This column originally appeared on The Denver Post’s PoliticsWest.com on January 31, 2008.

By Jessica Peck Corry

I’m starting a new organization for women. It’s called Blonde Republican Activists. Would you like to join?

The premise of our group is simple, really. We’re tired of liberal men telling us how we feel, or worse yet, should feel. If we get mad enough, we may even start a Web site.

The first topic of discussion for BRAs: The latest attack on our gender autonomy coming from Michael Huttner, executive director of ProgressNow.

As has been widely reported in the media, Huttner and his minions are angry that Jon Caldara, on his late night 850 KOA radio show, used the term “bitch slap.” Specifically, Caldara asked show guest Ann Coulter whether it was accurate to say presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had gotten “bitch-slapped” in a debate by fellow candidate Barack Obama.

In response, Huttner sent out an angry press release alleging a disregard for the victims of domestic violence. But he should have done a little fact-checking first.

Attempting to frame himself as the Al Sharpton of Colorado politics, Huttner charged that Caldara has a “history of hate against women.” He also launched a Jesse Jackson-like threat.

“If he doesn’t apologize, we will send an e-mail to tens of thousands more people to call 850 KOA’s advertisers and demand that they not be associated with Caldara and his shows demeaning women,” he told the Rocky Mountain News.

Huttner appeared to be winning the public relations battle — at least for a moment — until libertarian blogger Ari Armstrong (also a senior fellow at the Independence Institute) revealed that Huttner’s speech enforcement record was, at best, highly spotty.

Alternative newspapers, including Westword, the Boulder Weekly and the Colorado Springs Independent have long used the term, with Westword editor Patty Calhoun telling the Rocky that her newspaper has used the term 12 times over the last several years.

There is a strong and implied consensus by these publications that the term, in common usage, is not intended in any harmful way against women. It is just a crasser way of suggesting an embarrassing rebuke. And the news got even more interesting when it came to light that Huttner’s own Web site
had used the term just last year.

Huttner has long resorted to such baseless attacks. At times, I’ve been subject to his verbal assaults.

At a press conference years ago, he circulated fliers, containing my home address, to the radical leftist activists in attendance. It was just bizarre, especially coming from someone who purports to care so deeply about the safety of women. It was also unnecessary. I would have gladly welcomed the activists into my home for a lively political debate and homemade cookies. My husband loves to bake.

Shortly after this strange event, I made the professional decision to ignore Huttner. He has now, however, sunk to an all-time low. A rebuke is necessary. Jon Caldara is an honorable man and a dear friend. For the last five years, I’ve worked with him at the Independence Institute, a place where the vast majority of employees are working mothers.

He visited my daughter when she was sick in the hospital not once, but twice. He can turn on — and off — a radio personality that melts into a doting father as soon as he sees his kids. When talking with his five-year-old daughter recently, she told me, “Girls can do anything boys can do…but we don’t have to!”

She is truly a woman of the new century. Indeed, the vast majority of women live in an incredible era of limitless choices. And it is men we should be pitying, especially those like Huttner who dream of building their power base by promoting hostility, self-victimization and rage.

I won’t suggest that Huttner “hates” women. He just believes we’re so stupid and so incapable of thinking for ourselves that we need men to stand up for us. Perhaps he can explain himself at BRAs first organizational meeting.

In all seriousness, Huttner’s behavior is indicative of a larger problem facing politics today. Activists seeking the spotlight, so pessimistic about our political system that they believe they have to exaggerate or lie to win the larger battle of ideas, throw up a Web site, complete with a blog. They give themselves titles like director or president, and then launch press release after press release in attack of their opposition.

Some lucky activists, like Huttner, have garnered financial support from wealthy political contributors. These individuals gladly make the investment, eager to see their policy agendas positioned as mainstream; with their opposition forced to fight back from being labeled as “extreme.”

It can be a sophisticated and effective political tactic, if done correctly. If based on a difference of ideas, it’s also ethical. If Huttner were identifying differences of opinion on contentious policy issues - like compulsory unionism, socialized health care or small business taxation - he’d be initiating a legitimate debate. In the case here, however, his unfounded attack had nothing to do with ideas.

