Talking about the Don Gellers pardon with NPR

Late last fall my plane touched down at National Airport in Washington, I turned on my phone and there was an interview request from a reporter at NPR interested in the Don Gellers pardon story. I was able to drop by NPR headquarters and record an interview in person with Erin Slomski-Pritz, an NPR Storylab intern who, it turned out, was a Salt Institute for Documentary Studies graduate who had done her project on Dwayne Tomah's work to protect Passamaquoddy culture. She'd read about the Gellers case -- a state-sponsored conspiracy directed by the attorney general's office in the late 1960s to rid Maine of the tribe's all-too effective attorney -- and the pardon hearing.

This morning her piece ran on NPR's Morning Edition. Take a listen or enjoy the transcript.

Gellers received the first posthumous pardon in the state's history last week. His story was exposed in our 31-part Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled" in 2014, which concluded just months before he died.

The Israeli news agency JTA also took up the story today, with photo by my Press Herald colleague Greg Rec (via Getty Images.)

Don Gellers, victim of state sponsored conspiracy, receives full, posthumous pardon in Maine

In a 31-part Portland Press Herald series on the Passamaquoddy tribe's epic struggles with Maine, "Unsettled," I told the story of Donald Gellers, the idealistic young attorney who, in the 1960s, joined forces with Chief George Francis to challenge legal, civil rights, and material abuses of the tribe and its members by state officials, law enforcement, the courts, and local businesspeople. Upon returning home from filing a suit that sought redress for a $150 million trust fund and 10,000 acres of reserved land stolen by Maine -- the fund alone worth $1.1 billion in today's dollars -- he was arrested in a sting and raid that would be comic if its results were not so tragic and charged with "constructive possession" of six marijunaa cigarettes allegedly found in the pocket of a jacket in his upstairs closet.

The sordid case -- prosecuted by the head of the Attorney General's office criminal division, Dick Cohen, and his assistant, John Kelly -- resulted in a 2 to 4 year prison sentence and, most importantly, Gellers' disbarment in Maine, ending his ability to represent his clients. Gellers, with Cohen's tacit approval, fled to Israel, where the Justice Ministry found the case against him so absurd they admitted him to practice law without reservation. When he returned to New York in the 1980s -- now a rabbi -- U.S. federal courts did too.

On Tuesday -- five years after his death from cancer -- Gellers received a full pardon from Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a former Attorney General and career prosecutor who was overcome with emotion while outlining the litany of outrages connected with the state's prosecution. It is the first posthumous pardon known to have been issued in Maine's 200 year history, and also likely the only one to be granted on the grounds that the state had persecuted someone with bad intent. It is also likely to further the attempt to heal the rift between the state and Maine's tribes.

I attended the ceremony at the State House and wrote this dispatch for the Press Herald. I also covered the emotional October 2019 pardon hearing in Augusta, where Gellers' brother and leading tribal figures spoke out in his defense.

For a full accounting of the disturbing story of Gellers, the tribe, a horrific murder, the arrest, and the aftermath, please read the first thirteen chapters (and Chapter 29) of "Unsettled," which can be found here and is also available as a Press Herald e-book from Amazon, iTunes, or wherever you buy your electronic books. I also wrote this obituary after Gellers died.

I spoke with WCSH-6/WLBZ-2's NewsCenter Maine about Gellers' life on Tuesday evening. At available here. I also spoke with Susan Sharon of MainePublic. [Update, 1/15/20: NPR's "Morning Edition" did a story today as well.

The implicit, official censure of the state's behavior in the case is sobering for Maine's legal community, which in the late 1960s was extremely cozy. Many of the figures who participated in the prosecution were colleagues, mentors, or family members of people who are leading figures in the state's legal circles today. Judge William Silsby -- whose decisions during Gellers' 1970 hearing to be granted a new trial when evidence of a state conspiracy was uncovered will raise many eyebrows -- is  the father of Maine Superior Court Judge Herbert Silsby and grandfather of former US Attorney for Maine Paula Silsby. Attorney General James Erwin, where the proverbial buck stops, went on to be a two time Republican gubernatorial nominee, and his son is a prominent attorney who also served as Attorney General. Dick Cohen rose to become Attorney General, and Governor Mills herself worked for him for four years as a young assistant attorney general in the late 1970s; Cohen was appointed US Attorney by Ronald Reagan. John Kelly -- who arrested Gellers in Eastport and prosecuted the case with Cohen -- sits on Governor Mills' pardon board and, so, had to recuse himself.

“These 50 years have been very, very painful years,” Gellers told me a few months before his death, noting that his fugitive status had always hung over his head, waiting to be dropped on him by any opponent.

