Jury Nullification : Peers Refuse to Convict Disabled Vet in Pot Bust

'The Vietnam veteran walks with a cane, has bad knees and feet and says he uses marijuana to relieve body pain, as well as to help cope with post traumatic stress.'

Maybe this is how the war on marijuana ends.

A rural Illinois jury has found one of their peers innocent in a marijuana case that would have sent him to prison. Loren Swift (pictured below) was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, and he faced a mandatory minimum of six years behind bars.

According to Dan Churney at MyWebTimes , several jurors were seen shaking Swift's hand after the verdict, a couple of them were talking and laughing with Swift and his lawyer, and one juror slapped Swift on the back.

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/jury-nullification-peers-refuse-to.html

:)

they don't think one person can smoke that much.

during lean times.

It is an automatic charge that goes with possession; if the stash is in more than one bag or location. If there's nothing found to smoke it with... the additional charge sticks and defendant gets more prison time.

:smoke:

... and count every bit of it against you in their calculated weight.

When they busted me, their initial estimate (over 120 pounds) was whittled down to a little over seven pounds of usable pot -- which I was growing for myself and four terminally ill patients -- all of whom died within months of the raid -- in a helluva lot of unnecessary pain.

My thanks to the Illinois jury. It is ALWAYS better to let a jury decide. If you think the feds will negotiate a plea agreement with you honorably, I would dearly love some of what you're smoking.

I took that to mean that the second category included all the unusable (and not even necessarily illegal) stuff while the first didn't. Could be wrong of course, and one can't know for sure from the story. Either way, though, a quantity like that is bound to draw intent to distribute.

"When they busted me, their initial estimate (over 120 pounds) was whittled down to a little over seven pounds of usable pot -- which I was growing for myself and four terminally ill patients -- all of whom died within months of the raid -- in a helluva lot of unnecessary pain."

That's just :grr:

Props to the jury in this case for having some common sense.

Read it and weep.

The government is STILL trying to confiscate my 170+ acre farm for that seven pounds of pot, almost seven years after their drug-war pirate raid on my farm.

So far, my case has cost me $600,000 in income (and counting) and over $75,000 in legal and related expenses.

All for pot I was giving away.

on DU. It is an honor to blog with you.

I've posted a few threads recently about the serious problems with New Mexico's new medical cannabis program. You might want to visit this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4947184


If any of that interests you, PM me and I can send you more.

Thanks again for your kind words.

That thread you linked is locked and archived already?
:shrug:

It truly is a core issue of civilization vs fear and repression.

While the details and facts are numerous, at the center of the entire struggle is self determination and freedom.

Nixon's aide, John Ehrlichman, was interviewed in 1996 by the author of the book "Smoke and Mirrors." During that interview, Ehrlichman said,
"Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it."\


The war on drugs is being waged to usurp our rights.

where the people have voted for medical marijuana (I voted for it on two occasions when I lived there).
My son has had medical pot for some time for his illness (dermatomyositis) yet has seen all of the clubs closed in his area by the feds last year.
He now has to travel into the city via bart. His alternative for his chronic pain due to skin and muscle damage is vicodin. which doesn't work as well, has nasty side effects not to mention highly addictive. The Gov would rather he was addicted and on yet another drug because that is where the money is.

His doctors first suggested pot when he was 15 and going through yet another round of chemo to shut down his immune system, which was attacking his skin and muscles tissue.

as they come.

as they come.

If we legalize "possession", how can we still justify the prosecution of those who transport, import, grow or distribute? If a product is legal, how could the people who provide said product be "criminals"?
:hippie:

to five people in the US. And busts you or me if I do what they do. :crazy:

Pot Cures Cancer!

Jury nullifcation is a beautiful thing, and the purest form of democracy that I can think of.

I hope the paper pushing prosecutors enjoy their bowl of crow!!!

K&R

:patriot:

:applause: :applause: :smoke: :applause: :applause:

Although I am sure the profit prison system will figure out another way to maintain their slave population. A way that bypasses juries.

Our Constitution makes Maryland juries the judges of fact and law. We can find someone not guilty because we don't feel teh burden of proof has been met or we don't believe the law to be just or properly applied. I think every state should have this provision in their Constitution.

However I was alluding to the recent past where people were being put in prisons without trial or juries. Unconstitutional yes, but that didn't stop them. Not just Gitmo either, refugees as well.

Hopefully the people now in authority are rectifying that...

which is a little surprising to me, as it contradicts legal speeches I've heard on fictional shows on TV. But then, you can distort the truth as much as you want in fiction.

from http://www.drugpolicy.org/law/marijuana/jurynull

With all the crap going on, this made me smile, at least for a few seconds.

for dropping Phelps. Had to tell my kid to put the Special K with strawberries back on the self. They can keep their $4 cereal.

Because the more people they can pack into their prisons, the more money they get from the state and federal government. The result is they lobby to pass ludicrous laws like this.