I won’t dare ask Huttner to apologize. He wouldn’t mean it. Besides, getting caught for his hypocrisy is punishment enough. At least it should be. For those of us who would like to see a kinder, gentler and more honest political arena, we can only hope so.

The column orginally appeared on The Denver Post’s PoliticsWest.com on January 24, 2008

By Jessica Peck Corry

If radical activists protest a parade and no one gets arrested, did they ever protest at all?

In the aftermath of demonstrations marring Denver’s October Columbus Day parade, Denver is again being subjected to a round of jury trials this month for activists arrested after they attempted to block the parade route with a human chain. Under city ordinance, it is illegal to obstruct the street during such a permitted event.

The parade, an annual battle testing the will and stubbornness of its Italian American organizers and American Indian protesters, has seen a dwindling attendance and waning public attention. Last year was particularly sad. At times, it seemed there were more people on floats than in the audience, leaving protesters to resort to staged antics designed to give them the media attention they so desperately desired.

To make their extremely debatable point that Christopher Columbus was a murderer, rapist and slave trader, they splashed fake blood peppered with doll heads onto the streets. They then blocked the street, at which point 80 people were arrested.

During jury selection last week for the trial of three of those arrested, eccentric defense attorney David Lane asked potential jurors questions clearly encouraging jury nullification.

“Are you aware that to some Native Americans, celebrating Columbus is the same as celebrating Hitler to Jews?” he asked, according to the Rocky Mountain News.

Lane also tried to equate the parade with “ethnic intimidation” like burning a cross in the yard of a black family. At best, such a comparison is disingenuous. A bunch of old guys waving flags from the top of flat bed trucks is a whole lot different than torching someone’s front yard.

Fortunately, for the sake of sanity, all three protestors were convicted.

But there is little doubt that Lane and his clients will be back for more action next year. As Lane, a talented lawyer, is well aware, the legal question in the case had nothing to do with whether Columbus was a good guy.

Instead, it had everything to do with the free-speech rights of Italian-Americans. Oh, and basic city ordinances that respect the rights of every nationality to host a parade without being stopped by those who disagree.

Of course, Lane was only doing his job. He is continuing the political theater his clients can’t live without. These individuals, which have included the likes of Glenn Morris and Ward Churchill, occasionally grace Colorado’s college students with their presence as professors, where they share with them their incredible knowledge on American law and history.

But as this week’s verdict demonstrates, the public is growing tired of this annual battle. By continuing on, Lane and his radical clients have done nothing to help their cause, especially in my household, where my two-year-old daughter is now deeply afraid of American Indians.

Her fear is not the result of some bigoted Hollywood movie production. Rather, it’s because of the radical activists themselves. On a morning walk with my husband not far from our home in downtown Denver on the day of the last parade, my daughter heard the sound of drums and wanted a closer look. As she leaned forward in her stroller, protestors jumped out in front of her, splashing their “blood” onto the street.

Nearly four months later, she still talks about the event. Every time she hears the sound of a drum, she says “boom, boom, boom. Indians scare me, Mommy.”

I’m scared too, but for a different reason. I’m worried about what will happen to my country if our legal system allows the logic of those like Lane, Churchill and Morris to prevail.

Three decades ago, the American Civil Liberties Union fought to protect the free speech rights of Ku Klux Klan members in Skokie, Ill. As ACLU founder Roger Nash Baldwin put it, the organization was defending the KKK’s right “to parade in their nightgowns and pillowcases, and their right to burn fiery crosses on private property.”

Baldwin understood then what Lane has forgotten today. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the speech of all - not just those with politically-palatable perspectives.

If Lane’s clients want to have their voice heard, they should do it in a way that respects the Constitution - not through an approach that attempts to nullify it. They should simply pick another weekend in October and host a parade of their own. But maybe they’re fearful that no one will get arrested.

This column originally appeared in The Denver Post on January 18, 2008

A teen’s crime, a lifetime to pay
New sentencing rules won’t help 48 offenders

By Jessica Peck Corry

Erik Jensen, shown here during a 2005 interview with The Denver Post, is serving a life sentence at the Arkansas Valley Correctional facility in Crowley. (Glenn Asakawa, The Denver Post )
You’ve likely never met Erik Jensen. And if the state of Colorado has its way, you’ll never get the chance.

