Life is good. Over the Memorial Day holiday a large number of retired Army JAGs descended on New Orleans for our annual RAJA meeting. We assembled at the Hotel Monteleone right smack in the French Quarter.
Expensive? Not really and remember, we all have Army retirement checks and most of us are on Social Security. Plus, we got our Social Security stimulus checks. So, we stimulated the New Orleans’ economy.
Dennis and Jeanne Hunt hosted RAJA (Retired Army Judge Advocate Association – maybe it should be RAJAA – not the kind of issue you want to raise in an organization consisting only of lawyers). I was planning on saying that Dennis and Jeanne’s planning and execution were as efficient as Mussolini’s on-time trains. But, then I looked it up on Snopes.com and the Mussolini bit is a myth. Man, I think I was happier before Snopes. Anyway, Dennis and Jeanne did a fantastic job!
On the first full day, we toured New Orleans. Of course, if you are going to tour the Big Easy, you have to visit one of their cemeteries. As you probably know, because of the water level, all of the caskets are placed in above-ground tombs. Our tour guide explained the process of removing old remains to make room for the new deceased member of the family. I think you have to live your whole life in New Orleans to go along with that process. After hearing of the process, all I could think of was the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live saying, “Isn’t that special.”
Our tour guide told us that we were at the cemetery (St. Louis Cemetery # 1) that was damaged and desecrated during the filming of the movie, Easy Rider. I don’t remember the cemetery scene. I only remember that the movie had a happy ending. There were no complaints from residents of the cemeteries about Katrina. But, some of those same residents are still receiving relief checks.
The bus trip took all day and we never left the city. But, I had no idea where I was. The tour guide would say, “The river is on our left.” “Now, the river is on our right.” “The lake is behind you.” “This area was all under water.” Duh, big help.
It has been almost four years since Katrina and the parts of the city we looked at showed great signs of recovery. But, who knows what we didn’t see. The amount of human suffering that went on during the storm and its aftermath is impossible to quantify. Let’s hope that the lesson we took away from Katrina will insure it doesn’t happen again (Not the natural disaster, but the way we handled it).
RAJA was a great success. Tim Naccarato is the third leader of this august body. John Jay Douglass was the president for the first twenty plus years. He and Bruce Babbitt ran the financials for the organization on the back of an envelope. Now that takes skill. Anyway, in 1994, while in Reno, Nevada the organization rolled the dice and selected a board of directors to carry the group forward. Jim Mundt was selected to take John Jay’s place and RAJA moved forward.
Then, in 2005, Tim took the reins. One of the first things he did was do away with the cumbersome site selection committee. Tim now twists arms until someone agrees to host a future meeting. This is much more effective that the site selection committee. Because everyone knows what he is up to, a lot of his emails are never answered. But, he has lined up Steve and Pauline Lancaster to host next year in Indianapolis, and Dave and Lynn Graham and Fred and Janet Borch to host 2011 in Charlottesville, the Home of the Army Lawyer. In a weak moment Tim convinced Mike Marchand to host 2012 in Dallas. Please keep the latter confidential, because Mike hasn’t told his wife, Jan, yet.
Well, RAJA survived New Orleans, and New Orleans survived RAJA. No surprises there. Sadly, the only lesson I took away from the meeting is that I don’t want to be buried in New Orleans. Because it is a given that sometime in the future, someone is going to break into your casket, gather your bones and pitch them to make room for a new visitor. Yuk.
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Fort Belvior is Gobbling Up Golf Courses
When I was a little kid, I learned that if I broke something that belonged to another kid, I had to pay for it or replace it. That’s just fair. Fairness is a good standard by which to live your life. I have really tried to do so. Of course, what I think is fair, someone else may not. It can be subjective. So you be my objective voice and let me know what you think about the following.
The Army seems to be gobbling up the golf courses at Fort Belvoir and not replacing them or providing restitution. I don’t think that is fair. Fort Belvoir had a delightful nine hole course on the South Post. It was pretty flat and open and not too long. It was ideal for young soldiers learning how to play and elderly people who wanted to walk the course and get some exercise. Then the Army decided it needed a newer, larger hospital and began to build on the South Nine. The South Nine Golf Course disappeared.
