In Our View: Bryson's peyote hallucination

Date: Monday, May 02 @ 00:00:30

Topic Opinion

If Utah County prosecutors want to save themselves from further embarrassment, they will immediately give back James Warren "Flaming Eagle" Mooney's peyote and other items they improperly confiscated from his church.

Then County Attorney Kay Bryson should hang his head in shame and resign, as he should have after the disclosure that he used a sheriff's deputy and public surveillance equipment to spy on his wife. The peyote case is no less an abuse of power. Bryson's credibility as an unbiased advocate for the people is shot.

Mooney, leader of the Oklevueha Earthwalks Native American Church, has filed suit in U.S. District Court against the county, Bryson, Deputy County Attorney David Wayment, investigator Jeff Robinson, Sheriff's Deputy Robert Riding and others who were involved in raiding Mooney's church and seizing 17,500 peyote buttons.

Peyote, a cactus with hallucinogenic qualities, is used by Native American churches in religious ceremonies. Church members say it aids in attaining spiritual enlightenment. Mooney said it can be used to treat drug addicts by allowing them to see the cause of their problem and the way to solve it.

Federal drug law allows peyote to be used in Indian religious ceremonies. But in 2000, Utah County Sheriff's deputies raided the church, and Bryson filed charges that it was a front for illegal distribution of peyote because Mooney allows non-Indians to join and participate in ceremonies.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled last year that federal law did not restrict membership in Native American churches to Indians, voiding the charges. But Bryson has refused to return the peyote, computers and church records.

Now, Mooney is in federal court charging that Bryson and others maliciously prosecuted him and violated his own and his church members' civil rights. He has a good case.

Bryson's action against the church was misguided -- an attempt to dictate not only the manner of approved worship but the racial composition of the worshippers. It was as clear a violation of the First Amendment, as we've seen. Bryson's argument for a racial test is so far over the constitutional line that it's laughable. Churches themselves, not the government, determine who can be members and who can participate in sacred ceremonies. To say, as Bryson did, that the Native American Church may only admit people from federally recognized tribes is akin to saying that only people of Italian descent may participate in Roman Catholic sacraments or that only people born in Utah may participate in LDS temple rites.

The law permitting Native American churches to use peyote recognizes that Indian spiritual leaders are not drug pushers and will not allow recreational druggies to participate in peyote ceremonies. Anyone who's familiar with peyote knows that there's no recreation about it anyway. Most people get violently ill before its mind-opening qualities kick in.

You don't need to be a constitutional scholar to predict how this is going to turn out for Utah County. If the court rules for Mooney, which we think likely, the taxpayers are going to be shelling out a lot of dough -- though we would urge Mooney to go easy on us. Utah County's overzealous prosecutor, a man willing to use his public position for personal gain, doesn't speak for everyone.

This mess could have been avoided if, when the Utah Supreme Court threw out the charges against Mooney, Bryson had simply returned the seized property and apologized. But he didn't. He remained stubbornly locked in the hallucination that he is right. So now the case goes to federal court with the odious indication that Mooney's civil rights were indeed violated.

The only thing Utah County can do to cut its losses would be to settle. This will save the county money and spare Bryson yet another humiliating defeat in the courts. Commissioners should then strongly encourage Bryson to go away.

Mooney and his church have been hounded unfairly. It is time to end the vendetta and remind Bryson that the war on drugs is no excuse to trample the Bill of Rights.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A4.

This article comes from The Daily Herald

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Last updated on May 18, 2005

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