THE BROCKHOEFT REPORT
Chapter 16 February 1995 Public Domain
NOTICE TO NEW READERS: these are chapters of a book being published, a chapter at a time, as John Brockhoeft writes them. You are starting in the middle. John wants you to have the first three chapters, which were reprinted in our December/C/93 issue, so you can understand where he is coming from. If you subscribe specifically to our /C/ "Pro Life Controversies" issue, we will automatically send you that issue. If you have subscribed to our weekly issues, just drop us a card and we'll send you that introduction, free. To receive the entire set of "Pro Life Controversies" issues since Dec/C/93, through this last chapter, Feb/C/95, send $15, in addition to your subscription for upcoming issues.(P&A, 137 E. Leach, Dsm IA 50315; 515/256-0637)
February 12, 1995
To:
U.S. Parole Commission
5550 Friendship Blvd
Chevy Chase MD 20815-7201
From: Brockhoeft, John A., 01186-017
Subject: Appeal of Notice of Action dated February 1, 1995, per 28 C.F.R. 2.27
Gentlemen:
I have sinned, Indeed, I committed that sin which I most hate, the one I most harshly condemn in other Christians. I offered to compromise with injustice. I offered to compromise with the ungodly.
I have confessed my sin to Yahweh (sometimes erroneously pronounced "Jehovah"), to the Lord my God. I have sought His forgiveness and feel a peace that He is still with me and will deliver me, to some extent (if not entirely) from the totalitarian political oppression you have aimed at me.
I know you will deny, or be tempted to deny, that your assault on my constitutional rights is politically motivated. Go ahead and deny it. Go ahead and destroy the last vestige of credibility you may have with the public by denying your political motivation while the public sees you hounding me ten times more relentlessly; nay, a hundred times; nay, a thousand times more ruthlessly than any other former arsonist convicted of "destruction of buildings effecting interstate commerce by fire or explosives" but whose targets were not abortion facilities.
Having languished in your dungeons for nearly seven years and feeling an urgency to be free, and remain free, so as to lick my wounds and try to recover my health, I had quietly resolved, on my own initiative, to subject myself to house arrest so as to make sure I did not get in any more trouble during the term of my federal probation, not even by inadvertently being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This resolution was, perhaps, not a compromise in and of itself. But when your agents spoke with me by phone and I deliberately made my personal resolution sound like an offer to negotiate the terms of my already mandatory release, I compromised.
You may recall (or a review of my records will show) that my impending release later this month marks the third time my release will have been legally mandated without my ever having been released. In a crude attempt to discourage you from delaying my release a third time, I offered to waive some of my rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Simply to have been allowed to marry my darling Joanne Phimester, simply to have been able to keep heartache from her, I would have voluntarily surrendered everything else. For this slightest, this very slightest "leniency" I would have given you everything.
On the telephone I shamelessly begged your representatives: "Please don't make this house arrest SOLITARY CONFINEMENT! Please leave me one or two friends to talk to! Look at how cooperative I'm trying to be! Please don't make it solitary confinement!" This pleading took place during my second phone conference with your officers.
At that time I made no direct reference to the circumstance of my engagement to marry. In the third phone conference, which occurred on or about February 9, 1995, I did announce my engagement to Miss Phimester and sought a guarantee that I could marry her without being returned to prison for it. They did not flatly refuse me the right to marry the woman I love; but, under the political pressure everyone feels who must make decisions involving my case, they cited their lack of authority to grant such a guarantee, citing their need to first get approval from higher up.
I would have given up everything to keep Joanne from brokenheartedness and challenged nothing on appeal. You never would have heard from me But, by threatening the happiness of my darling, you have gone too far. You have thrown down the gauntlet, gentlemen. Very well, I accept; and I hereby challenge the constitutionality of every point of your program of political repression against me. And I present your Notice of Action as a testimony, to my fellow Christians, of what happens when God's people compromise with injustice. It only sends people like you into a feeding frenzy.
