detrimental. The Constitutional Revision Committee originally suggested that the provision should state that “organizations may be established for any legal purpose. Affiliation with an extramural organization shall not, in itself, disqualify the institution branch or chapter from institutional privileges.” But this was unacceptable to Dr. Woodard, and after discussion the Committee and the President agreed on the following: “Clubs may be established for any legal purpose consistent with the policy of the college. Any such organization shall not be denied membership into ICA, should it desire it, without justifiable reason.” These two statements are radically different. One provides that students may form any legal organizations they want on campus; the other qualifies this by saying that now the club must be “consistent with the policy of the College.” In other words, clubs which the Board of Visitors, through Dr. Woodard, feels are “inconsistent with College policy” may not organize on campus even though their purpose may be perfectly legal and student interest in them great. There are, of course, other limitations on the Bill of Rights. The right of “due process,” now guaranteed to students accused of judicial infractions, does not yet apply to Honor trials. (In fact, defendants in Honor trials do not even have the right to remain silent: the Handbook states that “the accused must answer all questions directed to him.”) Finally, there is no provision in the Bill guaranteeing that the rights of students shall not be denied on account of sexual preference. Having said all of that, one point must be re-emphasized: even with its limitations and ambiguities, the Student Bill of Rights represents progress. It represents progress because it is better than that which is replaces—a nebulous, undefined, generally-agreed-upon notion of what our rights were. Now we know. MAM Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Baumgartner, Dana Notes Additional information regarding your item. This content will not be viewable in the Public View. There is no indication of what newspaper this article came from Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Much Accomplished, More to Do Subject The topic of the resource College students -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States Universities and colleges -- Law and legislation -- United States Description An account of the resource An article regarding a Student Bill of Rights that was created. It describes the problems with the Bill and the process by which it was created. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael A. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG Language A language of the resource English Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Bullet https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/94fe5f41f242c52c70a91a8354fca4ed.jpg 2d05388c6e7e6100b31f225b640ee820 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 4 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Murder case demonstrates sabotage of justice / Public contempt justified in Spaziano delay The criminal justice system is broken. It was not broken by cops or criminals, by crime victims or taxpayers. It was broken by judges, lawyers, legislators and ideologues who scorn the democratic process. The case of Joseph “Crazy Joe” Spaziano, currently of Florida’s death row, is a case in point. How long does it take to bring justice to a vicious murderer? In Spaziano’s case, the answer is 20 years and, as of this writing, still counting. The answer, if a judge is foolish enough to grant this psychopath a new trial, may be never. Spaziano, a motorcycle gang member, was convicted in 1976 of the murder of an 18-year-old girl. He was sentenced to death. In 1996, lawyers, some of whom are ideologically opposed to the death penalty, and the Miami Herald newspaper are crowing that poor Spaziano is an innocent man. Spaziano has also been convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl and of gouging out her eyes with his knife. He is a suspect in three other murders. His own family has said publicly they are terrified that he will be released and will then kill them, as he has threatened to do. In other words, Joe Spaziano is not the kind of man whom any rational person would assume to be innocent, no matter what technical problems there were in his trial. The sole grounds for the passionate belief in Spaziano’s innocence is that a witness who testified that Spaziano showed him two bodies where the murder victim’s body was found has, 20 years later, suddenly claimed that he lied at the trial. When this occurred, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles ordered the state police to conduct an investigation. They did so and found ample evidence that the witness is lying now but told the truth at the trial. There is no corroboration of the witness’s claim that he lied at the trial and is now telling the truth. Even after 20 years to think about it, Spaziano cannot supply an alibi. The witness is now unable to get his new story straight. But there is corroboration of his original testimony. Spaziano’s brother and one of his former Outlaw gang members have both testified that Spaziano volunteered to them that he had killed two women in Florida and was worried about “a kid” who knew about the murder. “The kid” of course is the witness who now claims 20 years later that he made up the whole story and never saw any bodies. When this witness’s sister asked her brother why he ha changed his story after so long, she