OldMan&TheWeed

Judge finds ‘increasing’ difficulty in seating marijuana juries

By David Edwards
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010 -- 10:21 am

It's becoming more and more difficult to find juries that will produce a guilty verdict in marijuana cases, according to a judge in Missoula County, Montana.

"I think it's going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount," District Judge Dusty Deschamps said Friday after potential jurors refused to convict a Montana man for having a 1/16 of an ounce of Marijuana.

An April 23 search of Touray Cornell's home found several used marijuana joints, a pipe, and some residue. He's is also charged with the criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

Cornell's neighbors had called the police because they thought he was selling drugs. The defendant admitted in an affidavit that he had distributed small amounts of marijuana.

One potential juror after another told the court that they would not convict the man for possessing a 1/16 of an ounce.

Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul told the Associated Press that the jurors staged "a mutiny."

"District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree," the Missoulian reported. "Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised their hands. A couple of others had already been excused because of their philosophical objections."

"I thought, 'Geez, I don't know if we can seat a jury," Deschamps said.

Paul and Cornell's attorney, Martin Elison, worked out a plea deal during recess.

Public opinion "is not supportive of the state's marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances," Elison wrote in the plea agreement.

Cornell entered an Alford plea Friday, not admitting guilt, but acknowledging there was enough evidence to convict him. The judge sentenced Cornell to 20 years with 19 of them suspended, to be served concurrently with his sentence in a theft case. Cornell was given credit for the 200 days already served.

"I think it's going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount," the judge said.

"It's kind of a reflection of society as a whole on the issue," he added.

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The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.
-- Tacitus, Annals III 27

Our American Common Law & Jury Nullification

Here's The Secret Every Jury Needs To Know
I've got a secret to tell you. It's about jurors. Jurors called for duty on criminal cases have a secret power. It's a secret because in a trial neither the judge nor the lawyers are allowed to tell the jurors this power exists. But it does. It's called "jury nullification." It doesn't mean the jury gets nullified. It means the jury can nullify a law or nullify the application of a law to a specific case. full story

"In a civilised society, it is the duty of all citizens to obey just laws.
But at the same time it is the duty of all citizens to disobey unjust laws."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

LA Jury Acquits Sister Somaya of Medical Marijuana Charges

Los Angeles, March 18th. In a milestone victory for patients in Southern California, a Los Angeles jury acquitted Sister Somayah Kambui, who had been charged with growing medical marijuana in her backyard.

Somayah who also runs the Crescent Alliance Self-Help for Sickle Cell patients' group, used the marijuana to relieve chronic pain from sickle cell anemia. She was acquitted on five separate cannabis-related charges despite evidence that she had substantially more marijuana than necessary for her own personal use.

Police claimed that her garden had 200 pounds "wet" weight of marijuana, including stems and root balls. Defense witness Chris Conrad estimated the gardens true yield at 11 to 25 pounds of usable bud and leaf.

In addition, Somayah had six pounds of processed leaf and a quantity of hemp seed and oil, which the prosecution tried to charge as hash oil. Prosecutors charged that she had too much for personal use and was distributing from her home.

DEA Raids MMJ Garden of Sister Somayah

Jury comes through - Dr. Paul Heberle acquitted (Excerpted)

A victory for pain sufferers in the Government's war to inflict pain upon them --

Nearly one year following his splashy perp walk courtesy of Attorney General Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, physician Paul Heberle, D. O. was cleared of all charges by an Erie jury earlier today.

Anglo-Saxon common law right of claiming a "necessity" to break the law,
because doing so prevented a greater harm...
~ Rob Waddell

How FIJA Saved My Life! By D. Paul Stanford
Source: CRRH December 19, 1999
The Fully Informed Jury Act (FIJA) saved my life and I'm happy to be a free man here today to tell this story. I am both the founder of Tree Free EcoPaper, the oldest hemp business in the USA today, and one of the activists that formulated a proposal to regulate cannabis, the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, that is being advanced via the initiative process in Oregon by our PAC, Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp. I was acquitted of growing marijuana in federal court in a trial in December of 1993. continued...

"Jurors have always had the ability to ignore the judge, ignore the law and acquit, jury nullification serves as an important check on government power."
--University of Alberta law professor Sanjeev Anand
Edmonton Sun January 15, 2006

OldMan&TheWeed

Another Article:


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,2484761.story

Juries are giving pot defendants a pass
In cases involving small amounts of marijuana, some people aren't willing to uphold the law in court.

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

December 24, 2010, 4:39 p.m.
Reporting from Seattle —
It seemed a straightforward case: A man with a string of convictions and a reputation as a drug dealer was going on trial in Montana for distributing a small amount of marijuana found in his home — if only the court could find jurors willing to send someone to jail for selling a few marijuana buds.

The problem began during jury selection last week in Missoula, when a potential juror said she would have a "real problem" convicting someone for selling such a small amount. But she would follow the law if she had to, she said.

A woman behind her was adamant. "I can't do it," she said, prompting Judge Robert L. Deschamps III to excuse her. Another juror raised a hand, the judge recalled, "and said, 'I was convicted of marijuana possession a few years ago, and it ruined my life.' " Excused.

