(11TH HOUR Program Opening) (applause) Thank you very much.

It's my real pleasure to be here, and I was informed by the 11TH HOUR staff that I could keep in mind always that I was delivering a lasting message to the world which would be broadcast after my death.

There are many people in the world who claim that I have been a publicity seeker, but I can assure you of one thing, I am going to do nothing to bring this television program to the screen any earlier than it must come.

(laughter) On the other hand it is interesting to me, even if a bit prinerial, to know that what I say here will, after I descended below (laughter) or above, will reach people following my demise.

And therefore, I took a lot of time in thinking of what I would say, and in preparing my remarks, I have a big list here but I not going to read from it.

I'm going to speak with only a brief reference to notes from time to time.

What I want to do is maybe start essentially with Rene Descartes, because Cartesian logic was a force which unfortunately has not been the supreme force in human affairs.

But he said once that his first precept was "never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt."

And yet, people all over the world accept asserted truths without serious consideration, without analysis, and without knowing it to be true without a single doubt.

And the result has been incalculable tragedy down the long reaches of history.

In this country, one of our most profound hypocrisies is that all of its inhabitants are protected by a living Constitution with a Bill Of Rights.

And Chief Justice Burger, recently, as the head of the Bi-Centennial Committee, with reference to the Constitution, stated that the Constitution has "unleashed the energies and talents of people to create a good life."

But in reality, to use the language of Karl Marx' critique of Louis Napoleon's Eighteenth of Brumaire Constitution, "it is a marvelous document but of one thing I am certain, its precepts will not be applied to everyone."

From the earliest history of the United States and the colonies before it, we have been led to believe that we were confronted with men of reason who had civil liberties and rights profoundly in their hearts.

But the actuality is just the opposite.

The replacement, by the revolution, of British financial interests on these shores, by colonial financial interests, did not result in a great surge of human liberty.

In fact, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, that convention, that was called ostensibly to modify the Articles of Confederation which were not working well, but in reality was a secret cabal, with the windows darkened on Independence Hall, with Ben Franklin followed night and day so he wouldn't get loquacious in his cups at the local tavern, and say what was really happening in the hall, they decided to create a new government.

To scrap the articles and create a new tri-partite system of which you are all familiar.

When they were reaching the supremacy clause in the Constitution, the one that says "the Constitution and the treaties of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land."

One man, George Mason, a delegate from Virginia, stood up and said "How about a Bill of Rights?"

He was shouted down twelve to one.

Twelve of the thirteen delegations shouted him down, only one supported him, Virginia.

He rose again, two days later, and said, "How about a Bill of Rights?"

Again, he was shouted down.

And the Constitutional Convention adjourned with a Constitution but without a Bill of Rights.

George Washington was so furious at Mason that he called him his "quondam friend" even though they had neighboring plantations.

And he told Madison that what Mason really intended was to alarm the people.

Well, because of the absence of a Bill of Rights, the Constitution ran into immediate ratification trouble.

Five states, small ones, Connecticut, Georgia and so on, immediately ratified.

But as you know, they needed nine to ratify.

And the big states, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York, refused to ratify.

There was tension throughout those three states.

In fact, the Federalist Papers were written by Jay and Hamilton, in order to try to influence the New York ratification convention to adapt the Constitution.

But without a Bill of Rights, there was strong opposition in all three of those paramount states of the Union.

In fact, Madison said that the opposition was getting out of hand, and he wrote to Jefferson, who was in Paris, had been our ambassador to Paris, was not a member of the Constitutional Convention; he said " The Constitution's critics fancy that the Convention...had entered into conspiracy against the liberties of the people at large, in order to erect an aristocracy of the rich, the well-born, and men of education."

Which was probably true.

The Massachusetts delegation, which was meeting at the Long Lane Meeting House in Boston, ended their discussion of the Constitution with an inquiry by one of its most outspoken members.

"Where," he said, "is the Bill of Rights, which shall check the power of the Congress, which shall say, thus far shall ye come and no further?"

Well, Massachusetts resolved the national dispute.

Because what it did, this delegation, was to ratify the Constitution but send down a recommendation that the Constitution he amended upon adoption, to include "certain alterations and provisions...that would more effectively guard against an undue administration of the federal government..." And then the Constitution slid through, narrowly, Virginia by ten votes, New York by three votes.

Well, there was an election as you know George Washington was elected.

There was a House of Representatives and a Senate elected and they met in June of 1789, in what's called New York's Federal Hall today.

It used to be the City Hall where John Peter Zanger, the palatine printer, had been tried some fifty years earlier.

And Madison stood up on the first day, Madison, who had vehemently opposed a Bill of Rights, stood up and said "We've got to do it.

The people demand it."

But it took until August to get a Bill of Rights, twelve amendments.

And, the House version made the entire twelve amendments, two of which were never voted on and never became a part of the Bill of Rights.

The House version made them binding on the states as well.

The Senate struck out that provision and the amendments went out without a provision saying they were binding on the states.