Because if you oppose them, the first pedophile or gangbanger who commits a crime after a shorter sentence gets hung around your neck for the rest of your career.

The M$M convince us that crime is rampant, the political consultants convince the pols we want tough sentencing because the M$M convinced us crime was rampant, the corporations profit. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Inmates work for pennies an hour, sometimes at dangerous/toxic jobs.

The profits are massive. Follow the money.

Anyone going into jury duty should have this information readily available especially in such cases as this.

:sarcasm:

:sarcasm:

If no city could convict people for these crimes, and just ended up wasting their money pursuing cases they can't win, that seems like the only way to decriminalize cannabis.

They are a California-based organization with members all over the country. IMHO, they are one of two groups (the other is NORML) who deserve all the support we can give them.

& I'm boycotting Kellogg's which isn't too hard.

not hard at all.

cereals which I am hooked on. Fortunately there are good substitutes. Maybe now I will substitute a delicious subway for my usual bowl of unending cornflakes for breakfast and lunch.

eaten them since last century. Someone over at Kellogg's made a bad decision.

And, Subway gets Michael Phelps. I don't know what other companies he was endorsing?

racism still exists but many of us that get jury duty letters are NOT racist.

Wow you figured me out.

:sarcasm:

It can be a pain in the ass, but it's a hugely important part of the civic process...

Recently there have been many posts regarding opting out of our civic duty. I completely agree with you!

so far i have been called to serve once but the case didn't have anything to do with drugs or any other victimless non violent type offense.

but i do hope to get on a jury where the case is similar to this and even with all the evidence i would vote not guilty.

caused me not to be able to sit long enough for jury duty, I always welcomed that notice.

The last jury I was on involved a state patrol officer ticketing a man who was involved in an accident. The ticket wasn't filled out correctly, the officer couldn't give answers to the attorney's questions, etc.

I think we were in the jury room for a total of 15 minutes. The state had completely failed in proving their case. The only reason we took that long is some Repub that insisted that if the officer ticketed him then he must be guilty. We finally asked him if the state had proven a case, considering all the mistakes they had made and they hadn't brought any evidence against the defendant that would prove anything.

He agreed then, but it amazed me that this man would be so brainwashed that he would take a ticket as proof of guilt. The judicial system should include jury nullification in their instructions, but you can bet it will never happen.

but wasn't picked for a jury. we have one day/one trial here in cali.

They haven't called on me yet.

I ask the question again. MARIJUANA?

Marijuana is a plant folks. This is a plant that grows wild all across the United States.

We have real criminals in this country. We have criminals that kill people and molest little kids. When we have real criminals in this country, we are wasting expensive prison cells on people in possession of a weed?

I would have found the guy innocent of all charges also.

That's why many of my former felon friends learned to switch to drugs that flushed from their systems sooner than pot. Drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and all the pharmaceutical beans they could swallow.

Get fried on those other drugs on Friday -- piss clean on Monday.

But smoke one joint -- you have to worry for a week or two (or find a friend with a clean urine stream).

California's governor Schwartznegger is probably going to eliminate parole for all non violent prison releasees. This due to our state's current budget mess.

Once you leave the prison, you are free. No more of this reporting back to a parole officer for two to five years! The article mentioning this also stated that the parole requirements were the leading cause of a great percentage of recividism that occurs to "pot ofenders"

If I am, I intend to keep my cards close to my chest.

Never, ever say or insinuate or imply that you have any idea what jury nullification is. That's a surprise that I, for one, intend to wait until the reading of the verdict to spring on the judge.

Judges HATE jury nullification. They'll lecture you, demand you judge the case strictly according to their instructions, give you threats and so on, but the real truth is that once he bangs the gavel and you head to the jury room to make your decision, you can make whatever verdict you want, and you're well within legal rights to judge the law as well as the defendant.

Too many people that don't get enough satisfaction out of life without messing up somebody else's life

Guaranteed to piss you off.

NT!

If I thought there was any chance I could get seated on a jury for Cannabis use/sale/manufacture/distribution etc. I would be a happy camper that's for sure....I'm sure the defendant wouldn't mind either..:)

Little by little, we will end the war on this proven-beneficial plant!

"the racists' lips dripping with nullification..." I had wondered that a number of times.

I think he was referring to states that nullified Brown v. Board of Education.

....of the case stands between the people and tyranny.

Jury nullification. The right to judge the law itself. Our right, and our duty.

Get informed on it. FIJA.org

Oh yes.

The prosecution charged Swift with "possession with intent to deliver". He denied it and the jury believed him.

Tobacco is highly addictive as I can attest to regardless of what the tobacco companies denied about it addiction. It is also a major cause of deadly health problems. I don't know about marijuana since I never tried it. I had enough addictions to wrestle with having used both tobacco and alcohol. It just seems to me, being an old fart, that since tobacco and alcohol are not criminalized (they tried it with alcohol) then marijuana should not be criminalized. I am of the thinking that many of these drugs shouldn't be criminalized since they only create gangs that war over their distribution and nothing really happens in regard to limiting there use. The only effect means of limiting there use is to convince people of there harmfulness.

