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Liberty4All

I would like some opinions regarding the upcoming trials of the San Francisco medical marijuana providers such as Ed Rosenthal. These people will be charged with Federal crimes, but will the trial be held in California? I don't see any way a jury will convict these people if the trail is held in California. Steve Kubby got off on the growing 250 plants charge when a jury sided with him 11-1.

If juries continue to find the defendents not guilty, or at least get a hung jury, will the DEA continue to bust grow-ops? These people can start off right where they left off once they get off, assuming the IRS doesn't try to get these people for tax evasion, for everyone knows IRS courts are kangaroo courts (but that's another subject).

Liberty4All

 

GlassOnion

The dea would find some technicallity(sp) or make one up to move the trial to a less liberal state.

AndieBear

Hope they don't come to Oklahoma, lol!! That would be great if they did have the trial in California though. I'm praying for all of them. DAMN THE DEA!!

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Conine

If juries continue to find the defendents not guilty, or at least get a hung jury, will the DEA continue to bust grow-ops?

Probably - part of the value of these busts is to disrupt their business and force them to waste time and money in court. Now if folks could start suing the DEA for bringing them there, then they might reconsider who they bust. Until that point, do you really think they care if they waste your tax dollars on this nonsense?

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Tarzan

Perfect targets for the feds to beat the legalization movement to the ground: Rosenthal and Kubby, the authors of "Why Marijuana Should be Legal" They press federal charges and make them stick, so the next time someone says, "I read such & such in a book by Ed Rosenthal & Steve Kubby, McCaffrey can respond that those two are not credible sources, because they're both "convicted criminals...."

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KWhite

The State does not really like Jury Nullification.
This has been amply evidenced in the past by judges attempting to instruct the jury that they MUST follow his or her instructions or be in commission of a crime.
*They did not, it was all bluster, and the decision stayed. If I remember right the judge was in a HIGH dander that they dared go against His instructions, casting grave doubts on an America where juries found as they saw fit *

As far as a change in venue, I believe there must be very good grounds for such a move. Rememer you are to be judged by a jury of your peers.
An example of this is california and oklahoma.
Peers to a Californian are more likely to be sympathetic to a california smoker. The issue is in their home area, of political import.
Now in Oklahoma it may have been a news story, but there was darned tootin not the level of emotional concern as in Cali.
So, the prosecution might love to move the case to Ok. but I think they would have a hugely hard time of it. I could be wrong but we are messing with the right to a fair trial.
If that were the case, we could simply annex Guantanamo, remove all federal courts to it, make certain all residents are Government employess, draw the jurors from this pool and have done with it.

Oh..yeah sorry, that is the process we are taking anyhow.

Will they stop arresting?
well even though the budget for the dea is bloated beyond what is necessary to insure that Pharmaceutical companies are not hurting people *The only function of the dea that I would approve of* it is finite.
So yes, if they lose over and over again in a certain State they would be forced to rethink their strategy.

Politicians also watch these things, and that would be a more apt scenario I think.
These cases are expensive, moreso if the people the jury cleared then sue for damages.
And cost cutting wins more votes than punishing drug users. Not everyone takes drugs....EVERYONE pays taxes.
So I imagine the States would finally move and draft laws that the Feds would have more trouble with.
Laws that make say...California a drug dealer, with The Governor the Biggest dealer in the organization. *Hmmm imagine the dea arresting the Governors of 8 states, and then the federal prosecutor confiscating all State capitol buildings under asset forfeiture laws...*

Jury nullification is perhaps the most useful tool for freedom we have, next to the vote.

Stoned reamblings.
Be well y'all
Kelly

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"Your mind is your own, your body as well, from the soul we need not speak, tend it well, making those decisions you deem worthy, aware all responsibility is in your hands when the smoke clears" Kelly L. White

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AlphaWolf

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...22/MN31860.DTL

In November, voters in South Dakota will decide whether to give tax protesters, medical marijuana users and other criminal defendants a new right. A proposed amendment to the state constitution would allow defendants there to concede their guilt but nonetheless argue for acquittal on the grounds that the law under which they were charged is misguided or draconian.

The South Dakota initiative, known as Amendment A, is the next step in a centuries-old debate about the role of juries in deciding not just the facts of a case but also the wisdom of the law in question. The shorthand term for the complex subject is jury nullification.

Lawyers say the case that prompted Amendment A was that of Matthew Ducheneaux, who was convicted last month in Sioux Falls, S.D., of marijuana possession. Ducheneaux, 38, who had been caught smoking at a jazz festival in 2000, said he used marijuana to alleviate the leg spasms that have tortured him since he became a quadriplegic after an automobile accident.


ARGUMENT FORBIDDEN
Ducheneaux, whose five-day sentence was suspended, was forbidden to argue to the jury that the law under which he was charged was unwise.

The jury in the case was troubled by the prosecution, said Chris Moran, Ducheneaux's lawyer. "All of them conclusively said afterward that they didn't want to find him guilty."

The prosecutor in the case, Matthew Theophilus, sounded relieved to have won. "I've never seen a defendant more sympathetic than Matthew Ducheneaux," he said. "Did I want to prosecute Matthew Ducheneaux? No. Did I have to? Yes."

And We have a potential victory in South Dakota sparked by the Marijuana debate.. Very intresting! Very good things are happening!

vaya

...Which the DEA specializes in producing on the spot.

Therefore, medical marijuana institutions will continue to be considered a detriment to society, and subsequently will continue to be raided without mercy those who benefit from the institutions' services.

I haven't been able to dig up exactly why the feds are allowed to disregard Prop. 215, or even if they are allowed to, but I will continue to search.

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