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Chapter 7
Archangel Gabriel - February 18, 1979

     Children of the Path of Christhood under the Master Jesus Christ,

     When Jesus said, "Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered,"¹ he was addressing himself to the excessive legalism of the scribes and Pharisees. For they had buried the great commandments of the law of Moses and the Holy Spirit exhortations of the prophets of Israel and Judah in their orthodox codification of the Law and the Spirit, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, even holding the traditions of men greater than the commandments of God.²

     The lawyers to whom Jesus addressed himself were determined to lay upon the children of the light, as they are in this day, "burdens grievous to be borne" which they themselves touch not - no, not with one of their fingers.³

     When Jesus warned his disciples to beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees,⁴ he was speaking of the self-righteous and zealous sect of self-appointed custodians of the communication of the Word from the I AM THAT I AM unto Moses.

     Originally, the guardianship of the law (of Moses) was held as an office in hierarchy by the Chasidim, veritable saints who were called by the LORD to keep the flame of the prophets among the true disciples of the Law. These disciples were among those who felt within their very souls the calling of Messiah and returned to Jerusalem after their captivity in Babylon.⁵

     The Pharisees, persecutors of Jesus Christ, were the children of those who had murdered the prophets. They even built the sepulchres of the prophets, thereby witnessing their approval of the deeds of their fathers.⁶

     From time to time, by the wisdom of his Word, God had sent them prophets and apostles filled with the Holy Ghost, veritable evangels of the LORD's hosts, rebuking them as did Zechariah with the full authority of the seven archangels: "Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you."⁷

     But on each occasion of their coming, this same "generation of vipers" denounced by John the Baptist would conspire against the lightbearers and stone them with stones even upon the commandment of the king of Judah.⁸ And each time they slayed the prophets, they effectively denied that Jesus Christ was come in their flesh.⁹ For it is written in the Book of Life that whosoever shall speak the Word of the Son, the only begotten Son of God, in him dwells the Lord Christ as the Person of Jesus bodily.

     The Word incarnate in the prophets which the Lord God sent unto Israel and Judah was the very same Lamb of whom it is written: "He was slain from the foundation of the world."¹⁰ Thus the words of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the temple, "The LORD look upon it and require it," are answered in the Person of Jesus who declared to the lawyers, "Verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation."¹¹

     Who were the lawyers to whom Jesus denied the kingdom of heaven - habitation in the consciousness of Spirit - and unto whom he denounced the woes of Gehenna? Surely they were not the defenders of the poor, the fatherless, the widowed, and the homeless, nor the challengers of social injustice of that day or of your own.¹²

     Surely they were not those who wore the mantle of Christ as counsellors before the Bar of the Logos or the true mediators of the Word who would plead before the throne of the Father in the name of the Son Jesus Christ on behalf of mercy and justice unto the children of God - which children, though they transgressed the law (of Moses), were yet worthy of the higher law of forgiveness and that grace that comes only through the Son.¹³

     Surely they were not the advocates empowered by the Holy Ghost to set aside both spiritual and material law in favor of Opportunity, whose living flame, the violet flame, is the renewer of good works and the sponsor of the soul's sacred labor through which his sin may be transmuted and then transcended.¹⁴

     No, the "lawyers" then and now are the legalists whose excessive conformism to the letter of the law brought down upon their heads frequent denunciations from the true advocate with the Father who never feared to expose their hypocrisy:

     "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.

     "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

     "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."¹⁵

     The term "lawyer" (Greek nomikos `of the law') is synonymous with "scribe." The scribes were the legalists of their day who copied and codified both the written and oral tradition of the law which was handed down not only as sacred scripture but as rabbinical definitions and redefinitions of rituals both spiritual and material. Eventually these degenerated into human reasonings and human statements of the law, held by the scribes and the Pharisees to be the actual Word of the Christ Self, Adonai (Hebrew `master', `lord', or `sovereign').

     Such rituals and interpretations which have resulted in the orthodoxy both of today and of two thousand years ago are thus an accumulation of doctrine and dogma which in Jesus' time stultified not only his own literal sacred-fire transmission of the Word but also that of the patriarchs and the prophets.

     Today the same solemn-faced interpreters would if they could "muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn"¹⁶ - of the Lord God himself - as he sends the direct person-to-person communication of the Word of Jesus Christ unto his disciples through the Holy Ghost come upon his messengers.

