xxdr_zombiexx

Red Dirt Justice
By DRCNet | Posted @ AlterNet

February 13, 2004

Redneck justice in red dirt Alabama has Loretta Nall seeing red. Nall, a housewife from rural Alexandria City, was convicted Tuesday of possession of .87 of a gram of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia some 15 months after the Tallapoosa County Narcotics Task Force raided her home – and 15 months and one week after Nall published a letter in the state's largest newspaper calling for the reform of the state's marijuana laws.


She told DRCNet she would immediately appeal the decision.


Nall, who is now president of the US Marijuana Party, began her career as a marijuana activist after her home was targeted by anti-drug helicopters in September 2002, two months before her arrest. That her arrest was at least in part politically motivated is evident in the fact that the search warrant leading to the bust cited as evidence her letter to the Birmingham News, where she wrote, "it is time to end cannabis prohibition." The only other evidence cited in the warrant was remarks Nall's five-year-old daughter was alleged to have made to either a teacher or a police officer assigned to her school and a supposed report from a "confidential informant" that unnamed persons were complaining of Nall's drug activity.


Nall's trial before Tallapoosa County District Court Judge Kim Taylor was a journey into Alice in Wonderland justice, Nall said. The search warrant was illegal and should never have been issued, she and her attorney argued, in a strong but ultimately futile effort to get the warrant thrown out and the charges dismissed. Judge Taylor, who issued the warrant in question, upheld himself, but testimony from the trial suggests that his ruling had little to do with the law.


Under the Constitution, which applies even in rural Alabama, police must present a judge with evidence they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed in order to secure a valid search warrant. But under cross-examination by Nall's attorney, that probable cause seemingly melted into air. Officer Eric McCain, the school resource officer who claimed that Nall's daughter ratted her out, offered varying versions of what the girl said, who she said it to, and who was present. First, McCain said that five-year-old Bell Nall spontaneously told him about green plants hanging from her ceiling. Then he testified that Bell's teacher approached him with the information. He also testified that he questioned Bell outside the classroom with no other adults present. Then he testified that her teacher was there. Then he testified that he might have questioned her in the classroom.


In the affidavit McCain submitted to support the search warrant, he said nothing about green plants hanging from the ceiling. Rather, he said that Bell told him some of the leaves she had brought from home for a school project were "illegal." Under cross-examination, McCain could not recall how many times he had obtained search warrants based on the testimony of a five-year-old, although he did concede that young children have vivid imaginations and have been known to make things up.


Officer McCain also testified that he included the letter to the editor Nall had published in the Birmingham News a week earlier as part of the affidavit supporting the issuance of a search warrant. But McCain contradicted himself moments later, saying that he didn't find the letter until the raid, which left hanging the question of how he could include it in the affidavit if he wasn't aware it existed until a week later. And in yet another bizarre twist, he could not produce the letter, which was Exhibit A in the case.


As for the "confidential informant" report on Nall, under cross-examination McCain conceded that local police had received no prior complaints about Nall or her residence, where she lives with her horticulturist husband and two children. McCain then said he had received complaints from concerned citizens, but under continued questioning, admitted that he did not document the alleged complaints and that no list of such complaints existed.


Testimony showed that the search warrant was based on protected political speech (Nall's letter to the editor), a very hazy allegation about what a 5-year-old said, and an even hazier set of anonymous complaints whose existence could not even be proven. It appeared an open and shut case of a bad search warrant. But not in the court of the judge who issued it. After hearing the evidence, Judge Kim Taylor upheld the warrant, virtually ensuring Nall's conviction on the marijuana and paraphernalia charges.


That happened later in the day, after more bizarre testimony from police and strange evidentiary decisions from Judge Taylor. Police misidentified the oversize envelope in which they found the leftover roach that constituted their drug seizure, repeatedly referring to it as a FedEx envelope even as courtroom spectators could see it was a USPS envelope. Taylor allowed prosecutors to enter into evidence a police videotape of the raid that did not show marijuana being seized, but did, Nall notes, "show some lovely pictures of the inside of my toilet bowls."


Officer Josh McCallister testified that he found rolling papers in a bedroom not near to where the pot was found. McCallister conceded that rolling papers could be used to roll tobacco cigarettes. He also testified that he found scales in the kitchen, but that there was no evidence of drug residue on them, they had not been tested and yes, scales have many common uses. Nall, who makes candles, said she used them in her work.


Police did not find any evidence of a marijuana grow, nor did they find any large quantities of marijuana. But the half-smoked roach, the rolling papers and the scales were enough to convict her on the two charges. She faces a suspended 30-day jail sentence, has to go to a court referral and must pay court costs for the possession charge, but not for the paraphernalia charge.


None of that matters because the case will be overturned on appeal, Nall believes. "The judge's rulings and his conduct were deplorable," she added. "He flirted with women during the proceedings, he laid his head back and closed his eyes for minutes at a time, and he did not appear to even pay attention to anything our side said. He cared nothing for the fact that he held my very life in his hands. It didn't matter to him that the cops were obviously lying and contradicting themselves time and time again."


Some 700,000 people are arrested on marijuana charges in the United States each year. The proceedings in the Nall case lead one to wonder just how crappy are the charges in the rest of these cases. In most cases, the police evidence is never put to the test because defendants opt to plead guilty, but perhaps more should fight. While the judge's rulings in the Nall trial are not encouraging, they do have a good chance of being overturned on appeal, and if police and prosecutors are forced to actually present real cases instead of merely intimidating their victims to cop a plea, perhaps their enthusiasm for persecuting drug users will diminish.