testified that he replied, “I’m tired of being harassed by Spaziano’s people, lawyers and the media.” The logical inference to be made from that testimony is that while lawyers have played games in the courts, fighting off one execution date after another, somebody has been trying to persuade a man to change his testimony. I hope that the trial judge will have the courage to base his decision on the testimony and not on the hysteria of the Herald or the wild rhetoric of Spaziano’s lawyers. You can be sure if Spaziano ever returns to society, he will kill again. When he does, those who helped him defeat justice, will also have blood on their hands. But either way, this sorry spectacle of justice delayed is why an increasing number of Americans looks upon the criminal justice system with contempt and disdain. It also shows how ideology attempts to subvert democracy. Any judge who opposes the death penalty should resign or at least recuse himself from all capital cases. For a judge to thwart justice simply because he disagrees with a democratically arrived at decision is disgraceful. And others who oppose the death penalty should take their debate to the legislature – and not try to sabotage justice. What a foul system it is that ignores the innocent dead and squanders millions on the living killers. Charley Reese is an Orlando Sentinel columnist. Editor’s note: On Monday, a judge granted a new trial for Spaziano. [image – photo of Charley Reese] [image caption – Charley Reese] Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Ramirez-Portillo, Jessica Student Editor of the Digital Item Dickinson, Terra Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Murder Case Demonstrates Sabotage of Justice Description An account of the resource With renewed interest in giving convicted murderer Joe Spaziano a new trial. Mello expresses the lack of legitimacy on this movement and specifically addresses the witness who claimed that he lied on the trial 20 years after the case. Mello closes his writing by impugning the idea of setting Spaziano free and how people in protest of death row may potentially deny justice to Spaziano's victims. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-01-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 JPG 300 DPI Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Criminal courts--United States Spaziano, Joe Equality before the law--United States Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Mello, Micheal. "Murder Case Demonstrates Sabotage of Justice, Public Contempt Justified in Spaziano Delay." The Tribune, January 24, 1996, A7. "Crazy Joe" Spaziano criminal justice death penalty Florida Judicial proceedings https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/0be3e32dc6a9d6814437f358d6df468b.jpg 99856a149382d94854b68c39279bddfd https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/8ef11cd3c33ed5a28133c6f34f4fb56d.jpg c3051289f1e5750061d4c3d0bcac89e2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 3, 1995 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Prosecutors in the Jeffrey Allen murder case lowered the charges to second-degree murder this week because of concern about proving premeditation in the trial that starts Monday. White River Junction District Court Judge Shireen Avis Fisher granted a motion from Windsor County State’s Attorney Patricia Zimmerman to amend the charge against Allen from first-degree to second-degree murder. Allen has admitted shooting his girlfriend’s ex-husband in a Bridgewater mobile home last Christmas Eve, but maintains it was in self-defense, his lawyer says. Second-degree murder “is easier to prove. Premeditation is not an element for second-degree cases,” Zimmerman said Friday. “That’s the only reason.” “They obviously didn’t think they had a prayer of convincing a jury on premeditation. There’s no other reason that I can think of,” said Michael Mello, a constitutional lawyer and criminal law professor at Vermont Law School. “They should not have indicted on first-degree murder to begin with.” Jeffrey Allen was arrested at the Daly Hollow Road trailer he shared with Marjorie Allen shortly after the early morning shotgun shooting of Richard Allen, 58, of Epsom, N.H. The two men are not related. Richard Allen allegedly broke into the trailer and punched Jeffrey Allen in the face after finding him in bed with Marjorie Allen, according to a state police affidavit. Jeffrey Allen then secluded himself for five hours in the trailer bedroom while Richard Allen talked to his ex-wife in the kitchen. She divorced her husband in 1992 after a violent and abusive marriage, according to court documents. Jeffrey Allen told police he believed the other man was drinking beer through the night and Richard Allen had yelled insults at him in a threatening manner. Shortly after 5 a.m., Richard Allen allegedly walked down the trailer hallway, opened the door to the bedroom, and was shot in the chest, police said. “There’s no question that Jeffrey Allen fired the weapon. We continue to maintain that he did so in self-defense, and that it was a fully justifiable shooting,” said Matthew Levine, Allen’s defense attorney. Mello, who said he was “loathe to criticize” Zimmerman, said the lesser charges “indicates that she’s pretty nervous about her case. And she should be. This is one of the strongest claims of self-defense that I have seen in a dog’s age.” He also said that the original first-degree murder indictment may have been an effort by Zimmerman to encourage a plea bargain by Allen. “One possibility, and prosecutors do this