     Thus it is that everyone who is a disciple on the path of Christhood under the Master Jesus Christ must meet and denounce the enemies of righteousness both in the ecclesiastical Babylon, the citadel of confusion within the established church, as well as the political Babylon,¹⁷ which is the citadel of confusion erected by the false prophets who have sought by entering the governments and economies of the nations to penetrate the matrix of the spiritual Confederation of Israel and Judah.¹⁸

     There comes a time and a place on the path of initiation when the disciple cannot take another step unless he first slay the dragons of orthodoxy that give power to the beasts of the Liar and his lie to control the people in the conspiracies of the dark ones pitted against the lightbearers East and West.

     Orthodox traditions in church and state are those which conform to an interpretation of the Law that fails to take into account the progressive revelation of the Person of the Word incarnate. Such traditions upheld with the pomp and ceremony of a dead ritual by a dead clergy are the justification on the part of the rebellious spirits whereby they may reject the Person of the Son of God who comes in the true shepherds of the people.

     Thus these wolves in sheep's clothing¹⁹ claim immunity from the authority of the true servant-sons bestowed upon them directly through the Holy Ghost from the Father to the Son. Such as these, who would claim the power of heaven and earth without the Trinity, lay claim to a prior ordination in the law handed down from generation to generation and therefore, they say, more valid than the fragrant virtue emanating from the aura of the living saints.

     Their strictness in the observance of a dead letter and their quoting of scriptures to and fro is the defense mechanism of these "whited sepulchres" who are "full of dead men's bones" - whose auras and very body temples are inhabited by discarnate entities - and whose demons continually cry out "Lord, Lord!" because, and for the very reason that, they cannot enter into the circle of sacred fire reserved for Jesus Christ and his true disciples.²⁰

     And when they can no longer stand in the presence of the Anointed One, because their demons are tormented in the presence of the Light, they cry out with a loud voice and stop their ears as they did in the presence of Saint Stephen, running upon the lightbearer with their accord of discord.²¹

     As they slay the righteous - those who have understood both the Spirit and the Matter of the Law of God and have the right and honorable use of that Law and that Spirit - they think they do God service; but in fact, while promising liberty to the children of God, they themselves are the servants only of the corrupted self.²² They raise up the carnal mind and its carnal logic in the place of the Logos and in the place of the true interpreters of the Word, our messengers in heaven and in earth.

     The fallen ones have not the sponsorship of the Logos, therefore they must become a law unto themselves. And they go one step further. Seizing the robes of the prophets, they sit in the seat of the scornful²³ as the judges among the people, dispensing the law as the lawgivers in church and state and saying, "We have the authority. There is none other." Thus they have made themselves equal with God and are the true Satanists according to the lusts of their father.²⁴

     Now I, Gabriel, stand in the midst of the land America with the judgment of the Lord God Almighty which he has already pronounced through his Son Jesus Christ: "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"²⁵

     Therefore let the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America heed the Word of God spoken in the full power of the Holy Ghost, whose blood has been shed from the foundation of the world:²⁶

     You who have rendered your decisions²⁷ against these little ones, thereby promoting abortion and giving license unto the seed of the Wicked One to murder the seed of Christ - of you and your generation shall the blood of the Anointed Ones be required. You who have denied the reality of myself, saith the Lord Christ, in these little ones tenderly abiding in the womb of Mother, you will I deny before my Father!²⁸

     You who have denied Life, unto you will Life be denied in the final judgment and the second death at the Court of the Sacred Fire.²⁹ You who have led a generation in your death cult and in your suicide pact with Satan: Know then that I, the LORD God, have spoken, and that judgment is meted out this day in the Person of my Son.

     And it cannot be turned back! It will not be turned back! And upon all who are in accord with this hatred of the Woman and her seed - this persecution of the ones who bear the cup of Light to the earth as the threefold flame in their hearts - is that Light turned this day. It is an all-consuming Light. It is the sacred fire of Alpha and Omega, consuming all unlike itself and canceling out the antichrists who have invaded the temples of church and state worldwide.

     Yours is the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place where it ought not.³⁰ But the LORD is in his temple³¹ and he will stand, and he will come as a refiner's fire and fullers' soap.