"This kind of thing is an education for the public," Nall said. "I hired a court reporter so I could post the complete trial transcripts – they should be on the web site in a couple of weeks – and she asked me after the trial if she really sat there and heard them say they things they had said and if they were really pursuing me for allegedly possessing 0.87 grams of marijuana. She was appalled and said she had never witnessed anything like it in her life."


Nall's enthusiasm for taking the war to the drug warriors has certainly not diminished, and she, too, is appalled. "I am appalled at what I witnessed yesterday. I sit here now and wonder just how many innocent people are in jail because of judges like this one? How many lives have been destroyed because people did not have the resources to fight on?"

__________________
Torture Good, Healthcare Bad, Marijuana Evil.

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Johnyapplseed

This is what happens every day and no one knows the real story. the more people that know the truth the more the laws will reflect them!

seed a mind
seed the planet

Stranger

So, to say marijuana users should come out of the closet in a newspaper and signing your real name to it can be used as evidence in a court of law?

Even when they are now specifically discovering all of the new superior medical uses that can be derived from it?

Does that mean the law can be extended to posting on marijuana.com ? Can it be, zombie ???

rizla queen

I thought that you had to at least have one gram in order to qualify for possession! Can they really bust you for point-anything???

rick

Wow, this is really outrageous! Loretta, it's easy to see how and why you became such and enthusiastic Marijuana Activist. All this huff over less than a single gram of Marijuana.

But, really, when you consider it...a single gram of Marijuana costs more than a single gram of Gold, oil or diamonds...

Keep fighting strong, Loretta! You've got a strong support group behind you!

__________________

xxdr_zombiexx

This highlights several things I try to illsutrate about the link between reefer madness and general fascism.

Technically a letter to the editor is protected free speech and using that as some sort of "evidence" is unconstituitonal and has the "chilling" effect on free speech.

This is very simialr to the case of the protestors in Iowa who were threatened with supeonas from the Feds who wanted their school records for planning an anti-war demonstration.

The Feds have now backed down:And in a related case,New York Police Sued Over Anti-War Protest Arrests .

When you see this 0.87 gram prosecution crap you have to grasp that marijuana prohibition is more important than Homeland Security - they spend more on Anti-war protestors, Cannabis Prohibition and prosecutions than on protecting america. It's all about controlling people's beliefs.

The TRUTH is that antiwar speech is FREE, cannabis reform speech is FREE, clamping down on it is UnAmerican and unconstitutional.

If you don't like dissent, you are living in the wrong damn country!

Ms. Nall's situation is why I stick behind my silly netname.

The poor old stupid reefer mad fools are making a Heroine out of Ms Nall.

Stranger

zombie,

I have seen letters appear in the local newspapers from time to time that criticize and say that the harsh drug laws need to be changed. I have even seen at least one letter to the editor in a major newspaper in the past year (in one of the bigger cities of the US) saying marijuana laws should be loosened if only for the sake of medicinal users.

They are usually signed with real names along with the suburb or town they are from.

Sometimes I wish I could write letters like that explaining why the marijuana laws are unjust for medicinal users, and should be changed, but, a story like this makes me wonder if I would end up on some list to extinguish my rights or even my life.

If it is okay for the authorities to go after someone like they did for expressing their opinion about marijuana (not even drugs in general) in a major newspaper, then am I to assume that all those letters to the editor I've read, all those real names signed to those letters, are probably being specifically targeted? Maybe even investigated?

How much of a custom is it in America to go after someone with law enforcement for expressing our opinion about marijuana in a paper newspaper forum, signing with a real name ?

Is it safe to speak out in favor of marijuana to a newspaper for others to consider, and if so, can you prove to me with a link or somehow that it is okay to do so ? Or is it better to write directly to a reporter to try and see if a reporter can simply get a staff writer to express the facts, in order to protect the public?

I feel damn strong about this issue, but I do not feel strong in what I've been taught in school about how free I am to express openly my opinion or even the simple facts about marijuana that would benefit the public at large.

Thanks

Logos

There is a quote somewhere, and I have no idea who said it first, but it goes something like "The best way to get bad laws repealed is to strictly enforce them"

So every time someone gets treated like this, it actually helps the cause of change... As much as I hate to say that, the only way the people will be active in this change is if they come to understand the injustices that occour every day in this war on some drugs...

Maybe we should change our tact, and start stumping for the criminalization of the legal drugs, Caffiene, nicotine, alcohol, chocolate, sugar, red dye, and most of all, POWER...

__________________
Brother Logos
The more I learn, the less I know. | Truth doesn't change, only our perception of it does.
THC Ministry | The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ | The Reluctant Messenger of Science and Religion
True religion is real living, living with all one's soul, with all ones goodness and righteousness. --Albert Einstein

gfhhg

I dont think they would be able to do that, sound kinda far fetched. Where is the MJ.com server located anyways? Europe, canada, us?

[zombienote: Marijuana.com is in the USA...giving America a GOOD name.]

Loretta Nall

Yesterday I received the transcript of my trial.
So for anyone who might still have doubts about what happened in my case please follow this link
http://tv.alabama.usmjparty.com
You'll see it right under the Kucinich banner on top of the page.

Have fun and don't injure yourselves laughing.

Loretta