Linn County Oregon victimizing ONAC KM Sachem Joy Graves
It has just now come to our attention that Linn County Circuit Court has elected to Dishonor the physicians note the court insisted they receive from the physician of Reverend Sachem Healer Joy Maxine Graves which was to excuse her appearing in court March 2nd 2016 due to illness and instead have issued a warrant for her arrest.
Graves remains extremely sick and in fact is scheduled to see the physician later this afternoon for further treatment and testing. Graves had requested that church attorney assistant confirm that the court had received and rescheduled the hearing date, but apparently come to find out that call was never made to the court, else the assistant would have known that the court had confusion over the physicians letter. Instead, far more ill than she was, Graves now fears re-arrest and another jail stay.
"This is completely insane, and clearly further retaliation on their part" Graves said, "They Demanded a letter from the physician and that's what they got, it's not my fault nor is it Fair to now punish and condemn me because they don't like the way Kaiser Permanente's systems title their letters."
Joy Graves has in fact been physically disabled since birth, physicians claim due to complications during the pregnancy as well as the delivery. Graves says she has been with Kaiser Permanente for her health insurance providers since she was 3 weeks old because of her fathers employment with the Department of Defense's Aerospace program. Graves says she has dealt with Linn County Circuit court before, back in 2006 when she was indicted and threatened with a 56 year sentence for legally transporting a 2 foot cannabis plant from a state sanctioned patients address to the grow site location.
Although ultimately Graves in fact beat that case, she states that during the coarse of that "three year ordeal" that the court was given similar medical excuses for hearings from Kaiser which were titled and addressed the same way as was this one. "They never had a problem accepting work excuse letters before from Kaiser, and I didn't have a job then - they know nothing's changed" she said "I remain permanently physically disabled and have only Social Security as my sole income."
Graves has a call into church attorney Matthew Pappas and is awaiting his counsel, help and instructions as we report this, and again is scheduled to see thee physician later today as her illness has progressed far worse despite the $160.00+ of prescription medication she was given to dispell her illness prior to the March 2nd scheduled hearing. Graves is most concerned in that she may now wind up having to spend unecessary time and suffering in the Linn County Jail until this can be addressed by the court.
Graves says she has never not appeared when being accused of a crime, and points out that ultimately too, she has never had a criminal conviction. "This court is obviously trying to set an ill tone between the judge and I - I suppose the clerk would rather have me come in contagious and get everyone in the courtroom sick including the judge, rather than to respect the fact that my physician felt it was in societies better interest that I don't until I was better."
The physicians letter excused Graves from appearing in court March 2nd 2016, noting that she had "influenza type symptoms." The letter clearly noted at the bottom that the physician felt Graves should have been well enough to attend court after March 3rd. But according to the court clerk, because the letter stated Graves was excused from work and not court, that the court dishonored the letter and instead issued a warrant for Graves arrest.
Obviously Graves would not have been well enough to attend court even on March 3rd, as she is far more ill now than she was then and states that this is why she is again scheduled to see the physician later today. Graves says she intends to request a second letter from Kaiser, stating that the letter submitted to the court was their "standard physician's letter" and that Kaiser Permanente proticol only allows "work release" letters as an option for physicians to excuse patients whom are ill from daily responsibility such as work and or appearing in courtrooms.
Graves faces charges of Driving while suspended, no vehicle insurance which she states the vehicle had during the encounter which led to her arrest after the protest, along with reckless driving and driving under the influence of cannabis, aka Marijuana - both which Graves firmly denies being the fact of the situation. Graves openly admits to having puffed on a cannabis pipe more than 13 hours Before she was encountered by police and assurs us that she was Not driving under the influence of cannabis and too, that she was "Far from" driving recklessly prior to her being encountered and subsequently arrested by police and charged with these alligations.
"This is completely retaliatory" insists Graves, "Within Hours of our church filing an injunction against the federal government for victimizing us, they pull me over and arrest me, and now pull this on top of it - this is an unacceptable abuse of their trusted position" Graves says "They're Suppost to be preserving Justice." Graves along with additional church members whom were present during the civil rights protest when the paperwork was filed against the federal government, that "Multiple state troopers" along with a higher up in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were "Closly following" Graves and the members from about 4 o'clock pm that day until they all parted ways around 10 -10:15 Pm.