And it was to take 600,000 lives, some eighty years later, in a bloody Civil War, to bring about the inclusion of the Bill of Rights as a binding force in state action.

Even today that has not achieved its final victory.

In any event, on December 15th, 1791, with the ratification by Virginia, the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution.

However, what has happened essentially with the Bill of Rights was that the Supreme Court permits virtually, earliest days, began to bite into the Bill of Rights, to erode it.

As you know, over the years the Supreme Court condoned human slavery and its successor, racial segregation.

Condoned the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, condoned the Alien and Sedition Acts, condoned the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps and the confiscation of their property after Pearl Harbor.

The disenfranchisement of African-Americans, the death penalty, draconian prison sentences, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the final utilization of the Fourteenth Amendment, the great Civil War amendment guaranteeing that all shall engage or enjoy equal protection of the laws in the United States; and used it to provide corporations with an escape hatch to get away from social legislation that made the work place a safer place to be in.

In fact, as you know, in one of the Supreme Court decisions, that brought on the Civil War, the great Dread Scott Decision, Justice Toney writing for the court said "The Negro has no rights that a white man is bound to respect."

So the Supreme Court from the beginning has not been a bastion of support for civil rights and civil liberties.

But today it is becoming, I don't know how to put it, as bad a Supreme Court as we've ever had, an anti-libertarian force to destroy what's left of the Bill of Rights.

Thurgood Marshall recently said in an agonized dissent, he said "this court is putting at risk not only the civil rights of minorities but the civil rights of all its citizens."

In March of 1990, the New York Times editorialized, and I quote them, "The Supreme Court has shed all pretense of neutral justice on the matter of federal court relief for state prisoners, especially those on death row."

And only three weeks ago, it said "the new majority shows contempt for precedent, disrespect for the Congress, and indifference even to the arguments of this conservative Administration."

And just the other day, Keith Kelly, a senior editor for the Taos business magazines said that the "highest court in the land appears to be no better than a kangaroo court with justices ready to hop skip and jump to the will of the executive branch."

And that is really what has happened.

The court has become the enemy.

The court has become what Thomas Jefferson prophesied so many years ago, "a despotic branch," in his words.

The court has become the enemy of the people.

In fact, in his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln recognized that the court was a power for evil, because he said if "vital questions affecting the whole people are to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, leaving to that extent practically resigning their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."

The latter-day Court, the one we have now, called the Rehnquist Court, is now a gang of seven.

It used to be a Gang of Five, then it became a Gang of Six, and with the elevation of Clarence Thomas it became a Gang of Seven.

And just look at what they have done to all of the key amendments, whether it be the First, the Fourth, the Second is of no value to anyone but the National Rifle Association (laughter), the Third has to do with standing armies being prohibited, which has not been a problem in the United States, the Fourth is the great search and seizure amendment, the Fifth is due process, privilege against self-incrimination, the Sixth is right to counsel, right to a jury of your pears in criminal cases, the Eighth has to do with cruel and unusual punishment being prohibited, and the Ninth is a great catch-all, which says all of the rights not given to the Federal Government, nor reserved to the states, are retained by the people.

The unenumerated rights, under which Roe vs.

Wade became a decision in our Supreme Court lexicon.

Let's look at what they've done, because my words don't have to be taken at face value.

Among other things, and I'm only mentioning a few over the last two terms.

Physicians in federally funded clinics can no longer even mention the option of abortion to their patients.

Criminal suspects can be held forty-eight hours without a warrant.

Sixteen and seventeen year-olds can be executed as well as defendants with IQs of 55-63 or the mental age of six-and-a-half, which reminds me that the British once had a statute which said that mules who kicked their masters will be hanged, as if that would detour other mules from kicking other masters (laughter).

Well, that's what you do when you execute a person with the mental age of six-and-a-half.

They're now considering whether to authorize the executions of fourteen and fifteen year-olds.

Prisoners on death row cannot raise claims which might prove their innocence because their lawyers made a mistake in filing three days to late in one case.

That man was executed in Georgia just eight weeks ago; or filed the wrong paper, the wrong type of paper, a procedural defect by a lawyer, will cost a man's life.

We have anonymous juries now in criminal cases where you don't know their names but just their numbers.

You have preventive pre-trial detention which means they can hold you for years prior to trial without bail, if only the judge says that he thinks you'll either flee or you're a danger to the community.

A clear violation, in earlier days, of the Eighth Amendment.

Police can mislead an indigent suspect that he is entitled to a lawyer to assist him in interrogation.

They can mislead him as to the availability of the lawyer.

Coerced confessions, just four months ago, are now permitted into evidence; destruction of evidence that might have exonerated a defendant now is no bar to his prosecution unless he can show the police in bad faith destroyed the evidence which is virtually impossible.

Searches that violate the Fourth Amendment on every level are now permitted; and they just authorized the police to board any moving vehicle, airplane, bus, car, train, and ask you whether you want to be searched, it will consent to be searched.

