Judge Without a Court
In 1969, after several years of debate and consideration, the Idaho Legislature modernized the state's lower court system. Under the new system, all probate, justice of the peace, and municipal police courts were eliminated and their functions transferred to the District Court.
The District courts, in turn, transferred these functions to a newly-created structure of magistrate
courts. (Spokesman-Review, January 13, 1971, p.
2)
“The new court system,” according to District Judge James
G. Towles of Wallace, as quoted in an article in the June 11, 1970, edition of
the Sandpoint News-Bulletin, “will avoid the division of jurisdiction
which hampered the efficiency of the present court system, reduce the number of
judges of the lower courts and confine their work to judicial business on a
fulltime basis and improve the training and salary schedules, thereby
attracting the best possible personnel at an ultimate saving of taxpayers’
money.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, June 11, 1970, p. 1)
The qualifications for the office of Judge of the Magistrates Court were minimal. "To qualify for the position," according to an article in the December 31, 1969, edition of the Bonner County Daily Bee, applicants had to be "a resident elector of the county for which appointed" and "at least a high school graduate or equivalent." If Judge Sleep applied for the position, she was not selected. Judge Margaret Burns, former Bonner County Justice Court Judge, was appointed Magistrate in June 1970. (Bonner County Daily Bee, December 31, 1969, p. 2)
“Forgotten Woman”
Judge Sleep’s reaction to the modernization of her court
is not known, but she made her sentiments crystal clear on another matter
related to her public service. In a statement published in the August 14
edition of the Sandpoint News-Bulletin, Sleep described herself as the
county’s “Forgotten Woman.” In the article, she refuted comments made by Harold
Anselmo, Chair of the Bonner County Board of Commissioners, in an interview
with the Sandpoint Bee, a new community newspaper. (Sandpoint
News-Bulletin, August 14, 1969, p. 3)
When asked about the compensation of county officials,
according to Sleep’s statement, Anselmo responded that “all department heads in
the county – the auditor, the assessor, and the sheriff – receive salaries of
$7000.” “This is not true,” Sleep rebutted. Not only was she, as the “duly
elected judge of the probate court,” “one of the county department heads,” she
was also its lowest paid. As “sad” as it was “to have always been the lowest
paid county official,” Sleep concluded in the statement, to have been “ignored
and forgotten is the cruelest fate of all!” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin,
August 14, 1969, p. 3)
Coordinator
In the spring of 1970, Judge Sleep began efforts to
coordinate Bonner County’s input to the state’s contribution to the 1970 White
House Conference on Children and Youth. Under President
Richard Nixon, the 1970 conference differed from those of the past, including
the 1960 one, which Judge Sleep had attended. Rather than holding a single
conference in Washington, D.C., Nixon split the event into two separate
conferences. The White House Conference on Children was held in December 1970, and
the White House Conference on Youth was held in April 1971 in Estes Park,
Colorado.
According to an article in the April 1 edition of the Sandpoint
Daily Bee, Judge Sleep was responsible for ensuring that the county not only conducted a comprehensive inventory of the current needs of its children and youth but also projected their future needs. The article additionally explains that data from
Bonner County would be integrated into that collected by the state’s other
northern counties of Benewah, Boundary, Kootenai, and Shoshone and shared at the Governor’s State Conference on Children and
Youth scheduled for October 3 in Boise. (Sandpoint Daily Bee, April 1, 1970, p. 2)
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Campaign advertisement
Bonner County Daily Bee,
October 14, 1970 |
Candidate
In September 1971, Sleep filed as a candidate for the position
of Bonner County Treasurer on the Democratic party ticket. Although her
challenge of Republican incumbent Alice M. Nelson was unsuccessful, Nelson’s
victory was smaller than might have been expected, less than
1,200 votes.
