To the Editor:

Our tyrannical “Dear Leader” Donald Trump wants to get rid of anyone he deems undesirable, exiling them to the CECOT supermax prison in El Salvador without judicial review or “due process.” This is despite that neither Trump nor his ICE minions offer any solid evidence that the condemned are criminals. Their “crimes” are their ethnicity, Venezuelan origin, or random tattoos.

Why does due process matter?  I was 20 working a summer job as a caddy in the summer of 1972 in Lake Placid. Yes, I had long hair and to hide it I bunched my long locks under my orange SU cap every day for work.

On my free days I also played golf at the club, and one day I was on the 18th green next to the clubhouse when the guy who ran the golf shop yelled at me to get off the course. I had forgotten to wear my hat and he presumed I was some hippie interloper who didn’t belong there. He wasn’t very happy when saw it was me.

A week later local and state police raided my dorm room, found some white pills in my roommate’s army surplus rucksack, arrested me for “possession of an illegal military drug,” and threw me in jail. Needless to say, I was shocked at my preliminary hearing when I saw that the presiding town judge was the very same guy who ran our pro-shop!

During that hearing, he denied my right of a phone call, my right to an attorney, and pressured me to plead guilty to “disorderly conduct.” I was fined with the surprise condition that I not return to Lake Placid for two years. So, I was kicked out of town and lost my summer job. It was traumatizing.

Eventually my conviction got overturned by the NYS Appellate Court.  They ruled that my constitutional rights were violated. Also, the original charge did not even exist in NYS penal codes. False arrest.

This is what happens when there is no “due process.” When “the authorities” decide to blithely ignore your rights  and violate the very laws they are supposed to uphold. You get tyranny pure and simple. I luckily got the courts to finally nullify my arrest, and I happily sued the town for what they did to me. Lessons learned: I don’t trust Trump, and his so called “Justice Department” to protect our rights. Neither should you.

Mark MacWilliams

 Canton