Now, you might say, “Hey, the Army can do what it wants with its property.” But all Army property is not the same. The South Nine Golf Course was a nonappropriated fund (NAF) property. When I was an instructor at The JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia, back in the early 70’s, I taught a one-hour course called Nonappropriated Funds. It was really deadly. It may have been the deadliest course at the School. But, the students needed to know that all funds were not appropriated by Congress. The Post Exchange and other programs generated money for the benefit of the troops. That money was nonappropriated funds and the Army was to use the funds for the morale, welfare and recreation of the troops and their dependents. I would tell the students, who were still awake, that the Army held the nonappropriated funds in trust for the morale and welfare of soldiers and their dependents. They can’t take it away or give it away without restitution.
Not too long ago, there was a Corps of Engineer project that, in effect, would wipe out a soccer field at Fort Belvoir. So before the field was destroyed, the Post make arrangements to build another soccer field to replace the one that was being destroyed. Now, that’s how I believe the system should work. The soccer field was a nonappropriated fund property (morale, welfare and recreation – MWR) and the Army met its obligation as trustee of the MWR funds by making restitution in kind. However, it didn’t work that way with the South Nine Golf Course. The only distinction between the two situations is that they had soccer moms!
Now, the Army has its sights set on building the National Museum of the United States Army (NMUSA) on the front nine of the Gunston Golf Course on the North Post at Fort Belvoir. Fort Belvoir has two adjoining golf courses on the North Post, Gunston and Woodlawn. Both are championship length courses. I don’t want to get into site selection. Obviously, I didn’t want them putting the museum on my golf course. But, well-meaning officials decided to put it there. But, what about restitution? What about holding in trust morale, welfare and recreation property (paid for with nonappropriated funds) for soldiers and their dependents? Some not-so-well-meaning officials decided that Fort Belvoir only needed 27 holes.
Two years ago, we had 45 holes. Now, they are talking about 27 holes. I can just hear the conversation. The commander asks, “Can they get by with 27 holes?” And, the staff says, “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.” What about holding NAF property in trust? What about restitution? Where are their heads? I know I keep repeating myself. I can’t help it. I keep frothing at the mouth and by the time I get myself cleaned up, I just start over again. Fairness, restitution, fairness. I’ll be back in a minute.
The money for the museum is supposed to come mostly from donations. It ain’t happening. In 2007, they had contributions of over five million dollars, but they had expenses of over three million. They aren’t going to get to $200 million that way. I donated early on, so I have received a lot of their subsequent solicitations. In my opinion, the solicitations are too expensive and slick. The last time I observed such slick solicitations was the Ollie North campaign for senator.
Please understand that I am all in favor of an Army museum. If it has to be on the Gunston front nine, so be it (the latest drawings have them encroaching on holes 11 and 12 on the back nine for a parking lot). But, please rework the Gunston Course along with the museum. That is only fair and it will keep the Army from looking like a negligent fiduciary (or worse).
There was an Army funded feasibility study completed in November 2008 regarding whether 27 holes would be sufficient. In all fairness, this should have been done before the “three bags full” decision. The study concluded that the course, reduced to 27 holes could lose over a quarter of a million dollars a year. So I think we are going to end up with approval for 36 holes, but no money to build them. The money should come from the Army. The Army is holding the Gunston Course in trust (here I go again). The Army needs to make restitution.
Here is the scenario I see. The Army breaks ground on construction on time. They have already been drilling for core samples on the front nine, even though the environmental assessment hasn’t been approved to select the location. And, of course, the environmental assessment will have alternate selection sites as it is required, even though the Army has pushed ahead and selected the Gunston site. Is that legal? I used to teach Environmental Law, but it was too may moons ago. I see them tearing up the course and then, not having the money to build the museum.
I’m not the only one who thinks there won’t be enough donations. The AUSA (Association of the United States Army), a private organization focused on the best interests of the Army, has just submitted a legislative resolution to Congress. It requests Congress to “provide funding for the facility at Fort Belvoir, Virginia to house the National Museum of the United States Army.”
If Congress funds the museum, I hope there is some extra in there to make the Gunston Course whole. The restitution I am talking about should be part of the over all museum project. That is the only fair solution.