Chair and Vice Chair
Although Frances Sleep no longer served in a judicial
capacity, she continued to influence the administration of law and order in
Idaho as a member of the Idaho Commission on Women’s Programs. At a meeting in
Boise in February, she and the other Commissioners appointed “study committees”
to gather information on three topics: “conditions of jails in Idaho, daycare
centers and counseling needs,” according to an article in the March 1 edition
of the Twin Falls newspaper, the Times-News. Sleep was selected to chair the group
responsible for investigating jail conditions. In addition, sometime during her stay in Boise, Sleep visited the Idaho Senate where she was “recognized with a
round of applause.” (Times-News, March 1, 1971, p. 7; Sandpoint Daily Bee, March 10,
1971, p. 8)
Sleep reported the findings of her task force on jail conditions during the
Commission’s April meeting. In response, the Commissioners passed a resolution
“recommending more active citizen concern in upgrading Idaho jail facilities
and law enforcement rehabilitation programs" and “suggested” that a committee be formed to consolidate all efforts
underway in the state to improve conditions. They also decided to continue the work of
Sleep’s task force and elected her vice chair of the Commission. (Bonner
County Daily Bee, April 20, 1971, p. 8)
Sleep reported to the Commission again in October.
According to an article in the November 30 edition of the Spokane Chronicle,
she and the other members of the task force had met with county and city
justice officials “in areas of Idaho.” The exact locations of the meetings, however, are unknown, with the exception of Lewiston in Nez Perce County, which Sleep
visited in September. As a result of the report, the Commissioners endorsed several recommendations, including the regular inspection of county jails by county commissioners and officials from the state Department of Health, “24-hour surveillance” of all children “committed to jails,” and maintenance of the law giving judges the authority “to retain control of persons sentenced to the penitentiary for a 120-day evaluation period.” They also supported Sleep’s personal recommendation that the
Commission support “proposed legislation covering multi-purpose jails that
combine city and county facilities." (Spokane Chronicle, November 30, 1971, p.
26)
Representative
Concurrent with her work for the Commission, Sleep also
agreed to serve as one of Bonner County’s representatives on the newly-formed
Panhandle Comprehensive Health Planning Council. The purpose of the group,
according to an article in the August 6 edition of the Coeur d’Alene Press,
was to “survey existing resources and project future health needs” in the areas
of “environmental health, health facilities, manpower and mental health.” (Coeur
d’Alene Press, August 6, 1971, p. 12)
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Attendees of the Universal Life Church Picnic,
Farragut State Park, July 1971
Coeur d'Alene Press, July 3, 1971
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Committee Member by Invitation
Around the same time Sleep joined the Panhandle
Comprehensive Planning Council, she also became associated with the efforts of
Stanley D. Crow, a Boise attorney, to investigate what has gone down in history
as “Idaho’s Woodstock." Over the Fourth of July weekend of 1971, thousands of
young people gathered at a picnic sponsored by the Universal Life Church (ULC) on the grounds of Idaho's Farragut State Park. Whether the much-ballyhooed event was meant to be
an exercise in peace, love, and understanding or in sex, drugs, and
rock-and-roll has never been definitively established, but Crow seems to have
strongly suspected that it was the later. He was so sure, in fact, that he
undertook an investigation “to determine the significant facts” that pertained
“in any way” to the event. (The Farragut Report, p. iii)
Crow began the investigation by issuing invitations to
individuals throughout the state, including Frances Sleep, to join his
“Citizen’s Fact-Finding Committee on Farragut.” After meeting with committee
members in Boise and Pocatello, Crow traveled to Coeur d’Alene where he met
with the northern Idaho members of his fact-finding committee. The meeting did
not go well for the native Nebraskan and Boise attorney; in fact, it blew up in
his face, according to an article in the August 2 edition of the Sandpoint
Daily Bee. A “sometimes hostile” group of committee members and area
citizens, the article explained, questioned Crow’s reasons for conducting the
inquiry and the manner in which he was leading the meeting. The committee
