US District Court Judge Julie Carnes sentenced former officer Arthur Tesler to five years in prison, Gregg Junnier to six years, and Jason Smith to 10 years. All three sentences were less than those called for by federal sentencing guidelines.

Johnston was killed about 7 p.m. on November 21, 2006. Three hours earlier, Tesler arrested and roughed-up a small-time drug dealer named Fabian Sheats and threatened to send him to prison unless he gave up another drug dealer. Sheats eventually pointed out Johnston’s home, apparently at random, telling Tesler and his partners he saw a dealer named “Sam” with a kilo of cocaine there.

The three officers wanted to make a buy, but didn’t consider Sheats reliable, so they called an informant named Alex White to come make the buy. But White was unavailable, so the trio simply wrote a false affidavit saying they had watched White make a cocaine buy at Johnston’s home. Shortly before 6:00 p.m., they had their no-knock search warrant. An hour later, Johnston was dead after firing upon the intruders she apparently thought were robbers.

Then the cover-up kicked in, with the trio creating more false documents to hide the truth. But their cover-up fell apart when their informant, Alex White, grew frightened and went to the FBI.

In her sentencing statement, Judge Carnes criticized the Atlanta Police Department for its performance quotas for search warrants and arrests, saying the “pressures brought to bear did have an impact on these and other officers on the force.” If anything good came from Johnston’s death, it will be “a renewed effort by the Atlanta Police Department to prevent something like this from ever happening again,” Carnes said. “It is my fervent hope the APD will take to heart what has happened here,” the judge said.

Courtesy: DRCNet

Tags:

Related Articles

• Should Philadelphia Be Excited About Its Big Drug Bust?
• New York City Pot Arrest Capital of the World
• Maine Police Chief Wants Cocaine Misdemeanors to Be Felonies
• Louisiana Lawmen Play Fast And Loose with the Constitution
• ‘Bit of an Odd Situation,’ Police Find Bears Guarding Pot Crop

Military Court Martial lawyer Michael Waddington discusses urinalysis tests and marijuana use.

Tags:

Related Articles

• Medical Use of Marijuana Costs Some a Paycheck

The state’s Compassionate Use Act does not specify the amount of marijuana a patient may possess. Instead, that law allows an amount of marijuana “reasonably related to the patient’s current medical needs.”

The case, People v. Kelly, began in 2005, when Los Angeles County deputies searched Patrick Kelly’s home and found 7 plants in his back yard and 12 ounces of prepared marijuana in the house, along with a doctor’s note saying Kelly needed marijuana for back problems, hepatitis c, and other ailments. After prosecutors told jurors Kelly had exceeded the limits of the 2003 law, the jury found him guilty. But the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles overturned the conviction earlier this year, agreeing with Kelly’s argument that the 2003 law was invalid because it conflicted with Proposition 215, which did not set any specified limits.

Medical marijuana activists are divided on the case. Some, like Americans for Safe Access, argued that the 2003 only set guidelines for police and that the numbers in the law constituted a minimum, not a maximum. Throwing out the law would remove a statewide standard that “protects qualified patients from unnecessary arrests,” ASA attorney Joseph Elford argued in court papers.

But the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the 2003 law’s eight-ounce limit applies to the 18,000 people who have registered with the state under that law’s voluntary registration program. But Prop 215 still applies to all medical marijuana patients in the state, the ACLU argued. That means doctors may continue to prescribe greater quantities of marijuana and local entities may set higher limits.

Courtesy: Drug War Chronicle

Tags:

Related Articles

• Medical Marijuana: ACLU Sues Wal-Mart for Firing Patient
• California Assemblyman Introduces Bill to Legalize, Tax & Regulate Marijuana
• Risk of Stoned Drivers Minimal with Prop. 19
• Only a Quarter of Dispensaries To Stay Open
• Medical Marijuana in California High School

The jury has delivered a verdict in the trial of Charlie Lynch: Guilty on all counts. The former medical marijuana dispensary operator could very well receive a sentence much longer than the average sentence first-degree murderers receive. Hear from two of Lynch’s defense attorneys, as well as the jury foreperson. Previous Lynch trial video updates can be found at Reason.tv.

