Willie Mays Aikens has returned to Kansas City, where he's still a star. He's worked in construction and hopes to land a job with Major League Baseball, maybe as a counselor, he says, "talking to people about what drugs can do to a person." People in Kansas City still talk about Aikens' four home runs for the Royals in the 1980 World Series. They seem ready to forgive the crack cocaine bust that earned him a 16-year prison term. [continues 1376 words]
A federal appeals court's rejection of Angel Raich's plea for permission to ease her suffering without fear of prosecution has medical marijuana advocates looking for reform in a surprising venue - -- the Drug Enforcement Administration. Raich's loss severely diminishes prospects of reform through litigation. But a February "opinion and recommended ruling" by a DEA administrative law judge holds out the possibility that prescription marijuana will be developed and approved by the Federal Drug Administration, ending the long federal-state standoff over medical pot. [continues 1374 words]
Outside Influence On The Jury Affected 2003 Case, The 9th Circuit Determines. SAN FRANCISCO - An appeals court Wednesday threw out the 2003 conviction of a prominent marijuana activist, citing an outside influence on the jury that found him guilty of supplying hundreds of pot seedlings to medical patients through Bay Area dispensaries. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals awards Edward Rosenthal a new trial if the federal government decides to pursue its case against him. He's entitled to it, said the court, because "extraneous information" obtained by one juror and passed on to another may have affected the verdict. An attorney-friend told the juror she would "get in trouble" if she considered the medical connection that jurors correctly suspected. [continues 264 words]
Judges' Questions Hint They Won't Protect Medicinal Use. PASADENA - A frail medicinal pot user from Oakland took the federal government to court again Monday but left with little encouragement. Judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who had ruled in favor of Angel Raich in an earlier phase of the same case, sounded skeptical this time. They questioned repeatedly why she was seeking their protection when she's never been prosecuted for using marijuana, which her doctor swears she needs to stay alive. [continues 548 words]
State Supreme Court accepts a case in which a man was fired for using marijuana OK'd by doctor. SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide another key issue in the debate over the legality of medical marijuana - whether people can be denied employment because they use the drug in compliance with the state's Compassionate Use Act. The justices said they'll review a September ruling by the Court of Appeal in Sacramento, which said employers need not accommodate a worker's pot use as long as pot remains illegal under federal law. [continues 386 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Placer County sheriff's deputies must face a trial in connection with raids conducted by their marijuana eradication team in Placer and Sacramento counties in the late 1990s, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to grant the deputies immunity against a civil suit filed by dentist Michael Baldwin and Georgia Chacko, his wife at the time, after a 1998 raid on their Granite Bay home. Their case, which also names Placer County as a defendant, could become the first of eight similar ones to survive and make it to the trial stage. If it does, the sheriff's deputies will have to answer for team tactics that allegedly included paramilitary-style force and conspiracy to violate citizens' constitutional rights by trumping up evidence to support search warrants. [continues 470 words]
Plaintiffs Hope To End Marijuana Seizures From Patients. Medical marijuana patients sued the California Highway Patrol on Tuesday, claiming the agency has a policy of seizing pot found during routine traffic stops, regardless of whether the stash is legal under state law. As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to declare the victor in the state's long tug of war with the federal government over medical marijuana, seven patients and a caregiver are asking a state judge to enjoin the CHP from confiscating the pot that California permits them to possess and transport. [continues 448 words]
3 Southern officials say the U.S. lacks the right to limit such private use. As final briefs were filed Wednesday in a critical medical marijuana test case, set for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court next month, California got some unlikely allies. A trio of Southern attorneys general submitted a brief saying that when states decide to let their citizens light up, the federal government should butt out. "The question presented here is not whether vigorous enforcement of the nation's drug laws is a good criminal policy. It most assuredly is," says the brief filed by Alabama and joined by Mississippi and Louisiana. [continues 538 words]
San Francisco - A federal judge in Sacramento was ordered Friday to release Bryan James Epis from prison while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the fate of state-sanctioned medical marijuana cooperatives that operate wholly within California. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. to set bail terms for the co-founder of Chico Medical Marijuana Caregivers and to handle the proceedings on an expedited basis. Through his lawyer, Brenda Grantland, Epis said he was ecstatic. He thanked "literally thousands" of supporters. [continues 218 words]