Having studied my monthly column, "The Brockhoeft Report", published by Prayer and Action Weekly News/137 E. Leach Avenue/Des Moines Iowa 50315, and seemingly having noticed in the October, 1994 issue that I have an irregular heartbeat for which I intended to seek medical attention after my release, you have crafted your words in such a way (deliberately or not) that it would be a "violation" of my supervised release to receive any kind of medical treatment whatsoever, whether emergency or routine. You have written:
"...prohibiting ALL CONTACT with any hospital OR OTHER FACILITY which includes STAFF presently OR FORMERLY engaged in REPRODUCTIVE SERVICES OR abortions." (Emphasis added here and throughout this appeal.)
The words emphasized above are what has led my publisher (former publisher, I should say, since you have stripped me of my constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press) and other friends to surmise that you may be trying to hasten my death.
Since the "special conditions" of your original Notice of Action [NOA] (dated January 14, 1995) which are reimposed in your most recent NOA (dated February 1, 1995) already prohibited me from protesting outside any abortion facility (or demonstrating on behalf of any other cause anywhere, since you mean to place me under electronically monitored house arrest) what, then, is the meaning of "all contact"? A strict interpretation would make it a "violation" for me to contact any family doctor's office for an appointment for treatment, and another violation to keep that appointment.
Because, indeed, since you make a distinction between hospitals and any "other facility", this "other facility" could be defined as any doctor's office.
Because, indeed, since you make a distinction between abortions and "reproductive services", these "reproductive services" could be defined as simply as by a doctor prescribing birth control pills for any woman.
"Presently OR FORMERLY" could mean if a doctor has ever prescribed the pill, even if he now refrains from this "reproductive service".
Your words: "...which include STAFF presently OR FORMERLY engaged..." could mean that even if I found a family doctor who had never prescribed birth control pills, performed a vasectomy, etc., yet even if his nurse had ever worked for another doctor who did so, I would be in "violation" if I received any treatment from him! Furthermore, in the extremely unlikely event that I found a family doctor who had never prescribed birth control pills, we all know what THAT means, don't we? It would mean he is a hard-core prolifer, so I STILL would be forbidden to "communicate in any way" with him (Paragraph #2 of your NOA)!
To anyone who scoffs, saying that the U.S.P.C. will not enforce this NOA so strictly, I will comment later, after pointing out some other atrocities.
Gentlemen, you have told me in paragraph #2:
I immediately saw the implications here: that "membership" could be defined as simply as by having one's name on an organization's mailing list and receiving a periodic newsletter. Without my asking, this was confirmed in my second phone conference with your agents. Having been advised by the prison officials here in Ashland that I receive many newsletters, they just wanted to "strongly advise" me to write to all these organizations while I am still in prison and tell them to strike my name from their mailing lists; because, it was explained, even if something was mailed here to the prison for me after my "release", and it was then forwarded to my street address, that would constitute "membership" and I would be "in violation". It was explained that, since they could not order me what to do until I was "released", they just wanted to "strongly advise" me.
After having languished in the bowels of your dungeons for so many years, I was not so greatly grieved by your stripping me, as a "releasee" who has served out his sentence to the point of mandatory release, of every imaginable civil right other than my heartbeat and respiration (which I can have only as long as I require no medical care to keep them). It's not so much the minute, all-encompassing, totalitarian list of things which I cannot do which devastates me. After all these years, I'm institutionalized. The real gut-wrencher is that the list of things which I can neither DO nor "communicate in any way" with anyone who DOES do them is so extensive that it includes virtually every friend I have in the world! I don't have a friend anywhere who does not to at least one of those things, even if nothing more than receiving a quarterly newsletter "membership". I'm a Brockhoeft, and I'm a kentuckian, and we don't forget those to whom we belong. I love my friends and I'm sentimental about them. Yet, when I walk out the gate of this prison a few days hence, already having been separated from them for seven years, you mean to divest me of every friend I have in the world! Without exception, everyone!
