In Memoriam

Two years ago today, James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman, entered an abnormally hot sweat lodge officiated by James Arthur Ray. Along with a number of other participants, they were severely injured by the high temperatures. They did not survive their injuries.

On July 22, 2011, James Ray was convicted of three counts of criminally negligent homicide. He is still awaiting sentencing and remains free on bond. Said former Ray student, and survivor of an earlier sweat lodge, Connie Joy:

"When this trial started, never in my mind did I think we would be here at the two-year anniversary. I just feel like it's such a limbo. I want this to be resolved."

To the families and friends of James Shore, Kirby Brown, Liz Neuman, and Colleen Conaway, who died on July 25th of the same year at another James Ray event, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

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James Ray Sentencing: New Dates

Judge Darrow has set a new date of November 18th for James Ray's sentencing with the presentencing hearing to precede. The new hearing schedule reads as follows:

(1)     Tuesday, November 8, 2011 (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m)
(2)     Wednesday, November 9, 2011 (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
(3)     Thursday, November 10, 2011 (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
(4)     Tuesday, November 15, 2011 (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
(5)     Wednesday, November 16, 2011 (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
(6)     Thursday, November 17, 2011 (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)

So... um... yeah...

The good news is that Sheila Polk has received still more letters to use in the hearing. They're itemized in the most recent disclosure. Of particular interest is one from Kristina Bivins. Bivins can be seen on the Primetime: Mind Games special from last year. The money quote:

It's horrible what happened in the sweat lodge, that three people died. But my life is better and I am so grateful for that. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Second thoughts perhaps? Has Ms. Bivins had her come to Jesus moment? I look forward to learning what she has to say about James Ray these days but it looks like I'll have to wait until November... unless the defense team pulls another stunt pushing this whole thing back even further... sigh...

In the meanwhile, I'm just going to keep working on my vision board.

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Amanda Knox: Another Witch Trial?

I will be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the Amanda Knox murder trial. I didn't follow it when it was going on and most of the hysterical coverage here in the states was little more than background noise to me. I will also freely admit that I should have been paying more attention. In the wake of her exoneration on appeal, the coverage has been most interesting. I don't know if she and her boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito were guilty or innocent. I haven't read enough about the case to have a fully formed opinion. But it seems evident at this point that whatever else it may have been, this was another case of a woman being put on trial for her sexuality. There are also disturbing elements of a Satanic Panic similar to that that robbed the West Memphis Three of eighteen years of their lives. The Wild Hunt gives a little overview.

Now that Amanda Knox has been acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher on appeal, more than a few have been noting the ties to “Satanic panic” that marred the original conviction. However, a bizarre editorial from Brendan O’Neill in The Telegraph says that the Satanic panics were started by feminists, not Christians, using one whole data point (and Oprah) to feed his narrative. In truth, this moral panic incubated, at least in the United States, in Christian churches, not feminist gatherings. The textual evidence for this is so pervasive that I can only think that O’Neill has an ax to grind.

The Brendan O'Neill piece is nothing short of bizarre and his animus towards feminism is glaringly apparent.

This idea that the modern-day obsession with Satanism and crazy sexual degradation springs from somewhere within the Vatican is completely mad. It wasn’t Catholic officials or men of the cloth who in recent years rehabilitated the Middle Ages view that there are evil people out there who worship the devil and have sex while they’re doing it – no, it was radical feminists and social workers, in fact some of the same kind of people currently shedding tears over the witch-hunting of Knox. Across Western Europe and America in the 1980s and 90s, it was implacably atheistic, supposedly “Left-wing” activists who spread the idea that Satanism was making a comeback and that children were being raped and killed as a result. It was writers like Beatrix Campbell, a feminist and contributor to the Guardian, who argued in 1990 in Marxism Today, the then bible of the chattering Left, that Satanists were “organising rituals to penetrate any available orifice in troops of little children; to cut open rabbits or cats or people and drink their blood; to shit on silver trays and make the children eat it”. It was feministic social workers who, with the help of police, kidnapped working-class children from their families on the bizarre basis that they were being ritualistically abused. It was people like Oprah Winfrey, echoing academic feminists, who hosted TV shows claiming that some families in America were involved in "human sacrifice rituals and cannibalism" – watch the clip here.

He's not entirely wrong as to how, in part, the Satanic Panic was disseminated, but has ripped these elements from their proper context and transparently used them to bash feminism. In his version of events the sex abuse of children is a fictional element of a feminist obsession with Satanism. This is about exactly backwards. There were definitely erroneous reports of Satanic ritual abuse; some that ruined people's lives unfairly. This was part of a larger belief in the recovery of repressed memory that dominated discussions of sex abuse more generally. Much of the repressed memory theory has been discredited. That far more sex abuse of children occurs than society had previously wanted to admit has not. And the repressed memory theory was one part of bringing the horrors of this crime out into the open, in part because it allowed for legal avenues where the statute of limitations would otherwise have made prosecution impossible.

Repressed memory theory remains controversial. The American Psychiatric Association considers its occurrence as possible but unproven.