Erik, sent to prison at 17, is serving a life sentence for murder. But like most things in life, his story is much more complicated than his conviction might initially indicate.

On a June night in 1998, Erik walked in on a teen friend, Nathan Ybanez, who after years of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of his parents, was in the process of killing his mother. Prosecutors never alleged that Erik launched the fatal blow. Instead, they maintained that he conspired with Nathan to kill her and then helped him carry out the crime. They charged him with murder based on a complicity theory.

As their proof, prosecutors offered the testimony of a third teen involved in the crime, Brett Baker. Under intense pressure from prosecutors, Brett testified in exchange for having several charges against him dropped. Even though Brett failed a lie detector test — which prosecutors required as part of the deal — they still put him on the stand. But jurors never heard about that.

Instead, they heard from Brett that Erik had confided in him that he had hit Nathan’s mother over the head with a fireplace tool, a version of events adamantly denied by both Erik and Nathan. They both agree that Nathan acted alone in causing his mother’s death. Prior to the killing, Erik and Brett’s parents contacted authorities and social service agencies in an effort to remove Nathan from his abusive home environment. Their requests fell on deaf ears.

Erik admits that he, together with Brett, helped Nathan clean up the crime scene. Before plea negotiations between Erik’s trial attorney and prosecutors broke down in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, his parents say he was willing to plead guilty to being an accessory after the crime. He would have served between two and eight years.

Instead, the case went to trial. Based in large part on Brett’s testimony, jurors convicted Erik. Under Colorado law, the court was required to sentence him to life in prison without parole.

Nearly a decade later, Erik is making the most of life behind bars. He has self-published one book, a science-fiction fantasy, and is working on more. He is a daily subscriber to Investor’s Business Daily, and with the help of his devoted parents, Curt and Pat Jensen, he runs a website geared toward helping youths (teensintrouble.org).

Erik is one of 48 Colorado inmates serving life in prison after being convicted of a crime committed while still a juvenile. Nathan is another. The oldest of these inmates is now in his mid-30s. Together, they are just a small portion of the more than 1,000 people serving time as an adult in Colorado prisons for crimes committed before the age of 18.

In 2006, in response to efforts by the Jensens and others concerned about the growing insistence by district attorneys to try juveniles as adults, the Colorado legislature voted to prohibit life sentences for future juvenile offenders. Today, kids tried as adults can be sentenced to a maximum of 40 years. But Erik and the others sentenced to life before the change was made are out of luck. The new law is not retroactive.

Many of these teens were sent to prison under the state’s felony murder rule, which makes any participant in a felony criminally responsible for any deaths that occur during the commission of the underlying crime — regardless of whether the participant caused them.

Originally designed to deter dangerous felonies that could result in death, the rule is problematic because it allows those who never commit murder to be sentenced as killers. In Colorado, 60 percent of the juveniles sentenced to life without parole since 1998 are there because of a felony murder conviction.

In 2007, Gov. Bill Ritter established a juvenile clemency advisory board. It was promoted as a venue for commuting the sentences of those deserving parole. But critics say Ritter — a former district attorney himself — has appointed board members that have direct case-specific conflicts of interests. The board’s chairman, Jeanne Smith, served as a prosecutor in El Paso County on multiple cases that sentenced juveniles to life or led to felony murder convictions. [Ritter was given several chances to be interview for this column, but declined to do so.]

The board’s critics, disappointed by its inaction thus far, are preparing for a 2008 legislative session that will see the felony murder rule and Colorado’s life sentence mandates for juveniles as an important part of the legislative debate. Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, and Claire Levy, D-Boulder, have indicated they will both introduce reform legislation.

According to Mary Ellen Johnson, director of the Pendulum Foundation, a reform coalition that includes parents of victims of violent crime will also work to enforce a 2006 legislative mandate, championed by former state Rep. Lynn Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, that requires those like Erik to receive mental health services while behind bars. Johnson believes that if clemency is to ever work, juveniles must receive treatment that will adequately help them reintegrate back into society.