[Ed: Johnny's NOA orders him to disobey the following command of God: "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." Hebrews 10:24-25] (Cont'd in sidebar)
According to a strict interpretation of your second paragraph, I will be forbidden to:
A. Be a member of, or even visit, any Christian church ("groups protesting or campaigning against abortion.")!
B. Speak to my Baptist pastor, Rev. Robert MHCurry or his assistant, Rev. Henry Irby!
C. Communicate with my official attorney of record, Mr. Michael Hirsh, esq., who paid me an official attorney/client visit at this prison last month! Although I have the constitutional right to the attorney of my own choice even after my release, you have even denied me representation by Mr. Hirsh while I am still in prison and thus not yet under your authority! U.S.P.C. officers have refused to talk to him by phone or return his calls!
D. Communicate in any way with any friend I have!
E. Contact my U.S. Congressmen to ask for help against all this oppression! As a Kentuckian, my Congressmen "campaign against abortion"! There would be no justice in your pointing out that I will be living in Southern Ohio. I am a Kentuckian who is being forcefully relocated against my will! Help, Congressman Jim Bunning! Help, Senator Mitch MHConnell! I apologize for not remembering who my other Senator is, but please help! If nothing more, tell them they can't put me back in prison for refusing to break my darling Joanne's heart, for that I could never do! Congressman Bunning and my Senators, I am embarrassed to death to tell you that this maiden has written me: "I couldn't have found a better husband if I tried )) you're just so lovely and so handsome and so precious, I just can't sleep at night 'coz I'm thinking of you and thanking God for you." )) but how could I break a heart so tender and noble? Let me die first! What life would be worth living, bearing such disgrace? Please save Joanne's heart, and tell them they can't put me back in prison for speaking to this one person!
F. Marry the lady described above.
That was your biggest mistake, gentlemen, in dealing with me. I was willing to submit to anything you wanted to do to me, until you threatened to break Joanne's heart, were I unwilling to do it myself.
The next thing I read in your NOA is that, while you intend to keep me under electronically monitored house arrest, unable to go visit any friend, and while I am sitting there all alone in my apartment, not even allowed to let any friend I have come visit me, nor even allowed to pick up the telephone and call anyone I love, while I'm sitting there on my couch like that, you...WHAT? ...you will forbid me to let my mind dwell on anti-abortion subjects! You say:
Thought crimes! Thought police! When you thus set yourselves up as "thought police" did you not know that even the dullest student of literature would immediately recognize this as exactly what George Orwell warned against in his novel, 1984? (Cont'd in box)
I sit here and marvel over your NOA and wonder about the mental state of some government bureaucrat somewhere who dares to write such words and then dares to print such words on official U.S government forms so the public can read it and see that it's true, that this is really happening! And I wonder what the public might think of the mental state of a bureaucrat who can write about "mandatory release" and "Home Confinement" all on the same page, all on a document only one page long! And then, ironically, I read in the next paragraph your order:
"You shall participate in an in-patient or an out-patient mental health program as directed by hour U.S. Probation Officer."
"Uh-huh, and the public will recall that they had just such "programs" in the old Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) for political dissidents before it collapsed, too. Just ask Alexander Solzhenitzen or thousands of others. Gentlemen, if my beloved, once-great republic has come to this, if she has truly come to this, if the republic under whose flag I fought, under whose flag my father fought, under whose flag my family's men have fought in every war since our immigration here in 1841, if she has truly come to this, then let her show her native son one final "kindness": let her bear the SHAME of allowing me to appeal to FIDEL CASTRO for POLITICAL ASYLUM in Cuba; because, even though I am an avowed anti-Communist, in Cuba I might hope at least to be shown the decency of being allowed to marry the woman I love plus have one other friend to talk to besides.