Tags:

Related Articles

• Feds Score Another Conviction Against a California Medical Marijuana Dispensary Operator
• Who Says Marijuana Is Good Medicine?
• Waterville Puts Medical Marijuana Dispensary on Hold – MyFOXMaine.com
• Video: Woon Drug Crackdown
• Video: Banning Salvia

Charles Lynch, 46, operator of Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers in San Luis Obispo County, faces a minimum of five years in prison and as many as 85 years after being found guilty of distributing more than 100 kilograms of marijuana, some of it to people considered minors under federal law.

Federal prosecutors portrayed Lynch as a mercenary drug dealer, toting around backpacks full of cash and selling dope to minors. One minor, Owen Beck, actually took the stand in Lynch’s defense. Beck suffers from bone cancer, and accompanied by his parents, he would visit the dispensary to purchase medical marijuana recommended to him by his Stanford University oncologist. But as soon as Beck mentioned that he was ill, Federal District Court Judge George Wu blocked his testimony.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times after reaching a verdict, jury forewoman Kitty Meese said jurors understood Lynch was no run-of-the-mill drug dealer, but that federal law made no provision for dispensary operators. “We all felt Mr. Lynch intended well,” Meese said. “But under the parameters we were given for the federal law, we didn’t have a choice.” She added, “it was a tough decision for all of us because the state law and the federal law are at odds.”

Lynch had run the dispensary in compliance with state law and with the blessing of local officials in Morro Bay, but after a fruitless, year-long investigation by San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Pat Hedges failed to find any violations of state law, the sheriff invited the DEA to come and raid the dispensary. The DEA did just that last year, and a few months later a federal grand jury indicted him.

Lynch is only the latest of at least six dispensary operators convicted under the federal drug laws, and his dispensary is but one of the dozens raided by the DEA in the last couple of years. With federal juries blocked from hearing about or considering the state’s medical marijuana laws by federal judges in those cases, convictions are all but a foregone conclusion.

“This just goes to show the difficulty of getting a fair trial on this in federal court,” said Dale Gieringer, head of California NORML. “The feds are batting a thousand when it comes to getting convictions in these cases. You cannot get a fair hearing.”

“Charley got steamrolled by the federal government,” said San Luis Obispo attorney Lou Koory, who represented Lynch in his dealings with local officials. “It’s just not a fair fight when you can’t tell the whole story,” he said.

“The jury selection process revealed that potential jurors in Los Angeles had major questions about why the feds would be prosecuting someone like Charley when there are several dispensaries operating within walking distance of the courthouse there,” Koory pointed out. “Those jurors were dismissed for cause, so we were left with citizens who were apparently not concerned about the federal government’s actions in this case and who felt compelled to follow the judge’s instructions.”

“When you have things like Owen Beck being prevented from testifying, that only escalates the tragedy of this case,” said Kris Hermes, spokesman for the medical marijuana defense group Americans for Safe Access. “The jury was not allowed to hear the whole truth in the larger context of the state law,” he said.

Hermes was quick to point out that Lynch was not the only victim of the DEA and its local law enforcement collaborators. “When Charles was raided, his was one of the only facilities in the whole region,” said Hermes. “Now patients have to go much longer distances, sometimes hundreds of miles, to get their medicine. Not only has this destroyed Charlie’s life, it has worsened the lives of hundreds of patients.”

With the deck stacked against dispensary operators in these federal prosecutions, activists and advocates are looking for ways to change the status quo. Some involve fighting back against recalcitrant law enforcement officials like Sheriff Hedges, others looks to greater help from state officials, while still others are turning a jaundiced eye on the federal marijuana laws.

At least one of Lynch’s patients has filed suit against Hedges, alleging that he violated patients’ privacy protections by seizing patient records and violated both her state and federal constitutional rights by doing an end run around state law.

