<center>October 22, 1997
2 ON TRIAL FOR "RAINBOW FAMILY" GATHERING IN ALLEGHENY FOREST
</center>
William Baxter, Joseph MacCrimmon on trial in U.S. District Court in Erie
on charges of assembling without a permit
By BRIAN KINAL Staff writer
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PHOTO
Defendant William Baxter, left, walks to court with his friend and legal
adviser, Scott Addison.
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Whether people have the right to assemble in national forests, or need a
permit to do so, is the central issue of a trial under way in U.S.
District Court in Erie.
Also in question is whether members of a group that fails to obtain a
permit can be selected randomly for prosecution.
: On trial are two people associated with the Rainbow Family, William
Baxter of Hedgesville, W.Va., and Joseph MacCrimmon of Arcata, Calif.
Both are 49. Both are Vietnam veterans.
They were charged with assembling without a permit in Allegheny
National Forest during a week long Rainbow Family gathering in August
1996.
Actually, both deny that the Rainbow Family is an organization;
therefore, they are not "members" of it. As Baxter said outside the
courtroom "If you've got a belly button and you believe in peace, you're
a Rainbow."
The complexity of the trial surprised the judge, attorneys and
witnesses, who had expected a one-day proceeding. Before testimony got
under way at 10 a.m., Judge Susan paradise Baxter, no relation to the
defendant, predicted she would is sue a verdict before day's end.
Instead, Baxter had to recess the trial at 8 p.m. Testimony was to resume
this morning at 9 a.m.
District Ranger John R. Schultz of the National Forest Service spent at
least four and a half hours on the witness stand under direct examination
by Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Trucilla and cross-examination by
Assistant U.S. Public Defenders Khadija Diggs, Stephen Misko. Diggs is
Baxter's attorney and Misko represents MacCrimmon.
By mid-afternoon, Judge Baxter told attorneys to "tighten up'' their
questioning, saying, "My mission is to get Mr. Schultz off the stand
which Schultz replied, "That's a noble mission, your honor."
Schultz testified that on Aug. 22, 1996 he was hosting a Bureau of
Forestry tour of the park when he noticed "signature items" of a Rainbow
Family gathering. Those items included tie-dyed T-shirts, teepees, and
cardboard signs with arrows pointing to the gathering place, he said.
Schultz said he was familiar with the telltale signs from his
experience as district ranger at Shawnee National Forest in southern
Illinois where a Rainbow Family gathering was held in 1993 or 1994.
Under questioning from Trucilla, Schultz related how he walked into the
Allegheny National Forest encampment and asked who was in charge He said
some people pointed in the direction of an old pick-up truck, and when he
approached the truck MacCrimmon came forward and asked if he could be of
any help.
Schultz said that when he told MacCrimmon he was looking for 'the
group's leader, MacCrimmon said he should talk to Baxter, who soon walked
up from an area below the encampment.
Over the next several days, Schultz said, he negotiated with Baxter and
MacCrimmon, and tried to get them to sign a permit application. They
ultimately refused and were cited.
The two defense attorneys came at Schultz from numerous angles to try to
demonstrate that Baxter and McCrimmon were not leaders of the Rainbow
Family, which the attorneys said does not have leaders.
"Not only did they not set themselves forth as leaders, but consistently
denied a leadership status," Diggs said, citing Schultz's own testimony
that the two told him repeatedly they represented only themselves.
Testimony revealed that the regulation requiring. a permit for groups of
75 or more people has been in effect only since September 1995. Before
that, no permit was needed for a group wishing to assemble in a national
forest.
Under cross-examination by Diggs, Schultz also conceded that the Rainbow
Family, which was said to number about 1,000 at that gathering, followed
acceptable practices for toilets, kitchens, use of streams, and
post-event cleanup.
Misko told Schultz the ranger had no reason to believe the defendants
were leaders, other than they were the first people he met who were
willing to talk to him in a cooperative spirit. He said the two never
sought out authorities, but that authorities continually sought them out,
including waking MacCrimmon from an afternoon nap, as Schultz had
testified earlier.
Schultz had also testified that the defendants told him many times the
Rainbow Family has no official structure. "They're just a collection of
people with similar beliefs and they like to sit around and talk about
them, right?" he asked Schultz.
"That's right," Schultz answered.
Prosecutor Trucilla was doubleteamed by the two public defenders. At one
point, while he questioned Schultz, Misko objected, "That's speculative,"
and Diggs added, "And leading."
Trucilla focused on the fact that the specific federal code says nothing
about "leaders," and states that any member of a permit-less group can be
prosecuted. Yet the defense -attorneys presented a Forest Service
training video, which recommends identifying the group's leaders He
quoted the video as saying the leaders are "easy to pick out" if the
group is watched before contact is made.
Schultz conceded Forest Service officials did not observe the group
prior to making contact.
Scott Addison, a friend of William Baxter's, is serving as an ex-officio
member of the defense team. Addison said he's been attending Rainbow
Family gatherings since the first one in 1972 in Colorado. Although not a
lawyer but a city planner by profession, he said he's gained considerable
legal expertise following the legal travails of the Rainbow Family.
Addison said the trial has drawn national attention, although Judge
Baxter's verdict will not set precedent unless it goes to appeal.
"Typically, precedent is set at the appeal level, but this could be
important because everybody's watching it," he said.
Addison said the permit requirement not only violates the Constitutional
right to free assemby, but interferes with "the ancient tradition of
gathering on the land"
During a break, defendant Baxter said Rainbow Family gatherings are held
in the summer, and people find out about them through word of mouth and
other informal means. One was held previously in Allegheny National
Forest in 1982.
He said in recent years, they've been held in Scotland, Poland, and other
European countries, and one is planned for Russia.
Although a recent Rainbow Family newsletter urged people to show up and
support Baxter and MacCrimmon, only a half dozen supporters
materialized.