Here is an opportunity for you to prove that this persecution is not based on hatred of my anti-abortion political ideology. If you are really afraid of me, in spite of my numerous public avowals to my friends in forth-three states and four foreign countries that I will not be a repeat offender, and if you are really concerned about all the complex political intricacies surrounding my case, and if you really are NOT meaning to hound me to death, and "make an example out of me" for my political dissidence, then you can solve this whole complicated problem by sending me into exile to any country in the world which will accept both Joanne and me. I have used the example of Cuba only to shame you. Joanne will follow me anywhere in the world. If allowed to leave this ungodly country behind, my first choice would be her native New Zealand. Having been a student of the Holy Bible all her life, and her life-long dream being to dwell in Jerusalem, Joanne's first choice would be Israel. So, since her happiness is of paramount importance to me, I suppose I should say that would be my first choice, too,
In Ireland I would be viewed as simply the ordinary kind of guy I really am. Among the fighting Irish, a former fighter like me would be considered not only genuinely ordinary, but statistically normal as well. I can be seen as an aberration only in an ungodly, anti-Christian, left-wing society such as predominates the U.S. today.
Let Joanne and me go to Papua New Guinea or war-torn Bosnia or anywhere we can be together as husband and wife according to the total and irrevocable commitment we have made to one another. There must be some country, somewhere in the world, humanitarian enough to let two lovers such as us marry and dwell in peace.
As a last resort, send us to the frozen continent of Antarctica where no nation exercises sovereignty but several have teams of scientists at permanently manned stations. Joanne, being able to read, write, and speak fluently in English, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Russian, should be able to translate between any two teams.
Lest you make a grave miscalculation and a political mistake to the harm of your own cause, I should caution you that I have asked Joanne to refrain from all anti-abortion activism during the term of my supervision or until I win back some relief from this unprecedented repression. In any case, seeing how abortiphiles' violence against peaceful prolife demonstrators has escalated in recent years, I would not let her go to an abortion facility until and unless I could be with her to protect her. You should be aware that she has in fact agreed to refrain from her former activism, characterized by leafleting and crisis pregnancy counseling. Since, in the first paragraph of your NOA, you seem to understand the meaning of the words: "presently or formerly engaged", be it known that Miss Phimester is henceforth NOT presently engaged in any form of activism.
Moreover, since the concluding words of your second paragraph only forbid me to communicate "with any persons who ARE themselves thus engaged" (as opposed to WERE engaged), you are left with no excuse, constitutional or otherwise, reasonable or otherwise, to forbid us the communication necessary to arrange our wedding ceremony, and then to marry, under threat of returning me to prison for it.
[Ed: the NOA language appears to, in effect, cut off all communication with anyone who is pro-life, even if they are inactive, because of the possibility that they might become active; and Johnny would violate the NOA by merely bringing up the subject, to ask them if they are inactive! And yet a strict reading of the NOA leaves a loophole for Johnny to marry Joanne, since she is willing to promise to become inactive. Of whom else could Johnny exact such a promise?! And of course now that the 17th has come and gone, and Johnny is fully under the NOA's authority, it would be a violation to ask anyone!]