The Case of the Missing Check
I’ve mentioned before about my year at Northwestern University School of Law. I mentioned that I earned an LL.M. in Criminal Law, but I never mentioned what I had to do to get the degree. I had to earn 12 hours and write a thesis. Six of those hours (and 90% of my time) came from carrying a case load down at the Cook County Jail.
There were about nine of us in the graduate program and we were assigned to represent “clients” at the jail. We were like public defenders, but with a very limited case load. My observation of the public defenders was that they had so many clients that many of them couldn’t represent any of their clients very well.
Bill Martin was our program leader. No, he never managed the Yankees. But, what he did do was prosecute Richard Speck for raping and murdering eight Filipino student nurses in Chicago. The police found Speck’s finger print on the inside of a closet door from the nurses’ apartment. Bill introduced the entire door into evidence. Talk about demonstrative evidence. It took the jury 49 minutes to find Speck guilty and recommend his execution. Anyway, by 1969, Bill Martin had left the State’s Attorneys Office and was teaching at Northernwestern Law. The Ford Foundation was funding the graduate criminal defense program to which I was attached.
Probably the most significant case we defended during the year involved a felony murder charge. A black man came into a jewelry store and attempted to cash a Park Department pay check. He ended up robbing the store and killing the owner. Our client, Eugene Overstreet, worked for the Park Department and his name was on the check (the check was gratuitously left behind at the scene of the crime). Overstreet insisted he never received the check. The wife of the dead owner identified Overstreet in a police lineup as the robber/murderer.
Bill Martin actually took the lead in defending Overstreet, but a number of us in the program worked different angles of the case. One of my tasks was to try to find out what happened to the check. If the prosecution could put the check in Overstreet’s hands, we could fold our tent and slip silently into the night.
How does one get a city job with the Park Department? Keep in mind that this is Chicago. The answer is you go see your Ward Committeeman. Overstreet knew a committeeman and was able to get the Park Department job. The problem was that he didn’t live in the committeeman’s ward. Let’s face it, if the system is going to work, you have to live in the ward where you are being sponsored. In order to help Overstreet out and stay within the “rules,” the committeeman let Overstreet use his street address on the job application. Now, Overstreet “lived” in the right ward.
As fate would have it, Overstreet copied the street address incorrectly. The address he put down was to a vacant lot. Overstreet didn’t know this, but it was not a problem because, on payday, he would pick up the check at the Park Department Office.
Regarding the check in question, Overstreet was somewhere else on pay day. When he came in the next day to pick up his check, he was told it already had been mailed. When he checked with the committeeman, he was advised that he hadn’t received the check. We could verify all of the above facts. We also discovered the error in the mailing address.
Bill Martin asked me and Ty Fahner to track the route of the check. Ty subsequently became the Attorney General for the State of Illinois and is presently a partner with Mayer Brown. We suspected that if someone at the Post Office knew that the Park Department check was going to a vacant lot, they might just put it in their pocket. Chicago’s main post office was, at the time, one of the largest post offices in the world. It was a monster. With the help of a postal official, we started at the end of the building where the mail came in and followed the route the letter/check would have taken through the building. I should have worn gym shoes.
Even back in the late sixties, the post office had sophisticated equipment to send letters on their way. A letter would be picked up by an automated arm and the operator would type in the zip code. Then the arm would place the letter on a conveyor belt and away it would go. Somewhere down the line, it would end up in the proper basket. The final sorting, however, was done just like Ben Franklin did it when he was the Postmaster for Philadelphia in 1763. Someone stood in front of a bunch of cubby holes and flipped in the mail. We learned that the individuals assigned to sort mail for a particular area did not live in that area. Thus, they would not know of a vacant lot.
Of course, the mailman would know. When we spoke to him, he was convincing that he had received no mail to deliver to the vacant lot. So we never could prove who took the letter, but with the help of the testimony of two post office officials we were able to satisfy the court that Overstreet never received the check.
Bill Martin convinced Overstreet to be tried by judge alone (no jury). Since it was the check that put Overstreet at the scene of the crime, the case disassembled. The eye witness testimony proved not to be a problem. After the judge acquitted Overstreet, he told Bill that if he ever got in trouble, he hoped he could afford Bill’s representation. Hey, what about the gang of nine?