“It is a ‘Les Miserables’ story, and I am Jean Valjean,” he said, referring to the Victor Hugo novel. “It’s not simply a one-shot outrage, and when something like this is done it carries repercussions for life. These candlesticks are with me forever.”

He said he had never sought a pardon from a governor of Maine, and I asked whether he would ever want one. “Well, yes," he said. "Yes, that would be nice.”

Sneak peek at my new book, UNION

I spent a fair part of 2019 working on my sixth book and, to close out the year, am pleased to be able to share its cover art, preliminary description, and pre-order pages. It's called Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood; it's the third part of an informal trilogy that started with American Nations (and continued with American Character); and it's out with Viking Press in June 2020.

If American Nations showed that there has always been not one America but several, Union tells the tale of how 19th century Americans created -- and viciously fought over -- a national narrative to paper over this problematic condition. Told through the lives of several key figures in the struggle, it shows that our federation has long been a battleground between civic- and ethno- nationalist explanations of our national origins, purpose, and identity. Trumpism's roots, sadly, run as deep as American ideals late 20th century Americans almost unanimously embraced.

Also, Woodrow Wilson was even worse than you think.

I'm a champion of local, independent bookstores, so hope interested parties can order the book from their favorite. But for reference -- and for those who live in bookstore deserts -- here's the Amazon page (with Kindle edition) and Barnes & Noble.com one (with Nook edition).

Maine's EMS system in crisis

Maine is the least densely populated state this side of the Missouri River, and that's put it on the frontlines of a nationwide crisis for Emergency Medical Services -- the ambulance, air ambulance, and rescue teams that respond to 911 calls and transfer patients between medial facilities. The root problem is a broken reimbursement model, with the federal Medicare program at its center, but the effects are being felt across small town America.

I wrote about the crisis this week in a special two-part series for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, with photos from colleague Ben McCanna.

The main story, in this week's Telegram, describes the crisis, which has many EMS officials warning that after years of strain, the system is coming apart. It describes why this is happening, what its meant for patients and health care delivery, and what might be done to solve it.

The companion story, in this past Monday's Press Herald, is on the frontline paramedics and EMTs who have borne the brunt of the fraying funding model, holding the system together via long hours, multiple jobs, and poor pay, even as their capabilities (and training demands) have increased.



I hope you'll take a look.

Bills to protect working waterfronts, tribal women pass US House, sit at Senate

Some non-impeachment related Washington news.

I've recently reported on the passage of a couple of bills in the US House that are of particular importance in Maine. They're broadly regarded as non-partisan and, theoretically, should be uncontroversial, but are among hundreds with an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The first is a measure to help protect and revitalize working waterfronts, which passed the House this week with 34 Republicans in favor. There's no Senate companion bill as yet.

The second is the reauthorization for the Violence Against Women Act, which would extend jurisdiction to certain types of domestic violence and sexual assault cases occurring on tribal reservations to qualified tribal courts. The Senate surprised those following the issue when its majority Republican caucus unveiled a version that instead puts new restrictions in place for tribal courts.

There's also a bill to assess and respond to ocean acidification, a byproduct of global warming that's threatening shellfish growers and harvesters. The Senate version has bipartisan sponsorship, but no momentum.

I wrote about these three measures in particular because I help cover Maine's delegation for the Portland Press Herald, and all were introduced by the state's senior House member, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-ME02, but they're likely indicative of a wider situation on the Hill.

In Boston, talking about American nationhood and its problems with The American Question.

Spent yesterday in the belly of the beast, the old Massachusetts Bay Colony, doing an interview for this forthcoming documentary film project, The American Question. Filmmakers Guy Seemann and James Kicklighter are asking what holds us together, as communities or as a nation and I enjoyed sharing my take. Found myself talking a lot about the themes in Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, which comes out in June 2020.

Found myself at one point standing, unexpectedly, at the spot on the edge of Boston Common where a (mostly African-American) crowd protested the release of the Klan-loving The Birth of a Nation back in 1915, which features in Union. The Tremont Theater was across Tremont Avenue. Now, appropriately enough, there's a gigantic AMC Loews Theater on the site.

The Maine nurse saving lives in the Mediterranean

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I profile Tim Harrison, a veteran Medecins sans Frontiers nurse from Union, Maine who has spent decades saving lives in some of the most dangerous and unstable parts of the world. Now he's on an MSF rescue ship off the coast of Libya, saving thousands of migrants fleeing war, torture, and sex trafficking in their home countries, which are spread across the Eastern Hemisphere.

European governments, for their part, tried to shut them down, refusing scheduled refueling stops or even threatening prosecution (because the rescuers don't return migrants to Libya, the lawless country they are fleeing from in overloaded rubber rafts.)

Details in the story.