I've posted the link to this video on a couple different threads here on DU, but I'll repost it again for anyone who might have missed it. It's a Dutch TV program (first few minutes in Dutch, after that switches to English) that examines the "war on drugs" and shows how massively ineffective it is at shutting down the drug trade, but how effective it is as a generator of funds for the prison industrial complex.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=864268000924014458&ei=buWOSYLJOoqsrAKL3_C8Cw&q=dnw+war+on+drugs

Also this is a snip from an article "Dillon Read and Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits" by Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing in the GHW Bush administration.

Thank you for bringing this article to our attention and "jury nullification" in the process. Powerful information there.

The jury can always refuse to convict someone even when the evidence is overwhelming if they believe the law or its application is unjust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

...for that Illinois jury. Everyone arguing for the legalization of pot should keep a copy of "Marijuana Myths. The best argument is simply listing the facts, and putting the onus on those who would argue against legalization to prove their claims. Here are the first seven myths. The rest, along with sources listed can be found at the link below. I don't post much, so I hope I'm not breaking any rules here, but I think it's important enough to risk. Thanks.
quickesst

<http://www.drugtext.org/sub/marmyt1.html>

MARIJUANA MYTHS
by Paul Hager
Chair, ICLU Drug Task Force


1. Marijuana causes brain damage
The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage is the rhesus monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late 1970s. This study was reviewed by a distinguished panel of scientists sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Their results were published under the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982. Heath's work was sharply criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as "damaged". Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users have shown no evidence of brain damage. For example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage in heavy users of marijuana. That same year, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially came out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect if the AMA thought marijuana damaged the brain.

2. Marijuana damages the reproductive system
This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes, and the work of researchers who dosed animals with near-lethal amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the intoxicating part of marijuana). Nahas' generalizations from his petri dishes to human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as being invalid. In the case of the animal experiments, the animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30 days of the end of the experiment. Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely affects the reproductive system.

3. Marijuana is a "gateway" drug-it leads to hard drugs
This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world example of what happens when marijuana is readily available can be found in Holland. The Dutch partially legalized marijuana in the 1970s. Since then, hard drug use-heroin and cocaine-have DECLINED substantially. If marijuana really were a gateway drug, one would have expected use of hard drugs to have gone up, not down. This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also been observed in the United States. Studies done in the early 1970s showed a negative correlation between use of marijuana and use of alcohol. A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug use in states that had decriminalized marijuana versus those that had not, found that where marijuana was more available-the states that had decriminalized-hard drug abuse as measured by emergency room episodes decreased. In short, what science and actual experience tell us is that marijuana tends to substitute for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin.

4. Marijuana suppresses the immune system
Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive system, this myth is based on studies where animals were given extremely high-in many cases, near-lethal-doses of cannabinoids. These results have never been duplicated in human beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978 and one done in 1988 showed that hashish and marijuana may have actually stimulated the immune system in the people studied.

5. Marijuana is much more dangerous than tobacco
Smoked marijuana contains about the same amount of carcinogens as does an equivalent amount of tobacco. It should be remembered, however, that a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much more tobacco than a heavy marijuana smoker consumes marijuana. This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90% addiction rate, is the most addictive of all drugs while marijuana is less addictive than caffeine. Two other factors are important. The first is that paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana users make it difficult to smoke safely. These laws make water pipes and bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the smoke, illegal and, hence, unavailable. The second is that, if marijuana were legal, it would be more economical to have cannabis drinks like bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic. This is in stark contrast with "smokeless" tobacco products like snuff which can cause cancer of the mouth and throat. When all of these facts are taken together, it can be clearly seen that the reverse is true: marijuana is much SAFER than tobacco.

6. Legal marijuana would cause carnage on the highways
Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the effect of marijuana on the automobile accident rate suggest that it poses LESS of a hazard than alcohol. When a random sample of fatal accident victims was studied, it was initially found that marijuana was associated with RELATIVELY as many accidents as alcohol. In other words, the number of accident victims intoxicated on marijuana relative to the number of marijuana users in society gave a ratio similar to that for accident victims intoxicated on alcohol relative to the total number of alcohol users. However, a closer examination of the victims revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on marijuana WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL. For people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other research using completely different methods. For example, an economic analysis of the effects of decriminalization on marijuana usage found that states that had reduced penalties for marijuana possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased. This would suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal marijuana might actually save lives.

7. Marijuana "flattens" human brainwaves
This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave, and second, a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on marijuana". When researchers called up the TV networks to complain about this commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the air. It seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana brainwave". In reality, marijuana has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha wave activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states which are, in turn, often associated with human creativity.

Baby, K&R

:(