The Physician Was Reportedly Taped Offering to Sell a Pot-Growing Kit to an Undercover Agent. SAN FRANCISCO - A judge here refused on Thursday to block a threatened drug-dealing prosecution against Dr. Molly Fry, who recommended marijuana to patients at a clinic in Cool and may have sold them pot-growing kits. "If somebody's innocent, they get vindicated at trial," U.S. District Judge William Alsup told Fry, who could be charged in federal court in Sacramento. Fry asked for a temporary restraining order in San Francisco because Alsup four years ago issued an injunction barring federal drug authorities from harassing doctors who recommend pot to their patients under Proposition 215, California's medical marijuana initiative. [continues 214 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court raised serious questions Wednesday about the pot-growing conviction of Bryan James Epis, co-founder of the Chico Medical Marijuana Caregivers, but the judges did not indicate whether they'll order a new trial. Epis is serving a 10-year term for his 2002 conviction for conspiring to grow marijuana. The sentence came after a stormy trial in which Sacramento U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. instructed jurors to disregard evidence of medical use under California's Proposition 215. However, recent federal court decisions have barred federal prosecutors from going after medical marijuana operations that don't involve interstate commerce. The Supreme Court is expected to announce this month whether it will review one of those cases. [continues 217 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - In a decision that could have a substantial impact on California's Proposition 36, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that people convicted of driving under the influence of drugs must go to jail and not into treatment programs. Citing the danger to the public from drugged drivers, among other reasons, the justices unanimously interpreted the initiative -- which prescribes treatment and forbids incarceration for first- and second-time nonviolent offenses "related to the use of drugs" -- to exclude DUI. [continues 351 words]
Appellate Court Says Placer Deputies Must Answer Charges They Violated Civil Rights. SAN FRANCISCO -- Four Placer County sheriff's deputies must answer to a lawsuit accusing them of violating the civil rights of a woman and child during a 1999 marijuana raid of their Citrus Heights home, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The judges said the undisputed facts of the civil suit filed by the family of Chris Miller showed the deputies pointed guns at Miller's wife and 10-year-old daughter for 10 to 15 minutes. [continues 376 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The highest court in the West ruled Tuesday that personal use of medical marijuana in a state that permits it can be outside the control of federal authorities. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directly affects only Angel Raich of Oakland and Diane Monson of Oroville. But its rationale would apply to others who, like Monson, grow their own pot supplies, or, like Raich, obtain it free from local grower-caretakers without involving interstate traffickers. [continues 571 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The highest court in the West ruled Tuesday that personal cultivation and use of medical marijuana in a state that permits such activities can be outside the control of federal authorities. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directly affects only Angel Raich of Oakland and Diane Monson of Oroville, who sued to block federal interference with their pot supplies. But its rationale would apply to others who, like Monson, grow their own pot or, like Raich, obtain it free from local grower-caretakers without involving interstate traffickers. [continues 607 words]
White House Bid To Punish Physicians Is Rejected Deflecting what might have been a lethal blow to state medical marijuana laws, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a seven-year effort by the White House to punish physicians who recommend the drug to their patients under California law. The justices rejected without comment the federal government's appeal of lower court injunctions that have blocked it from threatening doctors with license revocation and other sanctions for advising pot use. [continues 649 words]
Two Appeals Center On Issues Of States' And Patients' Rights. SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court took up two more medical marijuana cases Tuesday as it prepared to issue a series of critical decisions on the future of California's pot initiative in the face of federal attempts to squelch it. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel did not commit itself one way or the other on the cutting-edge states' rights and patients' rights issues. But in a narrower case heard Tuesday, the judges appeared receptive to arguments from the plaintiff, Dr. Molly Fry of Cool. [continues 504 words]
Santa Cruz County and its local medical marijuana cooperative have lost their novel suit to block federal government interference with the supply of legal pot. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose issued an opinion late Thursday saying he sympathized with patients who depend on pot to ease their suffering -- a legal option under California state law. But Fogel said he was powerless to enjoin raids by the U.S. Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration. In one such raid last September, 167 plants were confiscated at the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana outside Santa Cruz, a city-sanctioned cooperative. [continues 120 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The federal government's odd case against the nation's leading marijuana guru took another unusual turn Wednesday, when a judge sentenced Edward Rosenthal to the single day he's already spent in a county jail. Cheers rang through the courthouse as U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said a "just punishment ... requires substantial departure" from sentencing guidelines for Rosenthal's pot-farming crime, and then announced a sentence of "one day with credit for time served." Prosecutors had requested a 6 1/2 -year term. Pot activists were forecasting as much as 85 years, though the legal maximum appeared to be about 60 years. [continues 648 words]
City Again Wants To Freely Give Marijuana To The Critically Ill. SANTA CRUZ -- Seven months after hosting a medical marijuana giveaway outside City Hall, Santa Cruz officials took another unusual step Wednesday: They joined patients to sue the federal government for interfering with the local supply of legal pot. Agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration can make better use of their resources "than to chase ill people around the county of Santa Cruz," Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt said at a press conference to announce the filing of the suit in San Jose federal court. The suit requests an injunction against further raids on a city-sanctioned pot farm. [continues 488 words]