Your dismissing my attorney against my will was both a constitutional mistake and a tactical mistake. After all, it was he who counselled me, before anyone ever dreamed of the level of severity your NOA would carry, to submit meekly to your directions, which I was already predisposed to do. I still would like to be meek, but I cannot turn my back on the woman who loves me, whom I mutually love. Even after your irrationally draconian restrictions were handed down, but before you dismissed him as my attorney, he advised me not to defiantly test anything pending the outcome of this appeal. I will follow this advice, but I will not withdraw myself from my darling fiancJe and you will patiently let me remind you that, as noted above, this shall not be a violation of your "special conditions". This lady, having taken all she had, and her friends having scraped up the remainder of her air fare, has left her homeland behind and flown 8,000 miles to be in my arms and marry me as soon as the ceremony can be arranged. (Cont'd in box)
To this young woman who has told me, "I can't wait to hear your voice", and "How I long to be by your side, to dwell together with you, and to work out Proverbs 31, to be a wife that brings you honor and strength and comfort" )) to this young woman I will not say: "I will not speak to you for several weeks while the U.S. government is deciding whether to let me speak to you." Already, it is impossible for me to count myself worthy to have a wife such as Joanne, but if I were so cowardly and unmanly as to refrain from telling her I love her for the several weeks it will take for this appeal to be decided, then I could not disgrace her by marrying her. I would offer my blood to be shed, and die, before I would break her heart, because a life of such dishonor would not be worth living. And however dishonorable you may regard my federal offenses, you should have the decency not to lock me up for showing her this minimal honor.
You must let me marry Miss Phimester, with immunity; because it is the right thing for you to do; and you are human beings with at least a microgram of heart.
You must let me marry my betrothed, with immunity, because I have proven that, even in accordance with your NOA, it will not be a violation.
You must let me marry her, because it is the tactically smart and the politically smart thing for you to do in support of your own agenda. I would never do anything to risk causing her to be left alone, bereft, and brokenhearted. She needs me.
I've paid more than my share for the sake of preborn human life. Only four living persons have sacrificed and suffered more for this cause; and of those four, only three are semper fidelis. Others who have come after, or may come after, may eventually suffer and sacrifice more, but it will take them years to do it. Now I am broken and tired and want only to be left alone with the lady I love.
Previously having given up everything and lost everything, now I have been rewarded with the love of a noble woman's heart; and that is all I have left; and I am not willing to sacrifice this too.
As a matter of principle, in order not to allow myself to be used to set a precedent for depriving other Americans of their constitutional rights, I do not offer up as compromise any of my constitutional rights as an American citizen, but, hereby, with this appeal, challenge the constitutionality of every point in your NOA. (Cont'd in text box next page)
As, I say, I appeal these things only on principle, too tired to actually fight for them any more. I fight only to protect my lady's heart from being broken. If my fellow Americans will not raise an outcry in my defense in this most absolute attack on the Constitution then you can oppress them, too, as far as I'm concerned. I want only to be left alone with my soon-to-be wife. Thus, should I win back little or nothing on appeal, or in court, by letting me marry Joanne you will be able to hold her heart hostage against me, since I would never do anything to risk her being left alone and brokenhearted. (Cont'd in 2nd text box next page)
You must let me marry my betrothed, because if you do not, no one among the public will understand or support you; and you will be held in universal scorn.
Upon my first reading of your NOA I immediately discerned that something bizarre and unnatural was going on. But it was only after speaking with your agents, and reading of these things in the newspapers, and seeing how fiercely you really mean to interpret and carry out this thing that I was reminded of the Latin proverb: quos deus oult perdere prius dementat. "Those whom a god wishes to destroy he first drives mad."
Of course, since you have already targeted me for a "mental health program", I should point out that I pose no personal threat to you, in any manner or form, by citing this proverb. Yet, your NOA does seem so strange as to be a miracle. It doesn't seem quite possible that such a document could be drawn up due to any natural stupidity or organic mental illness on your part. Lest you be tempted to use even THAT comment to call into question MY mental state, you should understand that my pastor and all my friends suspect the same thing: that your NOA is so crazy that you could not have devised such a thing all by yourself: that the Lord our God must have inflamed you (without your awareness) to launch such a crazy and unsustainable attack on me in order to defeat your cause and deliver me from your oppressiveness.
