Truth is a valuable commodity these days, specially in the James Arthur Ray case. With all Brady and constitutional rules the DA is forced to work around ... what may be presented to the jury has gotten smaller and smaller. Toss in the constant threats of yet more mistrial motions, and you get an idea of how difficult a trial to prosecute James Arthur Ray's case actually is.
James Arthur Ray's defense team has access to the full resources Munger, Tolles & Olson. To get the full picture ... imagine 200 full time lawyers, countless legal clerks, and more. The Yavapai County DA Criminal Division has two dozen lawyers. Do the numbers and you realize the DA is outnumbered 8 to 1. Thankfully they've managed to present a good prosecution despite the huge disparity in numbers.
Douglas Sundling is an Illinois based, non-native American artist / writer / photographer who has attended hundreds of sweatlodges since the 80s. In 2010 Mr Sundling set up a website "Death and a Bogus Sweatlodge", outlining what transpired during Spiritual Warrior 2009.
In 2010, Sundling contacted Yavapai County DA and offered his services as a witness. He was placed on a long list of possible witnesses, which were disclosed to the defense. On 04/22/2011, Ms Poke placed him on the State's Amended Lists of Witnesses. James Arthur Ray's defense filed a 158 page motion (talk about overkill) to have Sundling and other potential witnesses excluded.
On 05/16/2011 Judge Warren Darrow filed a response to James Arthur Ray's motion to exclude. In it he ruled that Douglas Sundling is an expert on Sweatlodges and will be allowed to testify. It should be interesting to see how his testimony plays out, who will do the cross, ... and to see how long it takes for the defense to file yet an other motion for mistrial.
Death and A Bogus Sweatlodge
Douglas Sundling's Website
James Arthur Ray's Motion [158 Pages]
To Exclude Proposed Expert Testimony of Douglas Sundling
State's Response [8 Pages]
To Defendant's Motion to Exclude Testimony of Douglas Sundling
Interesting Links
Chicago Sweatlodge
Mentioned in Mr Ray's White Paper #1 and in Douglas Sunding's Website
Sweatlodge at Wisteria
Wikipedia on Sweatlodge
Wikipedia on Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
Black Hills Treaty Council sues James Arthur Ray – text of lawsuit
Sweat Lodge Saga Continues;
South Dakota Indian Tribe Suing James Arthur Ray For "Desecration of a Sacred Lakota Ceremony"
Lakota Nation files lawsuit against parties in sweat lodge incident
The Art of Doug Sundling
Read Sundling's bio, view his photographs, quilts and samples of his writing
@twinkiewranglerWink E. Wrangler
AAAAYYYYEEE!
ReplyDeleteSundling is a ridiculous New Age fraud. He doesn't know the first thing about conducting an Inipi ceremony. He has written a very good website however which condemns James Ray from a Western perspective. Unfortunately, JAR's demon team is correct in pointing out that Sundling is NO EXPERT. He is a greedy self-promoting fraud who is hoping to use the tragic deaths of three human beings to promote HIS bogus sweat lodges. It is unfortunate that the Yavapai County prosecutor's office is so short sighted and ignorant that they didn't even bother to check Sundling's credentials. He has no legitimate tie to any Native American community and he has been told to stop his bogus sweat lodges on many occasions by authentic Lakota spiritual elders. Sundling is just one of hundreds of plastic shamans hoping to cash in on this tragedy. The prosecutor is making a huge mistake in calling him and in not even making an attempt to contact legitimate tribal elders to testify. This is the way things are going in this trial. Hundreds and hundreds of frauds want to make James Ray the "one bad apple" so they can step up and take his place. Everyone who has testified so far is more interested in protecting their self image as a "spiritual person" than in helping to find the truth.
http://www.wisteria.org/sweatlodge.htm