     And ye who have sinned against the Holy Ghost shall not abide in the day of his coming nor stand in the presence of his appearance. And he shall sit in the land as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.³²

     The scribes who thus interpret the Law, destitute of their moral obligation to the Person of the Law and to the interpretation of the intent of that Person, that Son of God, are also destitute of the sense of their own sin and of the need for the Person of the Christ in whom is the cleansing of sin³³ and the redemption of the soul.

     Wherever we have set our representatives, these `scribes' have come. Almost as soon as the hot coals of the Word of God fall from the mouth of the prophet, they are ready to codify that law and that fire, tempting him with their specious reasoning and their personality cult, then laying wait for him and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him.³⁴

     But they, confounded in their own mechanical prison houses with which they have sought to imprison the souls of light, are not able to answer the Christ a word, neither do they dare from the day of their own judgment to ask him any more questions;³⁵ for he himself is the living Answer to the accuser of the brethren, which accused them before our God day and night.

     Even within our own activity, our own community of the Holy Spirit where we, the hosts of the LORD, are fulfilling the prophecy of the LORD in giving unto the two witnesses the Everlasting Gospel and unto the two prophets the finishing of the mysteries of God,³⁶ there have come those who have sought the initiation of empowerment (enduement) even while they have denounced the messenger upon whom the power of God is bestowed.

     Little children, beware of the children of them which killed the prophets.³⁷

     After the death of Jehoiada, the apostate princes of Judah came with their flatteries and obeisance unto the king. And Joash the king, who had done that which was right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada, now responded unto the personality cult of the princes and their idolatry of his person.

     Now the king, preferring the power of the princes of this world, gave the commandment for the murder of the prophet in the very court of the house of the LORD,³⁸ seeking, in the shedding of blood, the light of the Son which is held in the very physical blood cells even as the wine of communion is held in the crystal chalice of the soul.

     These same princes, reincarnated, have come to our own sanctuary of the Holy Grail, appearing as the pious ones, quoting the law as though they were the very authority of the Law itself. And when the prophet has denied to them the power that is contained in the Blood of Christ and that is transferred today by the ascended masters through their embodied messengers, they, too, have gone to gather in their groves, idolizing one another while plotting the astral assassination of our witnesses through malicious gossip and the interpretation of the LORD's Words and Works through our messengers that is devoid of the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

     When they cannot gainsay³⁹ the teaching of the Teachers which has come forth faithfully year after year in the publications of The Summit Lighthouse, then they resort to the detaining of innocent souls, binding them to their own hypocrisy, giving them to drink of the gall of their bitterness which they also gave to Christ upon the cross.⁴⁰

     And what are the lies of these legalists, these scribes who would circumscribe the great body of Truth though they themselves are not a part of that body? They give their interpretations which are their misinterpretations of a most stupendous delivery of the sacred fire that descended as the chastening light of God unto the disciples who gathered at the Retreat of the Resurrection Spiral in Colorado Springs in the final hours of the mission of our Messenger Mark L. Prophet to America and to the Mother and her children.

     His Word was a sacred fire, a sword of righteousness, dividing the way of the sheep and the goats.⁴¹ The same Word spoken unto the children of light was understood as endearment and was received as the precious gift of his Body and his Blood. But to the scribes who would yet inscribe their record of infamy against the Lamb, his words were a threat to their very ego-centered identities which they attempted to hide from their fellow disciples but which they could never hide from the messenger.

     Now these ones, jealous of that Light (Christ consciousness) which they cannot have because they do not bear witness of that Light (neither in themselves nor in the messenger), have set themselves up as the discriminators of Good and Evil, marking this and that religion as counterfeit of the Truth according to their wholly false and fictitious labeling system based upon the dead letter of their own legalism.

     Let all children of the light who approach the fount of the Great White Brotherhood, all who are athirst for the water of Life and are bidden to buy it without money and without price,⁴² beware of these false prophets. They are the counterprophets whom Jesus denounced as the blind guides. They are blind because they have not seen him face to face;⁴³ and because they have not seen him, they have not recognized his messengers nor can their perception of the messengers come through the all-seeing eye of God.

     These individuals who separate themselves bodily⁴⁴ from the company of saints are the Pharisees of the day, whose very hatred of the Light is the black magic of Satan which they impute to our messengers. Their names are numbered and known by the archangels, though they think they enjoy the secrecy of our presence and our sponsorship. Like hired assassins, they gladly receive fame and fortune as they attempt to destroy the unspeakable love and beauty of God shared in the Guru-chela relationship.

     Now we see these "raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame,"⁴⁵ traveling here and there, now speaking in low tones to emphasize their wisdom that is of the Serpent, now crying loudly in the outbursts of their anger against the Almighty who has sent his Son for their judgment. Wherefore he has said to them, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."⁴⁶

     Hearken, ye little ones! They come in fear of their own torment⁴⁷ due their own rebellion, and they leave in their own justification of that fear. From the beginning they were "trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."⁴⁸

     They have never known the sublime love of our messengers. They have not understood the love of twin flames or of the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.⁴⁹ They love one another as accomplices in crime, as vultures devouring their choice prey.

     They have never known the love of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Ghost, and the love of the Mother is far from them. Therefore they have not that perfect love which casts out fear and the fear of the Guru who embodies the Law hence is the catalyst of their own personal karma.

     No, they have never loved because they do not have the capacity to love. And their human sympathy, one with the other as they commiserate in their outer darkness, is a paltry substitute for the love that binds together the body of God, the love wherewith the Lord Christ loves his disciples and the love to which he commended them, saying, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you."⁵⁰

     And here is the perfect love of God the Father, that he sent his only begotten Son into the world that the children of the light might live through him.⁵¹ That perfect love in that Son is the manifest Christ Self in the Master and his disciples, always alive where the Guru-chela relationship is sustained as the ordering of the hierarchy of a cosmos by the Law of Perfect Love.

     I AM

     I ANNOUNCE TO YOU

     THE AUTHORITY OF THE WORD

     WITHIN YOU

     TO DENOUNCE THE ANTICHRISTS

     IN YOUR MIDST

     AND THENCE TO MOVE ON

     TO YOUR OWN CHRISTHOOD

     _________________________________________________

Bibliography

[7]

Volume 22, Number 7, footnote 5. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews began in 597 b.c. when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, crushed the rebellious Judah by besieging Jerusalem and deporting the Hebrew king and leading men of Judah - "all the princes and all the mighty men of valor ... all the craftsmen and smiths ... all that were strong and apt for war." Nine years later Zedekiah, the appointed regent over Judah, also rebelled, and after a siege of one and a half years the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem (587 b.c.) - looting, burning every building including the Temple, and deporting all but a few inhabitants. A third deportation occurred in 582 b.c., probably as punishment for the assassination of Gedaliah (II Kings 24-25; Jeremiah 39:1-10; 41:2; 52). Though they had been taken from their homeland, the conditions for the exiles were not unfavorable. For one, the rich soil in Babylonia was far superior to the rocky fields of Judea and the farmers prospered. Later some Jews became merchants, traders, soldiers, even government officials, some rising to positions of wealth. When the Persian king Cyrus, conqueror of Babylonia, issued a decree in 538 b.c. permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, only a small remnant of approximately 42,000-50,000 led by Joshua, the high priest, and Zerubbabel, appointed governor of Judah, made the journey back, carrying the Temple vessels that had been stripped from them in 587 b.c. (II Chronicles 36:22, 23; Ezra 1, 2). The Chasidim, or Hasidim (meaning "pious ones" or "saints"), also called Hasideans or Assideans, were a sect of devout Jews that developed between 300 b.c. and 175 b.c. during the Hellenistic era, centuries after the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. They lived mostly in the rural areas, were dedicated to the strict observance of Jewish ritual and law, and strongly resisted the influence of Greek culture that had been introduced to the Jews following the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great. Because of their firm loyalty to the tradition of their fathers, the Chasidim were among the first to suffer under the persecutions of the Syrian ruler Antiochus IV. Claiming to be "god manifest," Antiochus forbade the Jews to practice their religion and desecrated the Temple by erecting a statue of Zeus in the inner court and sacrificing pig's flesh on the altar. The Chasidim broke their silence to fight alongside Judas Maccabeus in the early phases of the Jewish revolt that ensued (I Maccabees 2:42; II Maccabees 14:6). In 164 b.c., the Maccabean revolt succeeded, and the Temple was cleansed and rededicated. Some scholars say the unknown writer of the Book of Daniel was one of the Chasidim, and it is now widely accepted that the book was written during the time of Antiochus IV, whose career is described (Daniel 11:21-35) as well as his polluting of the sanctuary - the "abomination that maketh desolate" (11:31; 12:11). In fact, the Book of Daniel - in which the angel Gabriel himself figures as the interpreter of the visions of the prophet - has been called the "Manifesto of the Chasidim." The Chasidim are believed to be the spiritual forerunners of the later sect of Pharisees (see chapter XIV, n. 1).

