Blake M. Shuler, my nephew, pleads guilty to possession of marijuana and paraphernalia, then changes his plea to "peace disturbance," but still gives my family the black eye of a legitimate criminal record

Blake Shuler
(From facebook.com)

My wife, Carol, and I seem to come from law-abiding stock. Carol doesn't remember anyone in her family being charged with a crime; it might help that, on her father's side, the family is relatively new to this country. Carol's grandfather Tovich came to the U.S. directly from Serbia, not speaking any English, and somehow found his way to Bibb County, Alabama -- where he worked as a coal miner, then opened a successful restaurant, only to see it burn down at the outset of the Great Depression. Relatively speaking, his was a rags to riches to rags story.

On my side of the family, I had not been aware of anyone who had committed a crime. But that changed recently, and since I've reported dozens of posts about misconduct in other people's families, it seemed only fair to report on bad behavior in mine.

My nephew, Blakely "Blake" Myers Shuler, was arrested on March 20, 2016, and charged with possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. Blake is the 25-year-old son of my brother, Paul, who works as a radiology technician at Mercy Hospital in Springfield. I'm not sure if Blake works, but he was arrested in the small town of Clever, MO.

Paul signed papers that sought to have Carol and me declared "incapacitated and disabled" (IND and DIS, under Missouri law), which could have made us wards of the state -- ineligible to vote, file a lawsuit, or manage our own financial and health affairs.

There is little doubt that the IND and DIS lawsuit was the idea of my brother lawyer, David Shuler, and Paul probably went along with it. Since discovering David's vile, nasty letter that he wrote to the judge in our eviction case, I'm not surprised at any underhanded stunt he might pull. (The letter is embedded at the end of this post.) I've long thought Paul probably was cut from a little better cloth than David was, but I've seen evidence that suggests that is not the case, and we will be reporting on that shortly.

Paul's IND and DIS lawsuit was dismissed, by the way, so even his own attorney decided there was no legitimate case there. For the anonymous commenters who periodically crawl out from under a rock to claim I've never won a lawsuit, here is evidence that they are wrong. Carol and I won the IND and DIS lawsuit against us, and it wasn't even close. For the record, we would have won every legal matter that involved us if they had been managed by honest judges, who actually followed the written law. Such judges, as many of our readers know from personal experience, are hard to find.

More importantly, if the first legal action involving us -- filed AGAINST us by Mike McGarity, a neighbor with a lengthy criminal record -- had been decided correctly under the law, none of the other cases would have happened.

As for Blake Shuler, records show he initially pleaded guilty to the two charges against him. My brother, David, eventually represented him. and via some peculiar legal maneuvering, Blake got the drug charges dropped and pleaded guilty to "peace disturbance" -- even though there is zero evidence in the record that he disturbed the peace.

Either way, my nephew has a criminal record -- even though it's for something he didn't do, and charges were dropped on what he apparently did do. Perhaps my brother, Paul, should have been paying more attention to his own son and spending less time filing bogus lawsuits against Carol and me.

Is there irony in all of this? Yes, indeed. Regular readers know that I was arrested ("kidnapped" is the more accurate term, given no warrant ever has surfaced) and thrown in the Shelby County, Alabama, Jail for a five-month stay, from Oct. 23, 2013 to March 26, 2014. There is one caveat to that story: I never committed a crime and never was charged with a crime. My arrest was based on alleged "contempt of court" based on failure to abide by a preliminary injunction in a defamation lawsuit (a 100 percent civil matter). Such injunctions have been unlawful under the First Amendment for more than 200 years, but word of that apparently has not reached the corrupt swamp of Alabama.

Public documents show that we never were lawfully served with the complaint, and we were not summoned to appear in court until well after the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction had already been issued. It's funny when I think how many times contrarian commenters have said things like, "Why didn't you appear in court?" Well, last time I checked, most people don't appear in court when they haven't been summoned.

U.S. Post Office in Clever, MO
(From americantowns.com)

Bottom line: I spent five months in jail, with my mugshot plastered all over the Web, and I was not even charged with a crime -- and I sure as hell did not commit one. The same applies to Carol. She has been arrested twice because of the unlawful eviction from our first "home" in Springfield, Missouri, the eviction where Carol wound up with an arm broken so severely that it required trauma surgery for repair. She was the VICTIM of an assault, but thanks to corrupt Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott, she faces charges of "assaulting a law enforcement officer." This is an obvious example of a "cover charge," where cops press charges against a victim of their brutality to discourage a civil complaint.

Did Carol actually commit an offense? Anyone can view the Probable Cause Statement and Misdemeanor Information in her case -- they are public documents -- and see they present zero admissible evidence that she violated any law. Missouri Circuit Judge Margaret Holden Palmietto dismissed the trespass charge, and the "assault" charge should be tossed soon. But for now, Carol still is having to fight a charge for which there is no evidence, not even enough to meet the low threshold of probable cause.

Let's close by considering a couple of other points of irony:

(1) My brother, David, came to the legal aid of Blake Shuler in a drug-possession case -- as he should have, in my view -- but David hasn't lifted a finger to help Carol and me, legally. In fact, the letter embedded below shows he has gone out of his way to hurt us. No member of my family has even inquired about Carol's well-being or voiced the slightest concern about what happened to her, the victim of gross police abuse.

(2) While corrupt cops, lawyers, and judges have made it appear via the Web that Carol and I have engaged in criminal activity, their own documents show that we haven't. So how ironic is it that Blake Shuler -- the son of my brother who tried to have Carol and me committed -- came along to produce a genuine criminal record to go under the Shuler family name?

Yep, the Shulers no longer can claim to have kept their distance from true criminal activity -- and that has nothing to do with Carol or me.

On a broader note, I know from my own five months in jail, that marijuana possession is one of our most frequently prosecuted crimes. Possession and probation violations -- with inmates often being on probation for possession -- were the two most common reasons people were in jail during my stay in Shelby County, Alabama. (I was the only inmate I could find who was in jail for blogging.)

A legitimate debate can be had about whether marijuana possession should be a crime at all. That's an issue for another day, but for now, public documents in the Blake M. Shuler case provide a rare inside glimpse of how a possession case can unfold in the Heartland. It shows how our "justice system," even in a tiny outpost like Clever, MO, can become fundamentally dishonest when a lawyer enters the picture.

We sought comment for this post from Blake Shuler, his parents, and his lawyer, but they have not responded to our queries.


(To be continued)