And Ms.

Justice O'Connor who wrote that opinion said, after all you have a right to refuse.

But if you refuse, then they say that's probable cause and they get a warrant.

So you have really no choice, and you've all seen the television commercial, I think, for Western Union money orders, with the officer in the sunglasses standing next to a person who is wiring home and trying to get money to pay his fine.

That's what they look like when they come next to you in the bus and say "Ms."

or "Mr.

I'd like to search your luggage."

And it's the rare person that will say no.

Just recently they eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Justice Thomas's first vote essentially on the court.

His actual first vote was to move to set aside a stay of execution of a person on death row.

He lost that six-to-three.

His next great vote was to vote to restrict the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

They all say now that you can end busing even for results in the restoration of segregated schools.

They won't let municipalities use affirmative action in the granting of public contracts.

They said that racial or sexual harassment on the job is not covered by the Civil Rights Acts; they say that the burden of proof in discrimination cases has now been shifted to make the plaintiff prove that the discrimination was meaningful, prove that the discrimination was deliberate.

In the old days it used to be you only had to prove it existed and then the burden went to the employer to prove that it was not racially or sexually motivated.

And they've also said that white people who are not originally parties to settlements of civil rights actions in municipalities may upset the settlements in those cases, as much as eight years later, even though they took no interest in it in the beginning.

The last three rulings, by the way, was so offensive that the Congress of the United States, in the Civil Rights Act of 1991, has just overruled them.

One commentator thinking about this court was led to say "If you ran the Dread Scott Case past them today, there's no telling how they would rule."

And that's exactly what we have.

Essentially, what they're doing is destroying what's left of the Bill of Rights.

And they've done it in the most grotesque and cruel of fashions.

They've done it in so many of the death penalty cases, and just to indicate to you how grotesque this is, they have said that if there is a new rule of law that would have helped a defendant on death row, but that the rule of law came up after the ending of his direct appeal, he cannot use that rule of law.

Even though it might effect someone else who comes up after him.

So that you have a situation where they have a case involving a man named Robyn Leroy Parks.

He had been denied a fair sentencing hearing when the trial judge instructed the jury, in a death penalty case, that they must avoid "any influence of sympathy" in deciding whether to impose death or life upon him.

Long after his sentence the court itself held, in one of its few good decisions, that this kind of instruction was unconstitutional.

But because it was a new rule that didn't exist, when Robyn Leroy Parks was sentenced, he didn't get the benefit of it and he goes to the electric chair.

As the New York Times said, "Even if the prisoner has a strong legal basis for overturning his death sentence - as Mr.

Parks surely did - he winds up getting the electric chair instead."

And Mr.

Parks has now been electrocuted.

Everybody coming after him who has the same thing done to him will be spared the death penalty, but Mr.

Parks goes to the chair.

As you know just a decade or so ago, the Supreme Court gave a green light to the institution of the death penalty again, and it's being carried out throughout the United States, which makes us the only western nation to impose the death penalty.

Even when it was conclusively proved to the Court, and they accepted it by a professor from Iowa University, that you stood four times more chance to, get the death penalty if the victim was white, then if the victims skin was any other pigmentation.

The Court sustained the death penalty anyway in a case were the victim was white.

Justice Blackman, who is one of the two lone voices on the Court today, said "That what they're doing now is their streamlining the process of capital sentencing but at a cost that seems to me to be intolerable."

I want to close with just two thoughts, essentially.

One is that it takes raw courage for people to stand up against that and other things in our society.

Michelangelo, in fashioning the statue of "David," created a statue of a man, a young man, the only artistic portrayal of David, prior to the death of Goliath.

And David is thinking, do I dare, do I dare?

Am I going to hurl the rock from the sling or am I not?

He does it as you know and goes into the history books.

If he had failed he would have been a dead shepherd boy.

That is the kind of struggle that will go through all of your lives, you will meet it, not in such a dramatic fashion, as Philistine armies coming down the hills, but you will meet it in your life.

And lastly, on the day before the Battle of Athelney when King Alfred, the Saxon king, was in his tent awaiting the battle of which he would be killed, and which he would loose to the Danes, the Virgin Mary came to him and she said, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, she said the following, which became the only editorial on the London Times editorial page after the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II, and she said in words which I hope have meaning to you, she said: I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises ever higher.

Night shall be thrice night over you And heaven an iron cope.

Do you have joy without cause And faith without hope.

Thank you for your courtesy and your patience - they are both appreciated.

And as for those who may hear these words after I have crossed beyond the pale, I ask you only to consider them well and then act accordingly, and perhaps our Bill of Rights, now into its third century, may outlive its would-be destroyers.

Thank you.

(applause) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Quotation in part, of 100 words or less, is permitted with appropriate credit shown.

1992 Samuel A. Safarian, Front Range Educational Media Corporation and The Denver Center for the Performing Arts For information about obtaining audio or videocassettes or transcripts of this or other programs from THE 11TH HOUR series, please call or write to: Box 1740