First, it's important to state that there is a consensus among memory researchers and clinicians that most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them although they may not fully understand or disclose it. Concerning the issue of a recovered versus a pseudomemory, like many questions in science, the final answer is yet to be known. But most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later. However, these leaders also agree that it is possible to construct convincing pseudomemories for events that never occurred.

The mechanism(s) by which both of these phenomena happen are not well understood and, at this point it is impossible, without other corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true memory from a false one.

In The Myth of Repressed Memory, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus effectively challenged the theoretical framework of repressed memory therapy. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I wrote the press release for the book when it was originally released.) It was a fascinating book and while I would not say that Loftus entirely disproved the phenomenon of repressed and recovered memory, she demonstrated quite conclusively that memory is a creative and mutable function. We rescript memories all the time, which is why two people can remember the same events very differently. And under guidance we can completely fabricate false memories. I think there is little question that there are cases of people fabricating memories under hypnosis and other forms of therapy that are partly or, in some instances, entirely false.

I think in many cases it was accidental and with the best of intentions that therapists guided people through a process of memory recovery that created false memories. And in some of those cases, the memories that arose involved Satanic ritual abuse and some people saw things that looked like horror movies complete with supernatural phenomena. These memories were treated as real by therapists and talk show hosts and formed one tributary that fed the Satanic Panic of the '80s and '90s. I would never be so arrogant as to say that no instance of Satanic ritual abuse ever occurred. I will say that there has never been documented evidence of it and point out that the FBI was never able to corroborate the instances of Satanic ritual murders and the like.

To chalk this up to some kind feminist conspiracy, however, is ludicrous. Women, some self-described feminists and some not, have been at the forefront of a movement to bring the horrors of childhood sexual abuse into the open and to provide avenues for effective therapy. Some of it has been disastrous. Some of it has been life-saving for survivors of sex abuse.

A social worker friend of mine explained to me, some years ago, his theory of why Satanic ritual abuse has come up repeatedly in the therapy of sex abuse survivors and I consider his reasoning quite sound. It was his supposition that people who'd been sexually abused as children found themselves in an experience of unfathomable evil and a total sense of powerlessness. That they would augment those memories with imaginings of the archetype of ultimate evil, Satan, made perfect sense.

All that said, I think O'Neill's supposition that the prosecutor in Italy was led astray by feminists in his Satanic theory of Amanda Knox's criminal proclivities is the height of absurdity. His case against Knox was the antithesis of feminism but, more to the point, he seems to have something of an obsession with Satanism.

The story begins almost a decade ago, long before Meredith Kercher's murder, when the pubblico ministero (public prosecutor) of Perugia, Giuliano Mignini, opened an investigation into the mysterious death of a doctor whose body was found floating in Lake Trasimeno in 1985.

Mignini believed the doctor was connected to a satanic sect, which had murdered him because he was about to go to the police and reveal its many crimes. Mignini believed this shadowy cult was connected to infamous murders committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence.

. . .

Mignini theorised that this satanic cult consisted of powerful people – noblemen, pharmacists, journalists and freemasons – who ordered the Monster killings because they needed female body parts to use as the blasphemous wafer in their black masses. Putting himself in charge of the investigation, Mignini became so obsessed that he crossed the line of legality, wiretapping journalists and conducting illegal investigations of newspapers.

He was indicted for these and other crimes, including abuso d'ufficio, abuse of office, in 2006. One prosecutor said he was a man "prey to a kind of delirium".

Far from a feminist inspired sex abuse theory, Mignini's case took as its departure point the mere fact that Amanda Knox was a young woman very much in possession of her sex drive. This, to his way of thinking, made her "'a diabolical, satanic, demonic she-devil' who 'likes alcohol, drugs and hot, wild sex'. "

As Hugo Schwyzer explained in a recent column, the prosecution put her perfectly normal, nonviolent sexuality on trial.

That mixture of prurience and contempt was on full display in Perugia, where Knox was tried.  The prosecutor devoted extensive time to discussing the defendant’s sex life and her clothing, including her taste in (or lack of) underwear. He was positively obsessed with her vibrator, as if female masturbation  was indicative of a propensity for homicide.  Her diary, replete with the personal details one would expect in a private journal, was read repeatedly in court.

Sadly, there is nothing new about the demonization of female sexuality. It's quite ancient, really.

There is also nothing new about accusations of Satanism, heresy, and evil Masonic plots. And despite Brendon O'Neill's protestations, far more of that falls to the history of the Catholic church than to modern feminism. And Giulliano Mignini looks like an old-school inquisitor, pursuing specters of witchery and other enemies of the Church.

Mignini got encouragement and theoretical assistance in the esoteric aspects of previous investigations from an unusual source: Gabriella Carlizzi, a wealthy Roman woman and courthouse gadfly whose day job consisted of running a Catholic charity that worked with prisoners. Carlizzi, who died of cancer in 2010, was, like Mignini, a serious practicing Catholic herself who had dedicated her life to exposing and fighting satanic sects.

. . .

One of Carlizzi’s primary obsessions were the Masons.

