In January of twenty-fourteen I was brought before Justice John Stavley and found guilty of something, which has yet to be defined. Some of the evidence against me in the civil hearing was a story I’d written and published on my blog. One line, of one story of the twenty or thirty I’d written since I’d arrived in Boulder. In addition, there was no outline for the charge, nor any narrative of the yet to be defined civil transgression presented at the hearing.
In addition to that mess I’d also published a story, The Homeless Romantic, just the month before, in which a client of the Rec Center had identified me as a troublemaker, and upon whose complaint an investigation had been launched. The finding was that there was not a single complaint, either from staff or clients, concerning my behavior. According to the head lifeguard, Victor, they figured out later that the complainant was crazy, so Victor apologized.
The story I had written was a true but unflattering portrayal of Ms. Cole, the Director of Aquatics; and I contend that was motivation enough for her to create, through the use of spurious slander, an atmosphere that was more than conducive to a mobbing. In one short month I went from good guy to … take your pick … predator, perv, stalker, or generally just being ‘creepy’ … because as I said, the charge went unstated at the hearing. (Case Number 2014C 000021)
The consequences of this malicious gossip and prosecution were devastating to me. For one, the panic attacks I suffered were so severe that I turned myself into the hospital psych ward on a suicide watch, because I dared not tell them I was feeling homicidal.
Thank the Supreme Court that I still live in a country where I can say that out loud, so that the real debate around the psychological and societal costs of intolerance of the other, and mobbing, and tribalism, can be spoken of openly. That’s what Counterman vs. Colorado means to me, the freedom to discuss what happened to me in the aftermath of a mobbing in real terms; truthfully. What my sacrifice should mean to you is that I took a bullet for free speech. I was, my stories were, on the front line, and I took a bullet … the stigma of mental illness bullet that kills credibility.
One of my hopes for the future is to fight the stigma that asking for help when you’ve been morally wounded by a mobbing brings with it; due to the very primitive perspective we have in America concerning socially borne pathologies and personal accountability for malicious slander. When a judge, who is the writer’s last hope for rational thought on the rights of free speech, abdicates his education, training, and experience for virtue signaling and tribalism, you are, justly or not, in a Kafkaesque reality; and the farther from the truth you get, the more Kafkaesque reality becomes.
All of this nonsense would have stood the test of time, even with the City Attorney and the Judge having obviously conspired to break the law, as is evident in the transcript without a guiding narrative, had it not been for Counterman vs. Colorado. These two narratives, initiated in the same year, just a few miles apart, led Counterman to the Supreme Court, and led me to write my book, Coulder North, which predates the Supreme Court decision by five years.
In it I describe the actual chilling effect Judge Stavley’s decision had on my writing, my life, and my current prospects and perspective. And, in spite of maybe seeing justice served soon, he marked me for life; so that the net result is that anything I write, no matter how socially relevant or beneficial, will always be tainted by his careless, capricious criminality. My reputation even now, and every day until I die, will have to carry the weight of his ignorance, solipsism, and maliciousness. He took the law into his own hands; he dispensed vigilante justice. He was in the end defined in his legal career by his arrogant abuse of the law. Don’t kid yourselves … I’m sure I wasn’t his first victim.
I didn’t enter this fight to lose it. As I said before, I’ve only begun to fight and as far as I can see the CJS just lost the momentum. The best thing to do now is to start telling the truth about what happened and who did what, but I know you won’t take it … too much personal and institutional arrogance. So we’ll dance, only this time I’ll call the tune, a million dollars per year for the last ten years that I lost, and we’ll do it in public, in this format. I’ll start by citing NYT vs. Sullivan and the Justice’s written decision in the Counterman case.
Post Script
If you haven’t already informed the young lady involved that she was used by Ms. Cole, Tom Carr, and Judge Stavley to shutdown my writing, because you were afraid of being sued by her, you should; because at this point if you haven’t I think it’s yet another crime.
So stay tuned folks, I’ll be posting more short essays on this topic, at least one or perhaps two a week for the foreseeable future; let’s see what Judge Stavley says in response to this artful approach to his criminal behavior. The Press will be first up … that means you, Mr. Dyer, and Judge Stavely will be next … that means you, John.
thetriptonowhere...cafe` 66...book blog 