all the time in death cases, is they prosecute high in hopes that getting a first-degree murder indictment will strong-arm the defendant into a plea bargain,” Mello said. “If that was her aim in this case, it obviously didn’t work.” “I guess the difficulty I have is Mike Mello knows nothing about the case. I don’t see bringing first-degree murder charges an inducing a plea agreement,” Zimmerman responded. “The reality is you always know more about a case after you file charges (and hear from the defense) rather than before you file charges.” Zimmerman, who is expected to rely on the testimony of Marjorie Allen as a key part of her prosecution, said, “It’s the state’s burden to prove that it wasn’t self-defense.” Levine declined to reveal whether Jeffrey Allen would take the witness stand. “He won’t necessarily have to call the defendant,” Mello said. “What’s critical is that Mr. Levine be able to persuade the jury that the defendant subjectively believed that he was in imminent danger by the victim, and that that belief was reasonable.” And that will depend on the circumstances of the case, other lawyers agree. “Maybe the guy was terrified. Maybe he wasn’t. And if he was terrified, did have a reason to be terrified?" asked Harry Black, a defense attorney in White River Junction. “If Charles Manson is coming after me with a knife, I have a lot more reason to be scared than someone who I know is a reasonable person and can be talked out of it. I’d have a lot more justification in shooting Charlie.” Jury selection starts Monday morning, and the trial is expected to last less than two weeks. Allen faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted of the new charges. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Brokaw, Marianne Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Murder charge reduced in Allen case Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 JPGs 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Capital punishment Murder Mello, Michael Description An account of the resource Charges against Jeffrey Allen in the shooting death of Richard Allen have been reduced from first-degree to second-degree murder. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gregg, John Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1995-8-12 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant White River Junction, VT Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Gregg, John. "Murder charges reduced in Allen case," Rutland Daily Herald, August 12, 1995, morning addition. capital punishment Jeffrey Allen Michael Mello murder umw https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/c293dbf9a7b789cac2f276291642bf95.jpg 4bf27387003e2819d6e7d65e1ff699f0 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/c5030cb2896b37aeaf4ca384717e1486.jpg 0167ddbcd02f7d85f53d8e1ea301f9fe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document [Photo Caption] LOBBYING AGAINST MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION, conducting local polls and obtaining guest speakers are some of the objectives of Mary Washington College's new chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. Legally marijuana is any part of the marijuana plant, except for sterile seeds and the stalks of the major plant. Hashish is marijuana. Hash oil in marijuana only if it contains less than 15 per cent tetra hydro-cannobinol. In Virginia, the penalty for possession of marijuana of a fan up to $1000 and a jail sentence up to 12 months. Possession of hash oil and other drugs such as heroin and LSD warrants up to ten years in the penitentiary. The penalty for manufacturing marijuana, hashish or hash oil is from five to 40 years in the penitentiary and a fine up to $25,000. The penalty for sale or distribution of marijuana or hash oil is from five to 40 years in the penitentiary and a fine of up to $25,000 -- unless a person proves that he was given away the drug or selling it for no profit, for which case the penalty is the same as that of possession. If a person 18 or over gives any drug, including marijuana to someone under 18 and at least 3 years younger than the donor, the penalty is a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of 50 years and a fine of up to $50,000. If a person is found guilty of possession of any drug and he has never been convicted of a drug-related offense before, the judge may put him on probation. After the probationary period the judge may dismiss the case. The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) would like to see these laws concerning the criminalization of marijuana changes. The recent establishment of NORML at Mary Washington College is the first attempt by any college in Virginia to have this organization on campus/. Supervised by six faculty advisers and presently headed by Acting President Michael Mello, NORML held its first meeting Thursday, September 23 in Lounge A. There was standing room only. Roy Sherrer, a registered lobbyist for the Virginians for the Study of Marijuana Laws (VSML), spoke at the meeting. Lobbyists have made possible the exclusion of drug possession as grounds for legal wiretapping, the change of sharing marijuana from a felony to misdemeanor. They have stopped attempts of search without a warrant of suspicion and they have killed attempts to raise the maximum penalty for selling most drugs to life imprisonment. MWC's NORML plans to contribute funds to the hiring of a professional lobbyist to go before the General Assembly. The original hopes to conduct surveys concerning opinions on marijuana