There are 24 Masonic lodges in Perugia, making it Italy’s per-capita center of Masonic activity. Perugians believe that members of those lodges secretly control most aspects of banking, business and administration in their community.

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Hail Columbia

Buy at Allposters.com

At 6:00 this evening, DC40 kicked off their "siege" in the US capital. Tomorrow they begin their prayer mission of "reformation" in each of the 50 states starting with Hawaii because it was the last state to join the union. From there, they'll continue through the states in reverse order. As discussed here, they're turning turning their guns directly on the goddess Columbia as they attempt to obliterate the Pagan underpinnings of the US. In response, this site, and many others, will be engaging in a counter campaign to honor the Pagan underpinnings of the US by honoring Columbia. See how that works?

When the organizers on the DC40 got wind of Pagan interest in their event they responded with a blood invocation.

The New Apostolic Reformation, a neo-Pentecostal Christian movement, hosts an event called DC40 to “lay siege” for 40 days on Washington D.C. to change the District of Columbia into the District of Christ and eliminate compromise in our government. Pagans around the country attempt to counter the event’s goal of influencing elected officials.

. . .

In their latest newsletter, DC40 sent out this response to the Pagan community:

We are well aware of the websites and blogs rallying to try and curse our effort and counter it. Always remember, You can’t curse what God has blessed! Read Psalm 2. Remember also that Jesus is the light of every man. We have read some of your accusations and false perceptions of us, and we say “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We were once in darkness too, and we call you out of the darkness and into the light. We release the power of blood-covered light over you.

Will James Arthur Ray EVER Be Sentenced?

Well... I think he will... presently. But I sure do understand the frustration of the families and friends of the deceased -- let alone the many, many, many people who have suffered physical, emotional, and financial damage at the hands of this lunatic. Due to Kelly's health issues, Judge Darrow said in a hearing yesterday that he will not reschedule the presentencing hearing before the middle of October.

Attorney Tom Kelly, still recovering from treatment for a heart condition, appeared alone in court and outlined the defense's difficulties in arranging schedules, both their own and that of the many witnesses they intend to present at a pre-sentence hearing.

Kelly said his doctor has cleared him to defend a client in a jury trial that begins Oct. 19, but emphasized that he was also ordered to be on light duty. He said he needs a second procedure that has not yet been scheduled.

The re-emergence of Kelly prompted Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk to suggest that the proceedings could resume immediately, even offering to forego a scheduled family vacation the week of Oct. 7-15. Saying that the state has made a strong showing, both in arguments and pleadings, of "the need to move this case forward," Polk said she would be fine with the previous scheduling, which would have started the pre-sentence hearings on Wednesday.

Darrow, though, said he would not set the hearings and sentencing, which will require at least six court days, to begin before Oct. 15, adding that perceptions that the delays have been solely caused by defense maneuverings were somewhat inaccurate.

Notice the use of the weasel word "somewhat." In other words it's essentially accurate, if not entirely. I don't know if Mark Duncan is quoting Darrow or if that phrasing points to his own subconscious understanding of how much the defense team, of which he seems so enamored, is playing the system here. They play it well. And having read both the motion for continuance and the response I'm not at all surprised the defense got their continuance. I think Darrow was between a rock and a hard place on that one. Kelly even openly threatened to use this as yet another appellate issue in his reply. Personally, I think Judge Darrow is well aware of how litigious Ray's defense is and no judge wants his case overturned on appeal. So he's given the defense a lot of leeway and not a little rope to hang themselves. And they have, repeatedly.

Aside from granting the continuance, Judge Darrow denied several of the defense's other motions. He denied a motion to seal Tom Kelly's affidavit to protect his private medical data, in the interest of a transparent legal process. He is, however, allowing the defense time to provide a redacted copy. He denied their motion to have much of the prosecution's evidence for the presentencing hearing excluded, as discussed here. And he denied the defense's request to seal the support letters for the presentencing hearing because they "inadvertently" failed to redact the contact information of the letter writers. Yes, they copped to having screwed that up royally.

Aside from their error in, once again, broadcasting the addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of private citizens, I can understand why they'd want to hide those letters from public view. They totally betray the weakness of their hand going into the presentencing hearing. Far from demonstrating support from over a hundred people, in some cases multiple letters are from the same people, it's not clear in many cases how old the letters are and if that support is still forthcoming, and some of the most supportive letters are totally whack.

It's also not clear how well the defense's witness list is holding up. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the foot-dragging is about the crumbling of support for Ray going into the mitigation hearing. The letters are not as represented. And I have a sneaking suspicion that their witness lineup isn't either. It's already officially gone from twenty-seven to nineteen. And in their motion for continuance they repeatedly hedge on the number of witnesses described. They use the word "several" as in this footnote:

Several of these witnesses had flown into Prescott at their own expense for the hearing that was scheduled for Monday, September 19, 2011, and were present in Prescott on Monday.

Strictly speaking, several means more than two or three but not many. If they're using the term appropriately, that's considerably fewer than nineteen.

Later in the document they refer to an unspecified "number."

