NON-AMERICAN INDIANS CAN USE PEYOTE, COURT RULES

In what is being hailed as a victory for minority religious rights in
Utah, the Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a Utah County
couple were not guilty of felony drug charges when they distributed
peyote in church ceremonies near Spanish Fork in 2000.

James Warren "Flaming Eagle" Mooney and his wife, Linda, founded the
Utah chapter of the Oklevueha Earthwalks Native American Church in
1997 in Benjamin, near Spanish Fork. In October 2000, Utah County
Sheriff's deputies raided the church, saying Mooney was illegally
distributing peyote to non-American Indians. Deputies seized nearly
17,500 peyote buttons in addition to the church's computers and
records. Mooney and his wife were arrested the next month and posted
bond; the Utah chapter of the church has since declared bankruptcy.

In 2001, the Mooneys were charged with 10 first-degree felony counts
of operating a controlled substance criminal enterprise, and one count
of racketeering, a second-degree felony. The couple faced life in
prison for the charges.

But on Tuesday the Supreme Court reversed that decision.

Kathryn Collard, Mooney's attorney, said the case will be remanded to
4th District Court to reconsider a previous motion to dismiss the
charges. The dismissal should take less than a month.

"Once it is dismissed, these people should be able to go back to
practicing their religion, including the use of peyote and obtaining
peyote," she said. "This is not a license for people to go out and use
peyote. It is for people to use in religious ceremonies in the Native
American Church."

Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson said he had not read the court's
decision.

"I had a busy day and I haven't read the decision," he said. "I'll
study the decision when I get a chance to read it."

In an interview with the Daily Herald on Tuesday, Mooney said he first
heard the news of his victory Tuesday morning when his wife called him
at Spanish Fork Middle School, where he was serving as an election
judge.

"I feel fortunate, honored that the Great Spirit chose me to make this
stand for my heritage and my people," he said, noting he had written
documents to prove his ordination as a medicine man in the Native
American Church. "My wife called me on the phone and said 'Sweetheart,
you have won on all counts.' "

Mooney said he was not surprised by the court's decision.

"I've been a police officer and I've worked in the prison system, and
I know the law and I abide by the laws of the land," he said.

Collard, who has acted without pay while adjudicating the case, said
the decision protects individual religious rights.

"We are just so pleased with the court's decision," she said. "It is
good when a court stands up for an individual's right to practice
religion, even when that religion differs from the dominant culture.
That protection is the only thing that stands between the tyranny of
government and individuals and their sacred peyote."

The rights of Mooney's followers were violated when police "ripped
their peyote and their feathers and other sacred things out of their
church and put (the followers) under surveillance and asked them all
kinds of questions about their religious beliefs and who else they
knew who was using peyote," Collard said. "It's been a terrible ordeal
and it's decimated the church because people were afraid they would be
prosecuted. This ruling gives them back their right to practice their
religion again. You would think this kind of thing wouldn't happen in
America, but it did."

Mooney said his family has been most affected by the
charges.

"I cannot explain the horrendous things my children and wife have gone
through," he said. "You think of the trauma of a 10-year-old girl on
her birthday when a S.W.A.T. team raids her home and starts pushing
her around. People, even teachers, condemned my other child in class,
saying she was the daughter of a drug dealer."

Classified as a controlled substance, peyote is illegal to possess in
the United States, with an exception for members of the Native
American Church, who consider it sacred. Tuesday's decision sets a
precedent in Utah and perhaps in 22 other states that do not have laws
protecting the administration of peyote to non-American Indians as
part of religious ceremonies.

Used for hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years by American
Indians, peyote is often taken in Native American Church ceremonies as
medicine to help the severely addicted and depressed. Long ignored by
traditional medicine, the silver-dollar-sized cactus is now the
subject of a five-year Harvard Medical School study, and other doctors
and scientists are examining its properties as well.