Michael Morris – In Focus

Today Alamogordo Dilly News staff imbecile Lord Karl Anderson treated us to another adventure from Henry Morgan Smith’s fantasy island. You may remember Smith as the ridiculous fellow who incited a veritable siege inside the Alamorosa truck stop when Otero County deputies arrived to cite him for violations of the smoking prohibition law. As much as I hate laws like this one I hate more a deranged inaccurate press foisting upon us the ravings of a documented madman with no clue whatsoever of any principle of law except for getting you to pay for his theft of court time and money by way of FREE process and anything else he can get for FREE. Your FREE taxes at work. Below I will link to the incident reports obtained from OCSD regarding the case.

First we need to dissect the ADN story a piece at a time since it is so factually incorrect on top of everything else.

”Henry Morgan Smith has now gathered enough signatures to petition the Otero County District Attorney for a grand jury investigation.”

Where on earth does Lord Karl get this stuff? From Henry Morgan Smith? A citizen Grand Jury petition is not an action to the District Attorney, but rather to a District Judge:

NM Constitution Article 2 Section 14 in pertinent part:
A grand jury shall be convened upon order of a judge of a court empowered to try and determine cases of capital, felonious or infamous crimes at such times as to him shall be deemed necessary, or a grand jury shall be ordered to convene by such judge upon the filing of a petition therefor signed by not less than the greater of two hundred registered voters or two percent of the registered voters of the county

This brings us to our second factual abortion. Lord Karl writes:

The number of signatures required by state law to qualify for a grand jury investigation is either 400 signatories or 2 percent of the registered voters in the county.

Then again His Lordship was only off by 100% on the signatures and only missed entirely the “greater of” part.

Enough about the fool who brought us this. It is time to focus in on the actions of Henry Morgan Smith. Smith, aided by the local press, has managed to convince, as Anderson claims, 340 people to help him injure actual victims in the future with this rendition that amounts to no more than the ravings of a Friday night drunk.

Since Lord Karl has taken the cheap shot of running with this lunacy while knowing the Sheriff could not directly respond we can do the next best thing by publishing the incident reports from all of the ticketing trips by deputies. The reports are largely supported by Smith’s own claims such as his confrontational attitude when initially approached, to calling the State Police to have the deputies removed to these twisted and confused theories of law he was babbling on even then. The clear fact is that Henry Morgan Smith has a genuine chip on his shoulder regarding authority including the duly constituted variety. Armed with a cellblock legal education, a bad attitude and a moron reporter and his even less mentally agile editor Smith has managed to get publicity for what can be most generously described as a ballet of stupidity in motion. (VIEW HERE)(supplemental cover sheets and citation copies omitted to reduce file size)

Baseless claims and frivolous actions are nothing new for Henry Morgan Smith. In 2003 Smith was convicted of obstructing an officer under the Roswell Municipal Code. Read the Court of Appeals opinion (VIEW HERE) - it's a hoot! The facts surrounding this are that Smith had blocked in 2 cars with his van at a Roswell Denny’s. Smith, as usual, was engaged in screaming when police responded to the disturbance call. Seeing that there had been no crime Roswell officers ordered the individuals to go their separate ways. The others tried to, but Smith refused to move his van out of their way claiming the police had no right to tell him what to do on PRIVATE PROPERTY. Smith was then arrested and charged with obstructing an officer in Municipal Court. Not surprisingly Smith was convicted. Also, not surprisingly, Smith appealed to the District Court. Again the conviction was upheld. Smith appeals to the NM Court of Appeals. You can read that opinion upholding the Municipal Court conviction (HERE). That happened in 2006. By that time Smith had wasted 3 years of taxpayer paid court time. After the Court of Appeals affirmed Smith objected to the remand order and appealed again. By now it is March 2007. This time the Court of Appeals says the order is just plain final. The last action taken by Smith in the case is October 3, 2007 with Smith yet again filing an appeal.