"Then one of the people in the jury box said, 'Tell me, how much marijuana are we talking about? … If it was a pound or a truckload or something like that, OK, but I'm not going to convict someone of a sale with two or three buds,' " the judge said. "And at that point, four or five additional jurors spontaneously raised their hands and said, 'Me too.' "

By that time, Deschamps knew he had a jury problem.

"I was thinking, maybe I'll have to call a mistrial," he said. "We've got a lot of citizens obviously that are not willing to hold people accountable for sales in small amounts, or at least have some deep misgivings about it. And I think if I excuse a quarter or a third of a jury panel just to get people who are willing to convict, is that really a fair representation of the community? I mean, people are supposed to be tried by a jury of their peers."

The Missoula court's dilemma was unusual, yet it reflects a phenomenon that prosecutors say they are increasingly mindful of as marijuana use wins growing legal and public tolerance: Some jurors may be reluctant to convict for an offense many people no longer regard as serious.

"It's not on a level where it's become a problem. But we'll hear, 'I think marijuana should be legal, I'm not going to follow the law,' " said Mark Lindquist, prosecuting attorney in Pierce County, Wash. "We tell them, 'We're not here to debate the laws. We're here to decide whether or not somebody broke the law.' "

Twelve states plus the District of Columbia have decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana. Led by California in 1996, 17 states have laws that allow medical use of marijuana.

But federal authorities have continued to pursue prosecutions in those states, prompting increasing calls among drug-law reform advocates for juries to follow their consciences and refuse to convict — a legal concept known as jury nullification, widely used during Prohibition and in the Jim Crow-era South.

"This is one of the first times in a number of years there's a general discussion around this powerful but rarely used jury tool," said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "But going back 20 years plus, there's been some tumult in the courts where the issue is cannabis and the person being prosecuted wants to turn to the jury and say, 'Yes, I am guilty, and here's why.' "

The phenomenon is difficult to measure, St. Pierre and several others said, because the term "jury nullification" is rarely invoked; defendants with substantial evidence against them are simply acquitted, or juries deadlock.

"Sometimes, we're not told what the reason was, whether it was nullification or they just had a factual question about the case; we just don't know," said Ian Goodhew, deputy chief of staff for the King County prosecutor's office in Seattle.

"Some [prospective] jurors will honestly tell us that they don't think they can follow the law because they think the law's wrong and should be changed. At that point, we ask the judge to consider dismissing them," he said. "As attitudes change more and more, that's a problem we could face in trying cases to a jury. You could have that issue trying before a judge too if a judge has a strong opinion on the validity and necessity of those kinds of laws."

St. Pierre said he was convinced that was what happened in the case of Northern California pot activist Ed Rosenthal, whose conviction on federal charges in 2003 prompted prosecutors to seek a 6½-year sentence. Rosenthal instead was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to a single day — in part reflecting the dismay of eight jurors who said after the trial that they would have voted to acquit Rosenthal had they known his pot was intended for medicinal use.

"The judge nullified the law," St. Pierre said. "He totally ignored the sentencing guidelines."

Last year in Illinois, which has no medical marijuana law, Vietnam veteran Loren Swift, who says he uses marijuana to relieve pain and post-traumatic stress, was charged in LaSalle County after police found 25 pounds of marijuana and 50 pounds of marijuana plants in his home. He was acquitted after only two hours of jury deliberations.

"Some of the jurors got up and they started hugging the guy," said Peter Siena, the deputy prosecutor who tried the case.

"It's becoming an increasing problem. People just don't seem to care about marijuana cases anymore," said Brian Towne, the LaSalle County prosecuting attorney.

The issue is ripe in Montana, which is home to the headquarters of the Fully Informed Jury Assn., a national group that encourages jurors to nullify laws they believe are unjust.

Jury nullification never became an issue in the Missoula drug case; there was never a jury. While Deschamps was wrestling with what to do during a recess, the defendant, Touray Cornell, agreed to accept a conviction on a felony count of distribution of his one-sixteenth of an ounce of dangerous drugs. He was sentenced to 20 years, with 19 years suspended to run concurrently with the sentence on another conviction for conspiring to stage a set-up robbery at a casino.

The prosecutor, Andrew Paul, declined to discuss the case, except to say that Cornell's neighbors had been "complaining about his brazen drug dealing."

"The jury of course knew none of that stuff," Deschamps said. "What they knew was some guy here was charged with criminal sale of a very small amount of marijuana. Were they going to hang him for that?"

The judge, a former prosecutor, said he voted for Montana's medical marijuana initiative in 2004, which has become highly controversial in part because its beneficiaries have become so numerous: More than 12,000 residents hold cards entitling them to use the drug for sometimes doubtful medicinal purposes.

"My personal view, I think for the most part we should legalize marijuana and be done with it. Because I think it's created way more havoc and trouble than it's worth," Deschamps said. "But when you get some guy [like Cornell] that just comes and rubs it in your face.…"
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Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.