John Apple

Reflections on American Government

In the summer of 1964, Anno Domini, I was nine years old. My parents took my three sisters and me to Washington, D.C. in order to teach us about the principles of American government. This was in the time-period of post World War II America, where the ideals of democracy had just been challenged in a great struggle; and the members of my parents' generation had succeeded in saving the world for democracy.

          In one building, (I believe it was the building housing the United States Supreme Court), there was a statue of a woman who was blindfolded, holding a pair of balances in her hand.

“That is Lady Justice,” Mom told me, “and she is blind. This means that all people in the United States, whether rich or poor, will be dealt with equally by our court system.”

When I was in the 7th grade, I was in Mrs. Wallace's social studies class. She taught the members of the class about the Bill of Rights. In explaining the IV Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against illegal searches and seizures, Mrs. Wallace told us: “If the police come to a person's house with a warrant to search for Mr. Smith's stolen horse, and, while the police are searching for the horse, they find Ms. Annie's stolen jewelry; then the police cannot seize the jewelry unless they first go and secure a warrant authorizing them to search for Ms. Annie's stolen jewelry.”

Mrs. Wallace also taught us that, in the United States of America, we are governed by the rule-of-law, and not by the whims of any particular person or group of people. She said this is one of the main foundations of the greatness of the United States; and it sets us apart from many other countries.

I also had Mrs. Wallace as my 8th grade social studies teacher. I do not know whether my subsequent entry into the criminal justice system had anything to do with this, but Mrs. Wallace was one of those memorable teachers who made a lasting impression on me.

In 1975, I was 20 years old; and I was arrested. I was placed in the city jail in the Municipal Court Building in Jackson, Mississippi. The conditions in the city jail were pretty bad; but in 1975, the county jail was located on top of the Hinds County Courthouse: and the conditions in this facility were deplorable!

I received quite a large number of visitors; and this brought unwanted attention and scrutiny to the city jail: not so much to its operations as to its facilities.

The jailers at the Jackson Police Department were eager to send me to the county jail as quickly as possible; but Ed Peters, the long-time Hinds County District Attorney, went out of his way to keep me out of the county facilities. I think I spent three weeks there altogether; and I do not believe that the Tower of London had any worse facilities than that county jail.

Having been in the Mississippi criminal justice system now for 25 years, I have had my illusions shattered, one by one, regarding the high ideals of democracy which I was taught as a child.

One ideal which I did not expect to see shattered is the inviolability of the rule-of-law; but it fell by the wayside in my case, too. In 1994, the Supreme Court of Mississippi issued a unanimous opinion which states that my parole was unlawfully revoked. However, the parole board refused to honor and obey the opinion.

The Justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court faced re-election in the campaign of 1996, and the high court withdrew a unanimous opinion in favor of an accused.

According to every teacher I ever had in school; and according to everything I learned on our family vacation to Washington, D.C., such action is not supposed to be allowed to occur in the United States of America; but it happened to me.

One night several years ago, I watched the movie, “Under Siege,” on television.  Tommy Lee Jones is the bad-guy in this movie, and Steven Seagal is the good-guy. They are both on an American naval vessel which has nuclear capabilities; and they are fighting each other for control of the ship.

In one of the dramatic, final scenes, there is a standoff.

Tommy Lee Jones tells Steven Seagal something like, “You and I are just alike:  we both believed in the United States of America; we both dedicated our lives to the service of our country; and we both found out that the system is rotten to the core.”

Steven Seagal then says something like, “No, there is a difference between you and me: I still believe in the system!”

I have lived long enough to realize that the officials of the Mississippi state government frequently do not live up to the high ideals of democracy which good and decent teachers like Mrs. Wallace still teach our children in American government classes in the schools.

However, I still believe in the greatness of the political system of the United States of America!

By the way, at the end of the movie, “Under Siege,” the character played by Steven Seagal, who refuses to give up his high ideals about America, comes out a winner.

I mean to be one, too!

Copyright © 2008 John P. Alexander, II and John Apple.  All rights reserved worldwide.