This is not some sort of freedom fighter folks. This is a genuine case of a man with nothing better to do than cost the taxpayers money with one frivolous action after another begging money and support from the un-wary in the hopes of one day striking it rich in the Lawsuit Lottery. The only hitch is the line of crap he sells has no basis in any law anyone living above ground has ever heard of. The smoking ban is couched as a health law. Except for those who feel the well established practice of health inspections of restaurants is un-Constitutional there is no question that such an inspection as is specified in the ban law is legal. If Smith has a case it is a political one against the legislature that passed this abominable law.

As to Smith’s “civil rights” case costing us money in the US District all that has the potential to do is accumulate costs. Seriously, the standard in such actions includes a provision that the officer conduct must be knowably un-Constitutional, not that Smith feels the law is another way than it is. There is no absolute protection from searches and seizures as some would interpret “unreasonable”, but the case law, mostly developed around “DWI checkpoints”, does not agree. So while you think you are supporting some noble cause remember that cases like this, argued by fools, are the precise place where bad precedents that harm us all, are set.

OK, now specifically to this Grand Jury prank. I realize the passages of the NM Constitution Henry Morgan Smith read do not specifically address this, but there is a requirement that a crime be alleged. Anderson claims the goal is a “Grand Jury investigation”. This is a similarly confusing and misplaced notion. NM does not have investigative Grand Juries like the feds and some states. We have prosecutor led and conducted Grand Juries. I have a hard time seeing a sane prosecutor arguing that an officer who specifically states he was following the inspection part of the ban law was acting criminally to that Grand Jury. As for the Social Security number maybe Smith has a civil action. The problem with that is without statutory damages Smith could only recover his loss which, with the value of his name and all of the numbers that go with it about that of a large fountain Coke, there is little reward even if he did prevail.

Hey, now there is another nugget that may be of concern to those willing to put their reputation and money in the hands of Smith. Henry Morgan Smith has never won a case. From racking up untold hours of taxpayer billed court time and FREE process and FREE service of process in cases such as an Income Support Division appeal to suits by insurers appealed to multiple FREE appeals on traffic tickets and municipal citations Smith has never even had a single motion granted, except for the numerous motions to force the taxpayer to pay for his farce. Most of the time he ends up in more doo doo as a result with sanctions being the number one cost. This is not a matter of corrupt judges either. This is the result of an utter idiot merely raging out of control in an attempt to be someone.

You are free to do as you wish. You are free to define yourself as the same sort of fool as Karl Anderson who lacks the sense to question any of this. You are free to give your hard earned to this scammer to help keep him from need of actual gainful employment. You are also free to twist this story of a man who knows nothing into the story of a hero standing up to the man. In that case you have no one but yourselves to blame for the outcome. You are also free to decide if this is the kind of man you want to make a martyr for your cause.

Start by asking Mr. Smith why he has filed some frivolous motion in the citations cases under the smoking ban. Smith has filed a motion to bar any licensed attorney from prosecuting the case. Of course this is meant to prevent Otero County Attorney Dan Bryant from prosecuting. The particulars of this reside in the non-attorney prosecution rules often seen in play when a cop prosecutes a traffic ticket. Since there may be an issue of the employment of Mr. Bryant (not employee of the sheriff) this could be solved if Sheriff John Blansett simply hired Bryant or anyone else for any job since the rule is “any employee” authorized to prosecute. For instance if OCSD were to hire, say, me, to cut the weeds in the parking lot the Sheriff would be legally able to send even a lowly gardener like me to prosecute. On the other hand if deputy Hansen has any difficulty in making this case OCSD is free to drop it. After having read the police reports and gathered together some witness statements I would be more than happy to file the charges as a citizen and prosecute it as well. In fact there is nothing I would like more than to expose Henry Morgan Smith for the liar and fraud artist he is. Heck I would even move to videotape it so everyone could see what this darling of the ADN is all about.

If you are looking for villains in this you need look no further than Karl Anderson and his useless Managing Editor Michael Becker. Without them raising this to the status of news this would be history.