“The sheriff couldn’t get a state search warrant, so he calls in the DEA and participates in the raid,” said Koory. “In return for serving up Charley on a silver platter, the sheriff got access to all the evidence, including patient records,” he explained. “The dispensary was a rock in the sheriff’s shoe, so after a year’s worth of failed investigation, Sheriff Hedges invited the DEA to come up to Morro Bay and raid the dispensary. That’s the real story here.”

While the idea of suing sheriffs sounds appealing, it’s a long-shot, said Hermes. “They are certainly subject to litigation if someone wants to file a lawsuit against a local official for cooperating with the federal government, but it’s a difficult legal challenge,” he said. “There is no law that prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with the feds. What officials like the sheriff are doing is wrongheaded, harmful, and unnecessary, but it will be difficult to win, I think.”

In the meantime, said Hermes, there are other avenues to pursue in reining in renegade local officials. “One thing would be to get a pronouncement from Attorney General Jerry Brown directing law enforcement on appropriate conduct around these issues. We’re expecting that to happen soon,” he said. “Absence of direction from the attorney general has made it easier not only for federal law enforcement to come in and undermine the implementation of state law, but also to make it easier for local law enforcement to help in that effort.”

Hermes said that recent state court decisions, including last week’s slap-down of San Diego County’s challenge to the law (see related story this issue) are also helping define the playing field. “We’ve had multiple appellate court rulings declaring the state’s medical marijuana law is not preempted by federal law, that the two can coexist, and that local law enforcement should be upholding state law and not federal law,” he said. “Between these rulings and the pending guidelines from the attorney general, there will be less and less wiggle room for local law enforcement to skirt the law.”

There is also the ballot box. Sheriffs are elected officials, and they could be challenged at the voting booth over their medical marijuana misbehavior, but ASA’s Hermes couldn’t recall a case where someone was either defeated or elected over the issue. “It is certainly an issue to bring up in sheriffs’ races,” he said. “If there are renegade law enforcement officials trying to skirt state law, we can try to make them feel the political heat.”

Still, Hermes predicted that given the state court rulings, the pending guidelines from the attorney general, and new set of faces in Washington next year, the renegade law enforcement problem will probably recede. “If it continues to happen,” he said, “there will be a political battle I think public officials will be sorry they got into. I think we will see less and less cooperation between local law enforcement and the feds on this.”

A new administration in Washington could make a huge difference, Hermes said. “If we elect Obama, and he follows through on his promise to end federal raids on dispensaries, then we will hopefully see less federal activity here in California.”

But the ultimate solution is changing the federal law around marijuana. Legalization, decriminalization, rescheduling marijuana out of Schedule 1, or even passage of the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, which would cut off funds for federal raids in medical marijuana states, are some of the steps that could be taken.

“We need to see either marijuana rescheduled as something other than Schedule 1, or the US Supreme Court’s Raich decision needs to be revisited and overruled. The logic behind that decision – that medical marijuana grown, distributed, and consumed within California affects interstate commerce – is a stretch at best,” said Koory.

“What we need is a comprehensive federal policy in the US,” said Hermes. “Rescheduling or passing Hinchey would be easier than passing either decriminalization or legalization, but we would welcome any of those. We’ll be working for a sweeping federal policy that includes rescheduling, further research, and allows for safe access to medical marijuana for patients all across the country.”

Until the federal marijuana laws are reformed or eliminated, medical marijuana patients are not safe. Instead, they will be subject to the whims and political proclivities of whoever has hold of the levers of power in Washington.

Courtesy: Drug War Chronicle
Photo: Charlie Lynch (from friendsofccl.com)

Tags:

Related Articles

• California Assemblyman Introduces Bill to Legalize, Tax & Regulate Marijuana
• Hawaii’s Big Island to Vote on Lowest Law Enforcement Priority Initiative
• GUILTY – A Verdict in the Charlie Lynch Case
• Federal Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Has Its Coming Out Party
• Dying to Get High: Marijuana As Medicine