Undersigned counsel from Munger, Tolles & Olson had not been in direct communication with any witnesses prior to today, as Mr. Kelly was handling all witnesses, but upon reliable information believe that a number of these witnesses are not available during the week of September 26.

Such vagaries bode ill for Ray's defense. There's a whiff of desperation and more than a small sense that their long list of supporters is evaporating. That's not to say that Ray doesn't have steadfast support. He definitely does, but among the more telling details is the fact, noted by many, that only his mother and brother are scheduled to testified -- not his father. Weird.

One letter-writer whose support for Ray appears to be unflagging is coming under scrutiny by some of Ray's former students. Bill Harris, he of Holosync fame, received a letter from Connie Joy and an earful from Nancy Ogilvie. The details can be found in this thread on Joy's Facebook page. I note that Joy graciously referred him to my blog for background. Were he to read through my coverage of the trial -- and I'm not holding my breath -- he'd learn some interesting things. Among them, the fact that Ray misused the Holosync meditation CDs, which is to say, not in accordance with the warnings provided by Holosync. And when Dennis Mehravar testified that he experienced exactly the kind of "severe overwhelm" the Holosync FAQ warns is possible through overuse, Ray's attorney Luis Li mocked him mercilessly for not being able to handle a relaxation tape.

On the plus side, the additional downtime will allow the prosecution to scrutinize this crazy batch of letters and possibly challenge the inconsistencies. Meanwhile, they appear to have assembled a strong contrary case, which Judge Darrow has signaled he wants to hear. Connie Joy will be appearing for the prosecution and will testify to, among other things, Ray's attempt to slime his way out of refunding the prepayments for events he canceled. I wrote about this bit of blatant chicanery here.

In a sense it's not surprising that the sentencing is dragging on forever. This whole trial has happened in slow motion. From the long, involved, and thoroughly compelling case the prosecution presented, to the numerous stall tactics of the defense, to a closing argument by Luis Li that caused me to age ten years. (Dear God that was surreal.) During the trial itself I think I sort of became one with the proceedings. I spent those months in a kind of fugue state, unaware of the passage of time, and almost unconcerned as to whether or not it ever ended. The process itself was so fascinating and so consuming.

Sure, I find it sickening that Ray remains free to tweet his sanctimonious platitudes and extol the virtues of expensive coffee and tea -- despite having convinced numerous students not to "poison" themselves with coffee. (Yeah. He's a hypocrite. So what else is new?) I also think he just looks sort of sad and desperate with his new website and other attempts to reinvent himself, while simultaneously claiming that he's too broke to pay his mortgage or his lawyers. (!!!) This path he's on may be long and a little desultory but I firmly believe it will end in the clink.

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Shel Silverstein's Vision Serpent

Today is Shel Silverstein's birthday and there doesn't seem to be any escape from Silverstein hagiography. That's probably due in part to a well timed pub date for this new collection of his work from HarperCollins. No lover of Shel Silverstein, I. I think I've made my views on the thoroughly offensive Giving Tree very clear. But this image really grabbed me when I was reading Andrew Sullivan earlier today.

I immediately thought that it was very evocative of Mayan hieroglyphs I've seen. Something about a squat, little person with a convoluted tangle of images rising in front of him put me in mind of a number of Mayan reliefs. I did a bit of digging and I think it was this image, specifically, that was jogged in my memory, because the parallels are really quite striking.

An umbrella in Silverstein's drawing is positioned where the emerging head is in the relief. Underneath that, his flag is in the same position as the extended hand in the Mayan apparition. The hat on the stick in the lower quarter of the tangled image is in the same position as one of the swirls and has a similar, small swirl directly under it. The hot dog in the bun is incredibly evocative of the bowl out of which the shaman's vision unfolds. And, of course, Silverstein's drawing includes a "vision serpent" perched at the very top.

There are more parallels between the images than can be easily described but spend a little time comparing the two and they emerge. Assuming Silverstein was not deliberately alluding to that relief, it's positively eerie.

Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein Oh, I'm being eaten By a boa constrictor, A boa constrictor, A boa constrictor, I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor, And I don't like it one bit. Well, what do you know? It's nibblin' my toe. Oh, gee, It's up to my knee. Oh my, It's up to my thigh. Oh, fiddle, It's up to my middle. Oh, heck, It's up to my neck. Oh, dread, It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff...

For more background on Mayan Shamanism and the meaning of images like the above, I highly recommend the excellent Shaman's Secret by Douglas Gillette.

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James Ray: I'm Sorry, Now Give Me Probation!

James Ray must be getting very, very nervous. Know how I know that? He's all apologies and remorse all of a sudden.

A self-help author convicted of negligent homicide expressed extreme remorse for the deaths of three people following an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony he led and vowed never to conduct another one, a probation officer wrote in a presentence report obtained by The Associated Press.

. . .

Ray told the probation officer that he was responsible for the sweat lodge but that he is not a threat to society. He said he wanted to apologize to the victims' families but he hasn't been allowed to contact them, nor did he think it was appropriate to do so at an earlier time.