The Jensens and others have also begun designing a statewide ballot initiative that would encourage the rehabilitation of youth offenders. Credible polling indicates that voters of all political persuasions across the state strongly support reforms that would provide kids legitimate opportunities for a second chance at life.

Our legal system should show forgiveness to those like Erik, who, in the wrong place at the wrong time as a conflicted teen, made a horrific decision. He has paid his debt to society and after serving nearly a decade in prison, he should be allowed to come home and pick up the pieces of his life. Ritter’s clemency board would serve justice by taking up his case.

In a nation like ours, we believe in giving kids second chances. Our laws, however, don’t reflect this commitment. Today, the U.S. is the only Western nation that allows for children to be sentenced to life without parole.

In total, there are more than 2,300 Erik Jensens across our nation, kids who without significant changes to our laws will never see the outside of a prison again.

Opportunity knocks for Colorado’s legislators. The question remains: Will they listen?

Jessica Peck Corry (jessica@i2i.org) is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute, where she specializes in civil rights, higher education, and land use policy. She was a member of the 2006 Colorado Voices panel.

This is my proud wife moment–my husband is an amazing lawyer and crusader for freedom!

Medical Marijuana Payback Burns Colorado Police
Aurora Pot Grower Blazes New Legal Trail

Washington Post
January 9, 2008

High times for medical marijuana farmers and Bloomberg? (afp) Policing pot in Colorado is about to get a lot more complicated. The kick-in-the-door raids SWAT teams have long employed could now cost cities hundreds of thousands of dollars following two landmark court decisions upholding the state’s constitutional protection of medical marijuana. Under the rulings, police departments are required to return any marijuana and paraphernalia taken from state-sanctioned growers, and can be sued by those growers if the crops aren’t preserved.

The largest case thus far involves Kevin Dickes, who intends to sue the Denver suburb of Aurora for over $360,000 in pot damages. It comes less than a month after a judge ordered the return of an estimated $200,000 of medical marijuana to a couple in Fort Collins.

Dickes, a 38-year-old Desert Shield Marine who suffers from debilitating pain after catching grenade shrapnel in the Gulf, says he was treated worse by Colorado police than by anyone in Iraq. In April, 2007 officers raided his home after receiving a tip from a neighbor and, according to his lawyer Robert J. Corry Jr., threw the disabled veteran to the ground, held him at gunpoint and ransacked his home. They found 71 marijuana plants, at least 65 of which they confiscated illegally, and they charged Dickes with felony cultivation. After eight months of legal wrangling, the Arapahoe County district attorney dismissed the charges, determining that Dickes was in fact a certified grower. But, by then, his plants were long dead.

Thanks to a referendum passed in 2000, Article XVIII, Section 14 of the Colorado State Constitution stipulates that “any property… used in connection with the medical use of marijuana… shall not be harmed, neglected, injured, or destroyed while in the possession of state or local law enforcement officials.” Not being equipped with the growroom or know-how to maintain them, Aurora police simply uprooted the plants and threw them in the evidence room. Det. Shannon Lucy, an Aurora police spokesperson, illustrated her department’s cultivation ignorance, explaining that they kept only the leaves, which she called the “only thing of value,” not the buds in which most of the active ingredient, THC, resides.

After obtaining a court order, Dickes attempted to pick up his property yesterday afternoon from the Aurora police department. According to Corry though, what the police returned was “dry and useless.” Of the 71 plants, only an estimated 3 ounces remained, none of which were usable “from a medical perspective.” He compared the incident to police seizing a person’s car which they believed was stolen, “smashing the windows, pouring sugar in the gas tank, and then returning it,” after discovering it wasn’t stolen after all. Applying this general principle of law it seems natural to seek compensation and using the DEA standards for marijuana valuation, ($5,200/plant) Dickes will seek $369,200 in lost medicine.

Aurora Police Chief Daniel J. Oates, called that sum “absurd” and disputed the quantity of marijuana seized. He claims that at no point during the April 27th raid did Dickes inform police that he had a permit, though he also admitted that officers did not ask if he had one. It was only after Dickes was removed from the scene that a permit was found. “Frustrated” by the negative press over the incident, Chief Oates stressed to me that police immediately stopped their search when a permit was located, and got on the phone with a senior prosecutor who instructed them to leave 6 plants and all the grow equipment. Nonetheless Dickes was held and charged even after the permit was uncovered.