Graves and the members all agree that the only time Graves and the members consumed cannabis that day had been at "11:54 Am that morning" - they are confident of this as it was actually witnessed by local media sources and was done so in public, "right in front of the US Post Office we were protesting." Graves and the church members took a total of "3 puffs" off of the pipe "To open our ceremony" and assure that it was the last ingestation of the day as "The pipe was broken, so we could not Close the ceremony as normally we would have done at the end of the day's event." Church members present at the rally confirm that Graves had no pipe nor other means of toking any cannabis once the pipe was broken, and note also that Graves had ultimately given "most all the cannabis she had with her to church members who attended the rally."
Graves further points out that in spite of the arresting officer only finding a few grams of cannabis on her, that it wasn't even counted as evidence. "The officer took the cannabis given me by attending members out of my pocket and put it into an evidence bag which he put in the church car before having it towed." Graves was not charged with possession of either cannabis nor parapharnilia. Graves further adds that "The independant officer who ran me through the field sobriety testing at the jail commented on how Well I had passed the test - he told the arresting officer that in all his years of running these tests, he never had someone pass it as well as I had."
Graves states that the most impressive to the independant officer was her accuracy to the 30 second "quiet count" in her head. "They have you close your eyes, put your head back and count in your mind to 30 seconds, then you are to tell them to stop timing." Graves says the testing officer stated to the arresting officer in front of her "I've never had anyone come as close to accurate as Ms. Graves has - she stopped the count at 29.6 seconds." Clearly the independant officer that tested Graves concluded that Graves was in fact Not "under the influence of" what they call "marijuana". Attorney Matthew Pappas added "There is currently no test that can legally determine whether or not a person is under the influence of cannabis."
Both Pappas as well as Graves and Oklevueha Native American Church all contend that this encounter and arrest was "pure retaliation" for Graves and the church having filed the injunction against the federal government. They contend that this is "Not going to be gotten away with" by officials. Graves has let it be known that because of the "illegal victimization" Graves has attempted to file a civil lawsuit against the arresting officer, Oregon State Trooper Donald J. Rummer. "He violated my rights" claims Graves, "aside from the unwarranted encounter, he illegally disrobed me and then began touching my body without a female officer being present."
Oregon law does allow an officer of the opposite sex to "search" a traffic suspect BUT however, Oregon law does Not allow an officer of the opposite sex to "Disrobe and then physically search" a citizen of the opposite sex. Graves is filing a civil suit against trooper Rummer for $10,000.00. "I have attempted to get the civil suit filed in Polk County, but they said they couldn't process it because their computer system was down", so ultimately it remains un-filed at the present time, but Graves has the completed forms in hand and says she is eager to get them filed.
Graves assures us that the suit "Will be filed against trooper Rummer" and that it may possibly expand to the tow company as well as "They charged me almost $500.00 to get the church vehicle back that I should not have had to pay." Graves says that had the trooper stated that he had the vehicle "Towed but not impounded". Graves says that the church auto insurance would have covered the cost of the tow for the vehicle then they would Not have had the right to "extortion" the money from her, because it wasn't impounded, it was towed according to trooper Rummer "for safety". Graves says that beings it was a safety issue, the churches insurance company would have covered the cost of tow and storage and that it wouldn't have kept her from the vehicle all the days that she was.
"If the car had been towed, it could have been towed anywhere within 13 miles." Graves says. "Even if it had been taken to the tow company, the bill would have been 100% covered" and says she then would have been able to retrieve the vehicle upon her release from jail, opposed to ultimately ending up in a hopsital emergency room as she did having to walk while sick through the rain storm she was put out into by the jail "Without my coat even." Graves collapsed on the freeway while attempting to walk to the church sanctuary. Fortunately for Graves, a passer-by saw her medical distress from the walk and transported her to the local emergency room at Cottage Grove Community Hospital.
"If the police and jailers had done their job, or been compassionate at All, none of this would have happened - I wouldn't have been stopped in the first place, much less arrested - disrobed, separated from my possessions including my coat, and I wouldn't have been tossed out into the weather nor collapsed because of my health issues." Graves has medical records which show physicians have determined that Graves is Not to walk more than "a block" in distance, and also that she is not to "Sit nor stand for more than 20 minutes at a time." Graves was tossed out of the jail 60+ Miles from the church sanctuary and denied the ability to call or have a ride called for her - despite pleaing and stressing her medical health issues and begging county officials for a ride to be called.
Please stay tuned for updates on this as well as other ONAC and ONAC KM breaking news and events.