I guess it was also inappropriate for him to contact the families of the dead and dying when they were rushed to area hospitals after his 2009 sweat lodge. And it would have been positively crass to hand over their identification and paperwork to medical personnel so that they could be admitted as something other than Jane and John Does. And Ray would never have been so forward as to call 911 just because people had stopped breathing. If James Ray knows anything, it's how to respect other people's boundaries when they're in a life and death crisis.

Here I was thinking it was self-absorption and a complete lack of consideration for the health and safety for people who'd forked over thousands of dollars for his expertise and care. In fact, it was just a tremendous sense of propriety. Apparently, it's just good manners to let people die alone without your meddling. Who knew?

Ray also knew better than to bum everyone out during the evening soiree hours after Colleen Conaway plunged to her death. The last thing anyone wants to hear when they're sipping champagne at a black-tie affair is that someone they know is lying on slab. I mean, what a downer. Ray knew that and he put the comfort of the other attendees ahead of his own selfish desire to blurt out the horrible truth that someone who'd paid him thousands of dollars had spent the day as a Jane Doe in the county morgue. And he certainly wasn't going to interfere by contacting her family. Ray has really just been a gentleman to the last.

The family members of the deceased disagree, of course:

"He abandoned his followers when they needed him the most," said Neuman's son, Bryan. "He has shown absolutely no remorse, no compassion and no humanity. I didn't know monsters like Mr. Ray even really existed until after this tragedy."

In letters that prosecutors want considered at sentencing, friends and family of the victims described Ray as a sociopath who blatantly disregarded repeated concerns. Brown's brother said he cannot move past the images of his sister gasping for breath and, like others, struggles to explain the deaths to his small children.

Eh, sociopath, gentleman, potato, potahhto...

But, hey, he's sorry and he won't hold any more dangerous activities. Of course, dangerous activities are his metier. The man could turn a game of cards into a bloodsport. What he'll do without the firewalks, the rebar bending, the cement block karate chopping, and the blindfolded mountain hikes, that are the tools of his trade I can't imagine.

Oh, here we go: James Ray TV:

Over the last few months I’ve really tried to concentrate on how I could offer more to my loyal followers. Each day I find myself answering questions from friends wanting to know how to get more out of life, or how to get through a trying time. James Ray TV will be my way of saying Thank You for your support. It will allow you to ask those questions and have me myself answer them through video feed. I look forward to interacting with you and hope that you would check back for this added feature.

Yes, he himself will answer all those questions you've been dying to ask him when he wouldn't give you the time of day. Access, baby, access. And you won't even have to show off your cleavage and wait for a dream teamer to tap you on the shoulder and let you know you're his dinner date for the evening.

Yes, just in time for his mitigation hearing and sentencing, Ray has completely retooled his website. I just looked at it yesterday and it didn't look like this. (Please, use restraint when viewing. The last thing you want to do is give him page views and income.) I am a little curious about permissions when it comes to the use of Oprah and Larry King voice-overs taken from their shows. Why do I think that they might not want to have their proprietary material used to promote a convicted felon? Hmmm... We'll have to take a wait and see posture on that one but I'm not sure that's kosher.

But, look, Ray is putting his best foot forward as he faces Judge Darrow and attempts to prove that he should be given probation and returned to his life of, um, "teaching." Not to worry, Your Honor. No more cooking people to death or breaking their limbs. He'll just be interacting with them through the magic of streaming video on his snazzy new site. Safe. Contained. And contrite.

Meanwhile, his defense team is moving forward with their attempt to stop everything in its tracks. Their motion for continuance hasn't been uploaded yet, but Judge Darrow's order for the prosecution to promptly respond has. One gets the feeling he'd like to move this along. As per Mark Duncan, he did not seem to take kindly to the defense's oral argument for continuance in yesterday's hearing.

After an attorney's health emergency shattered the scheduling of James Arthur Ray's presentence hearings, Judge Warren Darrow decided to get the proceedings back on track beginning next week, despite a defense request for a longer delay.

Tom Kelly, Ray's local counsel, was treated over the weekend and on Monday for a heart condition. And even though his co-counsel, Luis Li, argued that Kelly's presence in the courtroom for the presentence hearings was critical, Darrow recalled that, during the four months of Ray's trial that ended in a conviction on three counts of negligent homicide, at least three other highly qualified attorneys were in court.

"To say that Tom Kelly has to make all the decisions," Darrow said during a telephonic scheduling hearing Tuesday, "is just too much."

Jeannika also asks some hard questions as to why this needed to be continued at all, as her research did not find the necessity of having an Arizona attorney in the courtroom for this proceeding.

According the rules of the Arizona Supreme Court ::: nonresident attorneys who want to to appear as counsel (pro hac vice) simply need to comply with Rule 38(a).

This basically means any out of state lawyer with the proper credentials and fees (Translation: ALL of James Arthur Ray's MTO folks) simply completes a pro hac vice form and sends it ::: along with the fees ::: to the State Bar of Arizona. They don't need an Arizona Lawyer on their team ::: don't need nada beyond a client that is ::: all they need to do is show up for trial.

