SANCTIONS

When I was sanctioned in 1988 by Federal Judge Joseph Stevens in the Doretha Bryant lawsuit that I had been brought, under federal RICO statutes, against Preston Kerr’s cronies at the Golden Ox Restaurant, in an attempt to thwart their bold corporate takeover of the nationally renowned Kansas City barbecue legend, “Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue,” it altered the orbit of my life and law practice. I was brought into the case by Israel Hawkins of Kansas City , Kansas, who befriended me in my legal practice’s infancy. I was anathematized as an attorney in the black community, later. I was ostracized by lawyers. My solo law practice was fiscally paralyzed, by Joe Stevens’ very racist and public order that accused me of using the press to coerce, to sue, but not prosecute the RICO suit. Yet , I toughed it out. I survived the deaths of Joe Stevens, Doretha Bryant , Bruce Houdek, Esq., Preston Kerr’s lawyer , Preston Kerr, himself ,the Golden Ox Restaurant praise God! I also survived the imprisonment of Israel Hawkins—who was convicted years later and sentenced to 30 years in federal court of defrauding some of his other investors in a wild scheme—with which I was not involved. Also years later, I paid $8,000 to settle the $14,000 legal sanction imposed upon by Stevens. The point of this is that my wings were clipped as access to media was the best way for me to leverage disproportionates, so we could win. I have written of this legal history, because certain of my sharing privileges in Facebook have been suspended until February 20, 2020. There was nothing that I did wrong to my knowledge to bring this sanction about. Just as my sanction by Stevens was not due to anything wrong that I had done. But rather it was done, ostensibly, for what I had not done: serve the RICO lawsuit on the defendants within 120 days of filing it pursuant to now-repealed Rule 4(j) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, extant in 1980’s. Not serving the lawsuit but filling it was my reason for being sanctioned after the “K.C. Star” wrote about my lawsuit filing , on its own, in the regular, as part of court-coverage news . Anyway, I have confronted my old ghost. My old demons, have now been exorcised. I move on to deal with the new ones before me. But inexplicably while exorcising old demons inside me , I have found another even greater travesty in 1989, the year of my 8th circuit sanction affirmation. That very year the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in “Connor v. Graham”, the principle that is the basis for police killings; now loudly, widely decried as being unconscionable, unconstitutional. In my case as in “Connor v. Graham” both courts deferred to what was happening on the ground at the time of the occurrence. They deferred to an “objective fact -intensive” moment, test for guidance as to the propriety of police conduct. They did this rather than to rely upon the more customary subjective analysis—whether by supervisory police or forensic police experts. The subjective test is outside of the immediacy of police officers under “stress” or a federal judge under duress in the press. If outside of the police in the moment, or if outside of a federal judge who is in the moment, the courts deferred to the fact-based "moment." 1989 was a rough year all around!