Despite the district attorney’s dismissal and subsequent court order for return of the marijuana, Oates believes his officers acted correctly and finds the idea of compensating medical marijuana growers to be “absurd.” And while refusing to give examples on the record, he further asserted that the “current process for medical marijuana certification could easily be abused by people who want to grow it illegally.” If compensation becomes the status quo, he argued “it is going to place more and more departments in a dilemma” that conflicts state and Federal law.

Medical marijuana advocates disagree, stating that Colorado police are charged with upholding Colorado law and not federal law. “He is just saying the law is inconvenient,” says Corry who also points out that Oxycontin laws can be abused, but that it is still a medicine that is legally prescribed to patients. Colorado voters decided in 2000 to protect patients who use marijuana as medicine, not those who use it recreationally. “Police take an oath to protect the law, you don’t get to pick and choose which laws to follow.”

Dickes plans on filing his suit later this month. If he wins it will be the single biggest payout for the illegal seizure of marijuana, and may open the door for other cash strapped cities to be sued for tactics which elsewhere are a common part of drug enforcement. Whether such a historic payback will motivate police to change their policies for raiding grow houses or motivate Colorado citizens to reexamine their constitution remains to be seen. For now, though, it appears that Centennial State Constitution is a pot farmer’s best bud.

This column originally appeared on the Denver Post’s Politicswest.com on January 4, 2008.

In highly regulated cities like Boulder, Colo., you’ve got to take freedom where you can find it. And in the process, you may just find yourself cheering on the owner of a sleazy strip club.

Described on the Internet as “edgy, artistic, erotic gentlemen’s entertainment,” Boulder’s newest business establishment, Nitro Club, opened just before Christmas and is raising alarm bells with city officials shocked that that club’s owner, Michael Cobb, didn’t first give them the opportunity to kill the project.

They question whether the club deserves to be located on the Pearl Street Mall, the city’s posh shopping district. They wonder aloud why they never heard of the club before reporters brought its existence to their attention.

“I’m surprised,” Councilman Ken Wilson told The Boulder Daily Camera. “It does not sound like a good idea, or what the city intends for our Pearl Street Mall area.”

Critics have a point about the location being a little strange — who wants to pass pole dancers on the way to buy 500-thread count baby sheets at the boutique down the street? But Pearl Street still has a far way to go before it becomes a close cousin to Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District. Tucked away in an alley, the club has no windows to tempt passersby. It greets guests with only a simple steel door.

It is truly a triumph of freedom that somehow Cobb slipped through Boulder’s cumbersome regulatory process unnoticed. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried before. In 1998, he applied for a liquor license for a topless bar he was proposing inside city limits. He was denied in a 3-2 vote made after the city’s liquor board heard angry testimony from other business owners and community activists. One board member said he voted no because the stage the dancers were to dance on was too small. You can believe him if you want to.

But this time around, Cobb outsmarted the city’s system. He didn’t need an alcohol license because the club will not sell booze. He told reporters that customers can pay $495 a year and an additional $45 a month to sit in a private area where they will drink alcohol that they must bring in themselves. This area, a nod to overcoming government prohibition, is appropriately called the “The Speakeasy.”

In Boulder, the city council has taken the time to regulate every aspect of the human existence possible. Everything that is, except for strippers.

Terrorists heading to Boulder should be aware that the city has ordained itself a “nuclear-free” zone. No bomb-dropping here, please. Front porches are a source of city regulation. Be prepared to shell out hefty fines if you put any booze out there for your next party. A keg in public view can earn you a visit from the police.

Jessica Peck Corry is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo.
Own a pet in Boulder? Think again. A few years ago, the city changed all references in its ordinances concerning animal ownership. No longer do you “own” a pet. Now you are its guardian.

And the Pearl Street Mall itself has been the source of much regulation. City council members actually took the time to ban the act of throwing Frisbees on the mall. It appears that knock-off disks were excluded from the ban. I’d love to see this one litigated.