Camille Kimball explains that it may not be that simple and that Kelly may be a little nervous about those fancy-schmancy LA lawyers operate under his imprimatur while he's convalescing.

First there is the slightly sticky wicket that Tom Kelly, as Arizona counsel, would have taken on the burden to be answerable to Arizona authorities for the actions of the California contingent, whether he was present to keep an eye on them or not:

. . .

Even if lead counsel objects to going forward without Tom Kelly’s presence, the Court has the discretion to require him to proceed. If it is brought to the Court’s attention that Tom Kelly was prepared to handle a particular aspect of the mitigation (and Lead Counsel was unprepared to do so) it might be a good reason to ask for a continuance.

I think that last sentence that is the one I would put my money on. If Luis Li, Truc Do and the rest of the crew were not the ones who'd been studying up on these witnesses and this particular procedure, Darrow could reasonably conclude it would be an insult to justice to leave a defendant at the mercy of lawyers making it up on the fly through no fault of their own.

No lawyer, me. I'm just a concerned citizen who would have liked to see this fiasco brought to a close in time for my birthday. But, at this point, I will gladly settle for seeing James Ray sentenced before the second anniversary of his sweat lodge from hell on October 8.

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James Ray Hearing: New Dates and More Objections

Sentencing has been rescheduled for October 6; a day that is not my birthday. The mitigation and presentencing hearing is now scheduled to begin September 28. Worse, word on the street is that the defense intends to object to the new schedule. As per Tom McFeeley, they are claiming that Tom Kelly needs more time to prepare. Being hospitalized for a heart ailment certainly prevented him from appearing yesterday but how did this sudden, health emergency prevent him from being prepared for the previously scheduled dates? Did the dog eat his homework, too?

Once again, I find myself stunned by the slap-dash approach of this expensive, high-power defense team. They always seem to be whining that they've been caught flat-footed by an under-resourced, small-town DA's office. So overwhelmed are they that they can't even find the time to black out the addresses and phone numbers of private citizens on publicly posted documents.

They've got bigger problems with those letters from James Ray's supporters, too. I've been picking my way through them and there are some things that don't add up. I noticed a discussion on Connie Joy's Facebook page that raises some serious questions. Many of the letters were written last fall before the the trial began. It's unclear whether support from some of those letter writers is still forthcoming. From some of the comments in that thread, I would guess not.

I myself noticed that a lot of the letters were dated from September 2010. A number of them don't address the sweat lodge tragedy at all. Some of them aren't even dated and don't address the tragedy. There's no telling when those letters were written. Some of them aren't even letters. They're single paragraph blurbs. Considering that Ray has an extant, if widowed, web page that sports a testimonial blurb from a woman whose death he caused, as well as at least one from a woman who has written a letter for the prosecution, leave say, I'm dubious about undated, nonspecific testimonial blurbs.

The support letters run the gamut. I haven't read them all but what I've read raises considerable concern. One, for instance, contains the following paragraph:

I've had a personal saying that I've shared with both of my children throughout their lifetime and it is exactly as follows:
"If you come home dead, I don't care who's fault it was!"
and what I use as an example to each of them is this: If you are walking down the street and you stop at a intersection, when the light turns green do you walk? NO! You wait, You look around, When it's clear you then walk! Then I remind them how many people see a green light and they start walking (with absolutely no regard for cars or buses). When I am out driving my own car with my children and we are sitting at a light, I'll often point out a stranger and we will make a game of it as we each take a guess ahead of time if a given person will look or walk. Can you guess what happens in most cases? They walk! (without looking). To me personally, it seems like such a common sense thing to do (to look around to make sure it is safe to walk.) I can hardly believe myself that people don't feel the need to do this.

Get it? If some driver runs a red light and hits you, it's your fault, kiddo, because you trusted that they'd be law abiding and pay attention to traffic signals. "Walk on the green, not in between," just isn't gonna cut it. Driving and walking defensively is certainly good advice, in and of itself, but Charlene D of Toronto, Ontario takes it about ten steps further. If her children fail to take responsibility, not only for their own behavior, but for irresponsible, drunk, or otherwise errant drivers, it's their own damn fault if they get hit. And she won't be bothering to seek justice for the vehicular homicide of her own children. So don't expect it.

That letter is just nutty enough to qualify as a bona fide letter of support for the recently convicted James Ray. The message: You're responsible for everything that happens to you even if it's caused by the  irresponsibility of others. Implied: Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman should have left the sweat lodge even though they were delirious from the totally irresponsible levels of heat and humidity and the fact that they were repeatedly told that their delirium was a normal and desirable state.

Like Bob Proctor, Charlene D seems incapable of recognizing the inconsistency of blaming the victims of bad acts for their deaths while simultaneously absolving Ray of responsibility for the legal predicament he finds himself in. In the topsy-turvy world of this rabid "law of attraction" set, people who are hit by drivers who run red lights aren't victims. They're responsible for everything that happens to them. But those felonious drivers are being victimized by those who prosecute them and it's all just horribly unfair.