members were so unimpressed that they “decided to adjourn indefinitely to
consider whether they wished to join in” on the fact-finding committee’s
efforts. (It is not known with certainty that Sleep attended this meeting; the August 2 article did mention her as being present; however, she did claim membership on the committee in an article in the February
11, 1972, edition of the Daily Bee.) (Sandpoint Daily Bee, August
2, 1971, p. 1; Coeur d’Alene Press, August 2, 1917, p. 1)
Some three months later, in February 1972, Crow released
The Farragut Report, a 143-page study that, according to its preface, was
“an in-depth journalistic report” of the Universal Life Church Picnic. Most of the “facts” the committee reported were related to the use of drugs during the Picnic, which the committee referred to as a festival. With the assumption that “no attempt was made by the organizers to limit the use or sale of drugs at the festival” as its premise, the committee reported that “the preponderance of evidence” clearly showed “that there was open, unrestrained and widespread use of narcotics in one form or another during the festival.” Among the drugs present at the Picnic, according to the report, were “barbiturates, amphetamines, cocaine, mescaline, LSD, marijuana…and probably heroin,” not to mention, beer and wine. “Large amounts of drugs,” the committee concluded, “were sold at the park during the festival.” (The Farragut Report, p. 42, 41, 44)
To its credit, the
report included
several statements in dissent of the fact-finding committee’s conclusions. Frances
Sleep was not only among the dissenters, she led the way. “IF ANYTHING WAS PROVEN BY THE ULC PICNIC,” she writes in her
dissent, it was that it was “possible for a large number of all ages of people
from all parts of the country to congregate peacefully, to supervise themselves
and solve any problems by reasonable persuasion rather than by arbitrary
force.” (The Farragut Report, p. 122)
Sleep explained in an additional dissent that she had conducted her own investigation of the facts. In Moscow, home of the Church of the Rock, which had organized the Picnic, Sleep “met with a number of youth who had been involved with the ULC picnic from its inception on through to a week or more of its conclusion.” She also “contacted several persons who had camped at the picnic site during the big gathering.” The purpose of her inquiry, Sleep said, "was to make my findings a part of the final report so that the
committee’s work will present a variety of facts.” (The Farragut Report, p. 122)
As a result of her research, Sleep
reached the overall conclusion that the precautions the organizers had taken had resulted
in a peaceful and safe event. “BECAUSE” they had
stationed ministers at the main entrance of the park to provide attendees with
information about the Picnic and to explain that its success “depended on
everyone cooperating to keep things going smoothly,” “there were no fights or
brawls during the entire event.” (The Farragut Report, p. 124)
Sleep acknowledged that drugs had been available at the
Picnic, but she gave the organizers credit for having the foresight to stock
“necessary medical supplies” and provide “qualified volunteers.” In
consequence, she writes, “drug over dose (OD) cases were quickly and safely
treated.” The traffic of drugs at the event, she adds, had not been the result
of “an organized effort headed by any one person or group” but was the
consequence of “opportunists taking advantage of the size of the picnic to
practice that great American business theory of “making a fast buck.”” (The
Farragut Report, p. 124)
Another conclusion Sleep reached was that the picnickers
and ministers had left Farragut State Park in better condition than they had
found it. “BECAUSE” ministers had patrolled the Picnic site, “constantly checking on the safety of the area, there was no damage to the park
from fire or in other ways.” Additionally, through the “full cooperation of the
picnickers in cleaning up their camps and the hundred or so volunteers, who
stayed for over a week or more after the event to help clean up,” the park was
“left in an exemplary tidy condition.” The workers, she adds, “went further
than cleaning up after themselves.” They not only “cleared out considerable
underbrush in and around the amphitheater,” they also picked up trash left
behind by prior park users and picked up “all the litter on either side of the
road from the main entrance to highway 95, nearly four miles.” (The Farragut
Report, p. 124)
Community Activist, 1972 through End of Life
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| Twin Falls Times-News, July 5, 1971 |
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