[8]

Volume 22, Number 7, footnote 27. In the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide based on an implied constitutional right of privacy and declared that the unborn child is not included in the definition of a "person" as protected under the Constitution. The basic guidelines set by the Court were: (1) during the first three months (first trimester) the decision for an abortion is between a woman and her doctor only, (2) after the first trimester the state may regulate abortion procedures in the interest of the mother's health, and (3) during the third trimester (when the fetus could be considered viable, i.e., able to live outside the mother's womb) the state may prohibit abortions unless they are necessary to preserve the mother's life or "health" - a term that in practice is broadly interpreted to include mental health. On June 15, 1983, the Supreme Court, in its most sweeping abortion decision in a decade, reaffirmed the Roe decision and struck down restrictions on abortion procedures in Akron, Ohio, which the Justices said infringed upon a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion. The Court ruled, 6-3, that abortions after the first three months do not have to be performed in a hospital but can take place in a licensed clinic, physicians do not have to inform patients of birth-giving alternatives or potential dangers of the abortion procedure, and a woman does not have to wait 24 hours after she signs an "informed consent" form to have her abortion. In a companion case the Court did, however, uphold a Missouri requirement that unemancipated minors obtain parental or judicial consent for an abortion and that two doctors be on hand when the fetus has a chance of living outside the womb to care for both the mother and child. In 1972, the year before the Roe v. Wade decision, there were about 600,000 legal abortions in the U.S. In the 10 years since that decision, an average of 1.5 million abortions have taken place per year - ending one out of every three pregnancies. The Akron decision is likely to increase the number of abortions even more. For further reading on abortion laws, see Cyril Means, Jr., "The Phoenix of Abortional Freedom: Is a Penumbral or Ninth-Amendment Right About to Arise from the Nineteenth-Century Legislative Ashes of a Fourteenth-Century Common-Law Liberty?" New York Law Forum 17 (1971):335-410; Thomas W. Hilgers and Dennis J. Horan, Abortion and Social Justice (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1972); Robert M. Byrn, "An American Tragedy: The Supreme Court on Abortion," Fordham Law Review 41 (May 1973):807-62; Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), pp. 193-209, 215-23, 271-84, 491-94; Elder Witt, "Supreme Court Reaffirms Abortion Rights," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 18 June 1983, pp. 1247-49; Ted Gest, "Anti-Abortion Groups Have a Bad Day in Court," U.S. News & World Report, 27 June 1983, p. 31. See also Elizabeth Clare Prophet's detailed analyses of the abortion issue on 16-cassette album Life Begets Life (A83034), with supplemental 4-cassette album Life Begets Life: Prayers, Invocations, Dynamic Decrees, and Songs of Praise unto Life (A83079); and 8-cassette album Abortion Update - Exposé: The Controllers and the Destroyers of the Human Race (A83135). In addition to the abortion issue, the Supreme Court and the judicial system as a whole have come under attack for a runaway leniency which many claim protects the criminal far more than the victim of the crime or the public. Some major areas of concern are the widespread practice of plea bargaining, the insanity defense, leniency toward child molesters and drunk drivers, and the death penalty. Approximately 80 of all cases are settled by negotiating a plea bargain. Prosecutors enter into a deal with defendants who agree to plead guilty to a lesser charge for a promise of a lighter sentence. While this greatly reduces the number of cases that go to trial, saving both time and money in courtroom proceedings, opponents argue that a lighter sentence shortchanges the true cause of justice in many instances. Public fervor over the insanity defense came to a head when a Washington, D.C., court found John Hinkley, Jr., not guilty by reason of insanity in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. The insanity defense is based on the belief that a person who is mentally ill, and thus incapable of controlling his conduct, should not be punished. In particular, critics of the insanity plea object to the practice of relying on psychiatrists' speculations and opinions as expert testimony. The problem of leniency and the insanity plea was also underscored in the Dan White case (see chapter IV, n. 14, pp. 341-42). Using the "diminished capacity" defense, a variation