Pubdate: Tue, 22 May 2001
Source: Record, The (CA)
Copyright: 2001 The Record
Contact:  http://www.recordnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/428
Author: Francis P. Garland, Lode Bureau Chief
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n832/a04.html

MINISTERS PLEAD GUILTY TO MISDEMEANOR POT CHARGE

SAN ANDREAS -- Two Wallace ministers charged with cultivating marijuana 
after law enforcement agents raided their property last year and found 290 
plants pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge of possessing more 
than an ounce of marijuana.

Ricky Dewayne Garner, 43, and Sue Melinda Garner, 40, were slated to go to 
trial Wednesday in Calaveras County Superior Court but agreed to the terms 
of a plea bargain offered by District Attorney Peter Smith's office.

Judge Douglas Mewhinney sentenced the Garners, who are ministers of the 
Northern Lights Church, to two years' probation in exchange for their 
guilty pleas. In addition, the Garners waived their rights against law 
enforcement searches and agreed to abide by medicinal-marijuana guidelines 
the county Board of Supervisors adopted last year.

Those guidelines were formulated to help county law enforcement agencies 
and legitimate users make sense of Proposition 215, under which people 
suffering from certain medical conditions can use marijuana with a doctor's 
recommendation. The law, approved by voters in 1996, also states that 
marijuana cultivation and possession laws do not apply to legitimate 
patients or their primary caregivers. The latter is defined as the person 
who has "consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health or 
safety" of a patient.

The county's guidelines, known as the Medical Marijuana Inter-Agency 
Protocol, allow for six marijuana plants and 2 pounds for each person who 
has a doctor's recommendation.

The Garners both have doctors' recommendations for medicinal marijuana use, 
and they maintained they were acting as caregivers for more than a dozen 
others -- all of whom had doctors' recommendations. They claimed they had a 
legal right to grow the marijuana on their Wallace property for those reasons.

The prosecution maintained the Garners had more plants than a user and/or 
primary caregiver needed for medicinal purposes and could not have been 
considered primary caregivers for some of the people in question, because 
they lived as far away as Bakersfield.

Those were the primary issues that would have been contested in the trial 
scheduled to start Wednesday.

Adam Gasner, a San Francisco attorney representing Ricky Garner, said the 
couple wanted to take the case to trial, but "the anguish of putting sick 
people on the witness stand and the emotional turmoil they would have 
experienced had to be weighed." "While they believe they would have gotten 
an acquittal, the (plea bargain) allows them to do exactly what they were 
doing before they were arrested -- and that makes them feel they achieved 
something that was fair."

Both Garners declined comment after Monday's hearing.

Seth Matthews, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said 
the disposition was fair.

"Our primary goal was to see that (the Garners) comply with the law, like 
it or not," he said. "We can now guarantee they will not be operating the 
kind of cannabis cooperatives that exist in other counties and that 
whatever they do will be no more than what the law allows."

Sheriff Dennis Downum said the confusion surrounding Proposition 215 "just 
seems ludicrous. Either the citizens or some compelling authority has to 
figure out whether it's legal or not. We just seem to be spinning our wheels.

"If you can't convict someone for having 300 plants, that's irritating. 
Those people did this to challenge the entire system, and it looks to me 
like they've won."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D