Mayor Shaun McGrath is now saying the council will have a “discussion” about the club’s location. In Boulder, talking can only lead to one thing. Regulation, of course. While McGrath concedes that Cobb’s actions appear to be legal, he said the club’s opening begs “the question of, ‘Do we as a community think that a downtown location for a strip bar is appropriate?’ That’s a conversation we need to have, because we haven’t had that before.”

The news of Nitro Club’s opening has garnered media attention near and far. Dozens of people have commented in support on news Web sites. Like most former Boulderites, I find myself in the strange position of cheering on the owner of a sleazy strip club. But alas, can this freedom from regulation possibly last?

This column originally appeared at HumanEvents.com on Friday, January 4, 2008.

By Jessica Peck Corry

You should never talk politics with an extremely pregnant woman. Let alone two of them.

I learned this the hard way a few months ago as I began talking with other moms at a play date I hosted for my two-year-old and her friends. Of the four women there, three of us were just weeks from our due dates — myself included. We were talking about maternity leave when one of the women voiced her outrage over the fact that America doesn’t have paid maternity leave like other countries. Another mom eagerly offered up an example, pointing to European nations, where she said moms can get up to a year of paid leave after having their babies.

The three other moms fantasized about such coverage for the next few minutes. And then I innocently asked a simple question. “But how will we pay for it?”Continued
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The room went silent. And then it came. The Iraq excuse.

“Well, if we can afford to go to war in Iraq or bomb Iran, we can afford maternity coverage,” one of them retorted. The two other moms nodded wildly in agreement. It was at that point that we heard toys crashing in the next room — saving us from a political debate that none of us — at least in our logical non-pregnant minds — would want to have.
The Iraq War presents a tough predicament for anyone insisting on fiscal discipline in the United States. It has become the sounding cry for all activists who want money for any program not currently funded.

I hear the Iraq excuse from teachers: “Why can’t we have more money for schools when we’re buying new school books for Iraqi children?” From Hillary Clinton’s supporters: “Why rebuild Iraqi hospitals when we need universal health care for Americans?” And from newspaper editorial boards: “What’s a few billion in increased taxes when we’re spending millions every day in the Middle East?”

Coming nearly four years after American troops found then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hiding in a tiny hole, the rhetoric reflects exasperated public fatigue with the war. This week marks one year since Hussein was executed, and according to news reports, hundreds of Iraqis marked the anniversary and mourned his loss by tossing flowers onto his tomb as they chanted in unison.

We’re frustrated, conflicted and confused after glimmers of hope in Iraq are continuously and quickly doused by increased bouts of violence. Most recently, we have regained optimism as a recent troop surge appears to be working. We’re hopeful that this time the stability will last.

Today’s great minds disagree about Iraq. They disagree about whether we should have gone there in the first place, about what we are doing there now, and what our exit strategy should look like. We cannot afford to oversimplify the situation and we cannot blame Iraq alone for the predicament we find ourselves in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Americans have shelled out nearly $483 billion on the war. That’s nearly $275 million per day, for total of more than $4,100 per household. These are alarming numbers, but they are nothing compared to our total federal deficit of more than $9 trillion.

Mini-van driving moms have always covered their back bumpers with stickers fantasizing about the Air Force being forced to host bake sales to buy bombers and schools having all the money they need. These moms seem not to understand that without a strong military, we might lose the ability to have schools, or books, or children. Without a strong military, America might cease to exist altogether.

As a nation, we should have a vibrant debate over whether our current war is justified, working, or even in America’s best interest. We must remain united, however, in refusing to let it became an excuse for spending ourselves into a certain demise. The first step–we must stop fantasizing about European socialism. In Ireland, where mothers get paid not only for 22 weeks maternity leave but can also get incentive payments for additional children, income tax rates top 40 percent for every worker earning more than 34,000 euro.

Instead of using Iraq as an excuse for out-of-control spending, we must see it as an inspiration for why we should regain control of our domestic fiscal policy. Would I love the government to fund my maternity leave? Sure. But not at the risk of forcing my daughters to fund an ever-ballooning federal deficit. I’ll work a few extra hours after they head to sleep to leave them a future as bright as possible.

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Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@i2i.org) is a policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo., where she specializes in land use, higher education, and civil rights policy.”