I'm amazed that I was able to keep reading after that particular letter but I did. And then I stumbled on the letter from one Jack Lane -- not to be confused with Jack LaLane. What immediately struck me about this letter is that Lane claims of to be a combat veteran of the "US Military," but he never says what branch of the military he served in. He claims to have won "Distinguished service medals," plural, but he never says how many of these high honors he received and doesn't appear to know that the Distingished Service Medal is the name of an award and is always capitalized. He claims to have "participated in campaigns such as Desert Storm, Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan." So he's been busy. But operations in Pakistan are strictly unofficial. We are not at war with Pakistan. In fact, it's purportedly an ally. The killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this year on Pakistan's soil has created major problems because it brought clandestine missions into the open. That someone who claimed to be a Staff Sergeant in the Special Forces of some unnamed (???) military branch would just throw out something about serving in Pakistan is extremely suspect. But even if I accept that a combat veteran wouldn't specify what branch or know how to write out the name of an award or claim to have fought in a country we're not fighting with, I still find it about impossible to buy that James Ray cured his PTSD -- let alone his somehow only recently diagnosed "bi-polar" disorder.

My bullshit meter thus pegged, I took a break from the James Ray is a great guy letters.

I would advise against anyone with a weak heart or a blood sugar disorder even attempting to read those letters but I do recommend the memorandum from Sheila Polk's office. In it she calls for a maximum, consecutively served sentence of three years for each count. She also argues that Ray make restitution for the State's costs in excess of $67,000 and for the expenses of family members and witnesses during the trial. Go, Sheila!!

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48 Hours Mystery -- West Memphis 3: Free

In case you missed the new 48 Hours Mystery on the WM3, I have posted the show in its entirety above. Much of it is a rehash of their earlier coverage but the new interviews with Damien Echols, his wife Lorri Davis, and Jason Baldwin are incredibly heartening. It's wonderful to see that Echols has gotten some color. His skin looked like alabaster on the day of his release. And Jason Baldwin has won a whole new level of admiration from me. His joy and optimism after having lost half his life to the criminal justice system of Arkansas are amazing. He has proved himself to be a man of honor and integrity. He could have gotten a reduced sentence, all those years ago, if he'd testified against his friend. He refused. And torn between his desire to see a just verdict in a new trial and the certainty of saving Echols's life with the plea deal, he chose to save a life. Has the absurdity of putting this man behind bars for murder ever been more glaringly apparent?

The written coverage from CBS underscores the absurdity:

This is what justice in Arkansas looks like: On Aug. 19, 2011, Judge David Laser in Craighead County released three men who had spent the last 18 years in prison, one of them on death row. But as part of an unusual plea agreement, the three men -- Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley -- who insist they are innocent, had to first plead guilty to three counts of murder.

It struck more than a few observers in the packed courtroom that morning that the surreal spectacle had very little to do with justice. As one of the newly freed men, Jason Baldwin, later described it, "When we told prosecutors we were innocent, they put us in prison for life. Now when we plead guilty, they set us free!"

The county prosecuting attorney Scott Ellington's actions didn't help clear up matters either. He said publicly that he still believed these men were guilty of one of the most heinous crimes in the state's history: the brutal murder of three 8-year-old boys in 1993. And yet, he made them all sign a waiver promising not to sue the state.

Nope. It's still not justice. But at least three innocent men are finally free.

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James Ray Hearing Vacated Due to Illness

What part of next Monday is my birthday don't these people understand?! James Ray was scheduled to be sentenced that day, but justice has been delayed... again.

Supporters of a self-help author convicted in the deaths of three people after an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony will have to wait to testify in an effort to convince a judge that James Arthur Ray deserves a lenient sentence.

An attorney in the case had a medical emergency, prompting the cancellation of a weeklong hearing that was supposed to start Monday, Yavapai County Superior Court officials said.

. . .

This week’s hearing hasn’t been rescheduled. Ray was scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 26, and it’s unclear whether that will go forward as planned.

Word is that Tom Kelly has been hospitalized and because he is Ray's Arizona counsel, the law requires his presence. Luis Li and Truc Do, in addition to being almost inconceivably annoying, are out-of-towners.

Sybil: Well, Basil, guess who's just called to cancel at twelve minutes past seven. Basil: Who? Sybil: The Coosters Basil: What!? All four? Sybil: Marvellous, isn't it? Basil: Aagh! What did they say? Sybil: One of them's ill. Basil: Well, let's hope it's nothing trivial. ~ from Fawlty Towers, "Gourmet Night"

The whole thing seems a little too convenient. Delaying the inevitable seems to be the stock in trade of Ray's defense and their previous motion to have the mitigation hearing vacated was denied. I certainly don't wish Mr. Kelly any ill. I'm actually a little concerned that he may have been poisoned. Organophospates in his coffee, perhaps?

In the meanwhile, there's lots of fun reading in new court documents. Let's see... The defense moved last week to exclude the letters collected by the prosecution attesting to Ray's dirtbaggyness.  (Background on those letters can be found here.) The prosecution has responded to their motion explaining that the rules of evidence are different in non-capital cases and that the "purpose of a presentence hearing is to ensure that the sentencing judge is fully informed as to the character of the individual." Ouch. That could hurt.