of the insanity defense, White received a light sentence for manslaughter rather than first-degree murder and was subsequently paroled within four years. As a result of well-publicized cases like these, a few states have abolished the insanity plea altogether; others have passed laws allowing a "guilty but mentally ill" verdict instead. These new laws stipulate that a convict who begins his term in a mental institution must complete his prison sentence after treatment. Until recently, treatment of convicted child molesters has also been based on the theory that offenders should be hospitalized and cured rather than imprisoned and punished. During 1977-79, it was reported that only about 10 of convicted molesters in California were imprisoned. The Frank case is a prime example of how the system failed. Theodore Frank, with a long record of sex crimes against children, pleaded guilty to a charge of child molestation and in 1974 was sent to a state hospital as a mentally disordered sex offender. In January 1978, he was released as a model patient. Four months later, he was arrested for abducting, molesting, and brutalizing an eight-year-old girl. In 1980, he was sentenced to death in the murder of a two-year-old girl who had been found dead just six weeks after his release from the hospital. Following Frank's sentencing, concerned citizens formed SLAM (Concerned Citizens for Stronger Legislation Against Child Molesters). The group gained widespread support and succeeded in convincing the California legislature to impose tougher penalties on convicted child molesters, such as mandatory imprisonment for serious offenders and recidivists. Staggering statistics of the number of deaths due to drunk driving have made leniency toward drunk drivers an issue close to home to many Americans. Newsweek reported in 1982 that a quarter of a million Americans died at the hand of drunk drivers over the past decade, and in just two years - from 1980-1982 - drunk drivers killed more Americans than were killed in Vietnam. Fed up with the legal system's soft treatment of drunk drivers, citizens have formed groups like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) and RID (Remove Intoxicated Drivers-USA) to fight for stricter laws. One of the most controversial leniency issues that has faced the Supreme Court in the last decade is the death penalty. In the 1972 Furman v. Georgia case, the Court struck down in a 5-4 vote all state death penalty statutes. The Justices ruled that the practice of capital punishment at that time amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" because of the arbitrary nature of sentencing. The Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976 after a review of revised state laws, but the issue is still far from clear-cut. In 1983, U.S. News & World Report summarized the problem: "The justices have made numerous attempts in recent years to clarify how the death penalty can be imposed. But each time they dispose of one issue, defense lawyers raise a new one. Result: Only eight death-row inmates have been executed since 1967." One important question before the Court that blocked the imposition of the death penalty in California and other states was settled by the Justices on January 23, 1983, in their review of California's Pulley v. Harris case. The Court ruled that states do not have to study each death sentence to make sure it is proportional to other sentences imposed for similar offenses. For more information on these topics, see Aric Press et al., "The Insanity Plea on Trial" and "The Case for the Victim," Newsweek, 24 May 1982, pp. 56-61; Walter Isaacson, "Insane on All Counts," and John Leo, "Is the System Guilty?" Time, 5 July 1982, pp. 22, 25-27; "American Justice: ABC's of How It Really Works," U.S. News & World Report, 1 November 1982, pp. 35-58; William J. Winslade and Judith Wilson Ross, The Insanity Plea (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1983); Irving Prager, "'Sexual Psychopathy' and Child Molesters: The Experiment Fails," Journal of Juvenile Law 6 (1982): 49-79; Mark Starr et al., "The War against Drunk Drivers," Newsweek, 13 September 1982, pp. 34-39; "Why So Few Drunk Drivers Go to Jail," U.S. News & World Report, 12 September 1983, p. 14; Raoul Berger, Death Penalties: The Supreme Court's Obstacle Course (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982); "Supreme Court's Death-Row Dilemma," U.S. News & World Report, 17 October 1983, p. 17; Aric Press et al., "To Die or Not to Die," Newsweek, 17 October 1983, pp. 43-45; Philip Hager, "Ruling Leaves Other Major Questions on Law," and Jim Mann, "Supreme Court Reverses State Executions Ban," Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1984, pp. 1, 12.

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