You must understand that most people do not look at my case the way your establishment-controlled news media tells them they are SUPPOSED to look at it, but that...(Cont'd in box)
...people all over the country and overseas are watching this case in the expectation that God is about to glorify Himself by delivering me from your assault on my rights. I will tell you what you will not read in the newspaper: that your megalomaniacal severity has already sparked an outcry in my defense even among liberals, even among my ideological opponents. They cry: "This is no longer about abortion, this is about fundamental civil liberties!" (Cont'd in box)
Gentlemen, I hope you will not dig a hole any deeper for yourselves. I admit: it is only because I do not want Joanne's and my union delayed one day longer than necessary. We (she and I) both feel that for these next three years our personal ministries are meant to be for one another. I urge you to soften from your relentlessness so as to avert political turmoil. But I promise that if you continue to pursue this course, unable to hear the voice of reason, justice and decency, you will see the Lord my God deliver me from you with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; and my people will believe a prophet has been among them; and the nations will know that the Lord, He alone is God, and beside Him is no other.
Go ahead and scoff if you are so inclined. You can believe me now or you can believe me later, but you will believe.
I have been told by your agents on the phone to spread the word around for no movement people to call me; because, it was explained, if someone contacts me I would be just as guilty as if I contacted them. I have arranged for my phone number to be unlisted. But a strict interpretation of your NOA, together with what I've been told by your officers on the phone, would indicate that, in many ways, I could be accounted in violation for things OTHER people do.
I shall leave word with the prison to return all mail to senders. If some abortiphile discovers my address and puts me on a mailing list, I have no control over that.
Since I am forbidden to have any involvement in publishing, and since "The Brockhoeft Report" has sometimes carried notice that it could be reproduced without permission, and since persons unknown to me might reprint it without my knowledge, I hereby release all rights to everything that has previously been published. While I am still here in prison, and not yet affected by the NOA, I hereby allow all my writings, including this appeal, to fall into the public domain while I still have the legal right to do so. If, after my release on February 17, 1995, anyone should reprint any previous issues of "The Brockhoeft Report", or of this appeal, they will be doing so without my consent, cooperation, knowledge, or involvement.
Please refer to 28 CFR 551.80-83 and also to Bureau of Prisons Program Statement #5350.7, dated July 16, 1979: "It is the policy of the Bureau of Prisons to encourage inmates to use their leisure time for creative writing and to permit the direct mailing of manuscripts as in the case of ordinary correspondence.... As used in this rule, 'manuscript' means fiction, nonfiction.... An inmate may prepare a manuscript for private use or for publication without staff approval...."
Thus, while I am still in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons I mail this manuscript far and wide and forsake all rights to it at once. If anyone publishes it they do so without my consent, cooperation, knowledge, or involvement; but in such case I say to my friends: This is it! Farewell and God bless! You will see no more issues of the Brockhoeft Report until the Lord delivers me from this oppression... (Cont'd in box)
...or unless the USPC returns me to prison for some pretended sham "violation", in which case I would once again have the right to write for publication. Anyone has the right to receive a copy of the USPC's disposition and decision of this appeal with my permission for its release. I hereby grant that release and am willing to sign the release form. (To friends and other observers:) Make no attempt to contact me personally. Contact the USPC. Since I will not be allowed to contact any friends, and since they will be concerned with what is being done to me, I request that copies of the USPC's response to this appeal be sent to:
Mr. & Mrs David Leach 4 137 E. Leach 4 Des Moines IA 50315
Mr. & Mrs Michael Hirsh 4 7494 Stiles Road 4 Howardstown, KY 40028
Mr. & Mrs Roger Huddleston 4 PO Box 739 4 Mahomet IL 61853
Mr. & Mrs Joseph Scheidler 4 Pro Life Action League 4 6160 N. Cicero Avenue 4 Chicago IL 60636
Mr & Mrs Paul deParrie 4 Advocates for Life Ministries 4 PO Box 13656 4 Portland OR 97213
Rev. & Mrs Robert MHCurry 4 Heritage Baptist Church 4 3613 Hwy 34 E 4 Sharpsburg GA 30277
Sincerely,
John Alan Brockhoeft, 01866-017
The End
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