I remain confused as to how it is that the defense was unaware that Mary Latallade had met Ray and attended JRI events, as per the claim in their motion to exclude all that troublesome truth-telling. She was using her married name of Bryson when she attended the 2008 Spiritual Warrior event that nearly killed her, but her experience was spelled out in the her letter which was immediately disclosed to the defense. Their attention to detail continues to impress.

Also fun is the newly uploaded document containing the letters from Ray's supporters, some of whom are slated to testify in the mitigation hearing... should that ever happen.

It's piles of verbiage and I've only skimmed the reams of letters about the wonders of the "law of attraction" and Ray's teaching of it. But some really fun bits pop to the surface. For instance, the personal note to Ray that brackets the first letter:

Dear Mr. Ray,
I have searched hard to try to find an email address for you on the web (and failed.) During my search I glimpsed the furore about the deaths of three people and the only conclusion I could draw from it was that the media hates successful people. I dismiss it all.... I wish you peace and the strength to fight the subversive elements that are ready to denigrate your name.

Seriously? You're gonna open with that?

Yes. That's right. James Ray is a victim... of a hate campaign, really. No one understands that better than Ray. But this tragic martyr would forgive all of us who know not what we do.

James Ray is just like Jesus... except that Jesus never cooked anyone to death.

It's amazing how the whole "law of attraction" you're never a victim and you're solely responsible for your own reality thing evaporates when it's the people who teach it who find themselves in those merciless crosshairs.

No one does this doubletalk better than Bob Proctor. He's holding fast to his previous public statements in his letter of support.

I have offered, on a couple of occasions, to go to his court and testify in [Ray's] favor. I am of a firm opinion that although he is responsible for the work he does, he is definitely not responsible for the actions of others. I believe one of the glaring weaknesses in our educational system is that people are not taught to take responsibility for their own lives. It is obvious that if one person was free to walk out of the sweat lodge, every person was free to walk out of the sweat lodge and to punish James for someone else's actions, in my opinion, is a miscarriage of justice.

In a tragic situation like this, it would be very easy to get emotionally upset and feel someone has to be blamed. This was a terrible accident and I don't really believe anyone is to blame. I would urge you to permit James Ray to walk away from this situation and deal with himself and God in his own way.

So no one's to blame except the delirious and unconscious people in Ray's "hellacious hot," not "weeny-ass sweat lodge." He's not really saying it's their fault, though. Really, he blames society for not educating people properly about personal responsibility. But it's no one's fault.

I think Proctor's so good at this gobbledygook because he's not smart enough to realize that he's contradicting himself. But the cognitive dissonance for those of us with critical thinking skills is almost physically painful.

He's quite certain, though, that it's not James Ray's fault. I mean what did he do other than create the hottest sweat lodge ever conceived of by mortal men and shame people into staying in it when they tried to crawl to the door?

It can't be his fault. He did nothing! In particular, he didn't use the cell phone in his hand to call 911 when he learned that people weren't breathing. He knew better than to take responsibility for other people's stuff, including their unconsciousness and lack of respiration.

Proctor is slated to testify in the mitigation hearing. His name can be found on the list provided by the defense along with other luminaries like Genpo Roshi, a Buddhist priest who was disrobed over a sex scandal and "habitual abuses of power." So that should help. (The State's list is here.)

Salty has a rundown of some of the other defense witnesses here. Another fun revelation in that article is a link to a page from Ray's "decaying website" that includes a testimonial from Liz Neuman -- a woman he was convicted of cooking to death. Um... Clean-up on aisle 10, people!!! It's not enough to widow the page. You have to actually delete the damn thing. Unbelievable.

In addition to exploiting the sentiments of a dead woman, Ray, through his attorneys, has once again violated the privacy of private citizens in uploaded court documents. This time its his own witnesses. None of the address and contact info is redacted from the letters of support. Carelessness? Stupidity? Malice? I'm never sure.

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WM3 on 48 Hours Mystery

CBS 48 Hours Mystery, which profiled Johnny Depp's interest in the West Memphis Three a year and ago will be doing a follow-up report. It will air Saturday, Sept. 17, at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. I know I already have my DVR set. More info can be found on the CBS website here.

When three men convicted of murdering three young boys were released from Arkansas prisons last month, it made headlines. This Saturday, "48 Hours Mystery" will air a comprehensive report on the case, including the first television interviews with two of the men known as the "West Memphis 3." Correspondent Erin Moriarty, who has been working this story for four years, offered a preview on "The Early Show."

Watch a preview of this "48 Hours Mystery" episode

Jason Baldwin, Moriarty reported, is beginning his life at age 34, doing the kinds of simple things most of us take for granted, such as getting his driver's license and enjoying the outdoors.

Baldwin told CBS News, "The first thing I did? Oh, I just smiled and got, like, a thousand hugs from everybody, you know?... I smiled so much that my face actually hurt from it, you know, but it is a good thing. ... It just felt like everything was alright. Like, here's the time to begin, you know?"

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