laws, show movies to the public such as "Reefer Madness," "Marijuana: Assasin of Youth" and "Marijuana: The New Prohibition," and hopes to get several speakers including John Zwerling, head of Virginia NORML. "The biggest obstacle to pot law reform isn’t the congress in Washington, the state Legislator in Richmond or Judge Gouldman in Fredericksburg. The biggest obstacle is apathy," remarked Mello at the meeting. "So long as we continue to tolerate this prohibition, we will have it around our necks forever. But, when we let our opinions be known by our elected officials these laws will change." The next NORML meeting will be on Thursday, October 7 in ACL. Mello commented that he has heard a lot of students did not attend the first normal meeting by fear of harassment by the police or campus administrators. "There is absolutely no evidence of harassment of any member of NORML by any member of the administration," said Mello. He mentioned the progress he had made towards the decriminalization for marijuana by lobbying before the General Assembly since 1972. For further information concerning membership in NORML. contact Mike Mello at extension 422. Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Clark, Jessica N. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Notes Additional information regarding your item. This content will not be viewable in the Public View. Above the article title, there is a photo of a lit marijuana joint in an ashtray. Displayed next to the ashtray is a grinder, ZIG-ZAG wrapping papers, struck matches, and unlit marijuana joint. Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource MWC Establishes Campus NORML Subject The topic of the resource Marijuana--Law and legislation Description An account of the resource The establishment of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) at Mary Washington College was the first attempt by any college in Virginia to have this organization on campus. With acting president Michael Mello, MWC NORML will contribute funds to the hiring of a personal lobbyist to go before the General Assembly and hold various meetings with the intention of overcoming apathy regarding marijuana laws. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mello, Michael A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Bullet Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976-09-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 JPG 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Marijuana Law https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/92185f32846490589c2f4313346c8f96.jpg cbfd0cc10f02c0bbf4497ce99eddcb2a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 2, 1983-1994 Text Text Any textual data included in the document Warrenton, VA-As a part of its ongoing Death Penalty Project, NACDL co-sponsored the Annual Capital Punishment Conference held at the Arlie Conference Center in Warrenton, Virginia on July 18-20. The Conference has served for a number of years as the national strategy session for lawyers handling death penalty appeals and collateral attacks. Programmatic and logistical responsibilities were handled by the other co-sponsors, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The seminar drew 103 participants from around the United States. The program covered a multitude of issues and types of information including a status report of the various death rows around the U.S., Supreme Court developments, developments in the state and Circuit Court of Appeals, habeas litigation and the special problems pertaining to it, clemency proceedings, state organizations, and dealing with the personal (as opposed to legal) aspects of executions. This years conference was jeopardized because of funding curtailments, a fact which moved the NACDL Board of Directors to authorize a co-sponsorship funded by a grant from the ABA Bar Information Project. Other activities funded by the grant were production of the NACDL Collateral Attack Manual and production of extra issues of the March Death Penalty Issue of the CHAMPION. The death penalty issue of the CHAMPION has been widely distributed throughout the death penalty community. 1984 marked the first year in which NACDL has co-sponsored this very important conference. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Magazine Vol. No./Issue No. Volume and issue number for the newspaper (if available) July 1984 Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource NACDL Co-Sponsors Death Penalty Conference Subject The topic of the resource Capital punishment Description An account of the resource The article describes the Annual Capital Punishment Conference and the issues it deals with. It also tells of the Conference's lack of funding and how the NACDL (National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers) stepped in to sponsor the event. The Conference was held July 18th-20th, 1984. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Champion Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 jpg 300 dpi Language A language of the resource English Annual Capital Punishment Conference National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/5a37c3fec95d8f09d12bffb03005a315.jpg 09b7e3b5b4e5b7fa3d896d934d952812 https://hist299.umwhistory.org/files/original/1e55f607f54ff331e0de5fb1f4d583db.jpg c4dc4c0441b56d86cb449157e7abe1da Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael A. Mello Papers, Series 1 News Clippings, Binder 1, 1976-1979 Text Text Any textual data included in the document The Mary Washington College Judicial Court has upheld the “due process Clause of the Student Handbook. In a decision rendered Sunday night, the Court found freshman Anne Knight guilty of a visitation violation but dismissed the charges on grounds that she was not advised of her rights. Bullet reporters and artists were invited by Ms. Knight to cover the proceedings. This is the first known Judicial trial at MWC to be covered by the press. According to the Student’ Handbook, a defendant has the right to request an open trial. Ms. Knight was accused of having a male guest in her Mason dorm room on two different occasions in one day without signing him in. Charges were brought by Mason Judicial Representative Gail Warren. Witnesses called by the prosecution were Margaret Corcoran and Yvonne Walbroehl, the defendant’s suitemates, and Ann Hodgson, junior counselor. All claimed to have seen the male, whom Ms. Knight identified as her boyfriend. The trial began with the judicial representative’s account of the case. In response to the defendant’s claim that her right to due process was violated because she was not informed of their rights, Ms. Warren testified that “I didn’t inform her of her rights.” When questioned by defense counsel Michael Mello, she stated: “I forgot.” The defense cited this procedural error as a basis for dismissing the case. A second error concerned the defendant’s right to privacy. Ms. Warren stated in answer to questions by defense counsels Mello and Gary Webb that one Vanessa Martin, who was not otherwise involved in the case, was present when Ms. Warren told Ms. Knight the date, time, and place off trial. Ms. Warren claimed that the presence of Ms. Martin did not violate the defendant’s right to privacy. In her statement, Ms. Knight admitted that her boyfriend was indeed present in the room. However, Ms. Knight argued [t]hat Ms. Warren’s procedural errors invalidated any charges. Ms. Knight cited the Student Handbook, the Student Bill of Rights, and the S.A. Constitution as documents guaranteeing the right of “due process.” The defendant stated that the responsibility for following correct procedures lies with the judicial representatives. Ms. Knight challenged the Court by saying, “the judicial system of Mary Washington College is on trial here and the question is simply: is that system willing to abide by its own rules? If not, if officers of that system may trample on the Student Handbook and ignore it provisions, why shouldn’t all students follow its lead?” Although the accused based her defense on what some termed a “technicality,” she noted that, “What is being overlooked in these attacks on procedural ‘technicalities’ is the realization that, over the long pull of centuries, these requirements have served as gradually accumulating building blocks to form our most effective barrier against arbitrary governmental deprivation of our civil rights.” Thus, she concluded, “. . . but one remedy exists to deter future violations of The Handbook directions by dormitory officers. That remedy is the same one that the federal court system uses in similar circumstances: The nullification of convictions that are obtained in cases in which gross procedural errors occur.” The court deliberated for approximately 20 minutes. When the court reconvened Chairman Jane Daniels read the verdict: “Unanimously guilty of a visitation violation. However, we are dismissing the charges on the grounds that you were not advised of your rights. This is by no means a reflection on the entire judicial system. It is because of the incompetency of one judicial official. A new system for appointment for residential Judicial chairmen had been established to alleviate this problem.” Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Newspaper Article Contributor of the Digital Item Person submitting the digital item to the collection. Buterbaugh, Phillip Carl Student Editor of the Digital Item Williams, Megan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Judicial Court Upholds Due Process: Court Dismisses Charges Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source. Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Due process of law Mello, Michael Student rights Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McFalls, Helen Marie Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 298, University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-04-25 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 2 JPG 300 dpi Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mello_53 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Fredericksburg, VA Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived McFalls, Helen Marie. "Judicial Court Upholds Due Process: Court Dismisses Charges". The Bullet (VA), April 25, 1978. Description An account of the resource A newspaper article written by Helen McFalls, discussing a decision made by the Mary Washington College Judicial Court to overturn charges brought on Anne Knight regarding a unauthorized dorm room visit by her boyfriend. Defended by Michael Mello, her charges were dismissed due to a failure to advise her of her rights. This case initiated a revision of the system used to appoint residential Judicial chairmen. Anne Knight due process Gail Warren Gary Price Webb Helen Marie McFalls Jane Daniels Judicial Representive Margaret Corcoran Mary Washington College Judicial Court Mary Washington College Judicial Review Michael Mello MWC new system for appoiting Judicial chairmen sneaking boy in dorm Student Bill of Rights Student Handbook Student Rights The Bullet Vanessa Martin Yvonne Walbroehl