Pubdate: Mon, 28 Aug 2000
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2000 The Denver Post
Contact:  1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202
Fax: (303) 820.1502
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Forum: http://www.denverpost.com/voice/voice.htm
Author: Nancy Lofholm

LIBERTARIAN SHERIFF JUST SAYS NO TO THE DRUG WAR

Aug. 28, 2000 - TELLURIDE - When Bill Masters was just a little towheaded 
shaver growing up in Los Angeles, he had a curious habit that signaled 
where he was going in life.

Crossing streets, he would clutch his mother with one hand and direct 
traffic with the other.

Some 45 years later, he still puzzles about this. He grew up in a family of 
academics, not cops.

But law enforcement drew Masters and turned him into a county sheriff who 
breaks out of the box - a sheriff who thinks, and more importantly says, 
that the war on drugs is ludicrous, the criminal justice system is a farce 
and the law-making arm of the government has run amok.

Masters' philosophy has played well in San Miguel County and its famous 
county seat of Telluride, a town that has gone from hard-working, 
hard-playing mining burg to chic playground-of-the-rich resort in the 25 
years Masters has been in law enforcement here.

He is now in his fifth term as sheriff. He has the distinction of being the 
nation's only registered Libertarian Party sheriff. And he holds the 
highest elected office among Colorado Libertarians.

Since he "came out" as a Libertarian candidate in the 1998 election after 
previously having to run as a Republican to be included on the ballot, his 
popularity has only grown. He won with 80 percent of the vote, his largest 
margin ever.

Masters, who favors Hawaiian shirts over staid uniforms, doesn't order 
people to obey Colorado's 33,000 laws - many of which he believes are 
unnecessary. His message instead is that citizens be responsible.

Excuses such as "alcohol made me do it" won't fly in his county, where 
violent crime falls well below the national norm and the average sheriff's 
log is made up of motorist troubles, illegal campfires and burglaries.

"Libertarians say there is no excuse if you hurt someone or their property. 
You have to be held accountable," said the 49-year-old Masters, a 
Libertarian for half his life.

Masters extends that gospel of personal responsibility to victims.

In a "message from the sheriff" printed on the back of a victims' rights 
pamphlet, Masters tells citizens of his county: "It is your responsibility 
to protect yourself and your family from criminals. If you rely on the 
government for protection, you are going to be at least disappointed and at 
worst injured or killed."

The one area of the law that really sets Masters apart - the subject that 
spurs him to wave his arms and roll his desk chair back and forth to 
punctuate important points - is drugs.

When he was first appointed and later elected sheriff in the late 1970s, 
Masters said he wanted to prove he could be tough on drugs. He helped bust 
the former town marshal, a former town board member and a number of 
wellknown citizens. He even received a framed certificate of appreciation 
from the Drug Enforcement Administration that now hangs on a wall of his 
spare office along with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, the poem "If," and a 
small sign advising his employees to GOYAKOD (get off your a-- and knock on 
doors).

"Just look at how much good those arrests did," Masters said with a wry 
laugh. "We spend $50 billion a year on drug enforcement in this country, 
and we let pedophiles and murderers out of prison because there is not 
enough room. The prisons are full of drug users."

Masters said a number of other Colorado sheriffs have told him in private 
that they agree with his drug stance. But they won't say it publicly. If 
they did, they might not be re-elected.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis is one of the few openly in Masters' corner.

"I share his philosophy. If you have a drug problem you should go to the 
doctor, not to jail," Braudis said. "Bill has let that genie out of the 
bottle and not suffered politically for it. He has an awful lot of courage 
for stating this."

Ron Crickenberger, national political director of the Libertarian Party, 
said Masters has become a "shining example" for other Libertarians across 
America who are considering running for law enforcement positions while 
openly opposing drug laws.

Masters spoke about that stance when he addressed the National Libertarian 
Convention in June.

He told convention attendees a story about a trip he made to the FBI 
training academy in Quantico, Va., several years ago.

He said he was brokenhearted to find the academy swarming with bright, 
enthusiastic young agents-in-training for the DEA but only a handful of 
older, overworked agents assigned to a case dealing with suspected child 
abductions by a serial killer.

Masters, a man known for his infectious giggle, doesn't try to hide the 
tears running down one cheek when he repeats the story in his office.

He had gone to Quantico for help with the case of a young Montrose woman 
whose murdered body was found in his county two years after she was 
abducted from a Montrose parking lot.

The Buffy Rice Donohue murder case is one that Masters, a father of four, 
has refused to let die even after other law enforcement officials have 
washed their hands of it.

The man believed to have killed Donohue is facing a death sentence in two 
other murders and has never been prosecuted for Donohue's murder. His 
former girlfriend, whom Masters said he believes was an accomplice in the 
murder, has been sentenced only for being an accessory.

Masters is continuing to investigate to bring some overdue justice in 
Donohue's murder.

He showed the same dogged determination in the 1990 murder of Eva Berg 
Shoen, a resident of the Telluride Ski Ranches. It took five years of 
meticulous investigative work to arrest and convict a New Mexico man for 
the slaying.

Masters said solving that case was possible because his deputies were able 
to focus on the crime because they didn't have to spend half their time 
chasing after drug dealers. He also said that he doesn't allow them to 
spend their time on "touchy-feely" extra programs such as drug education in 
schools.

Jill Masters, who worked as a sheriff's investigator before marrying Bill 
Masters 10 years ago, said she doesn't view what her husband is doing as 
radical.

"It's actually old-fashioned. It's the way law enforcement used to be 
practiced," she said.

But Braudis said he expects Masters to be recognized someday as "an early 
pioneer" for his cutting-edge stance on the drug war.

Crickenberger said he expects even more.

"I would certainly like to see Bill run for a higher office - for state 
representative or Congress," Crickenberger said. "We will be encouraging 
him to do so."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart