Tag Archives: Counts

On Tuesday I
noted a Washington Post ;editorial that described
the Obama administration’s policy regarding medical marijuana as
mainly “hands off,” with the Justice Department “focusing scarce
resources on major violators.” Similarly, the Associated Press

reported a few weeks ago that “the Obama administration has
largely turned a blind eye” to medical marijuana in states where it
is legal. Here is what that hands-off, blind-eye policy looks like
in Montana: Chris Williams, a partner in Montana Cannabis,
faces a prison sentence of 80 to 92 years for supplying
patients with marijuana—and for insisting on his right to a
trial.
Williams’ business was one of several Montana dispensaries
raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration last year. He is the
only defendant arrested as a result of those raids who has refused
to plead guilty. One of his partners, Tom Daubert,
received probation; another, Chris Lindsey, reached a similar
deal but has not been sentenced yet; and a third, Richard Flor,

died while serving a five-year prison sentence.
What explains this astonishing range of penalties, from zero
prison time to nearly a century? Mandatory minimums. Specifically,
prosecutors charged Williams, after he turned down a series of plea
deals, with four counts of using firearms in furtherance of a drug
crime, based on pistols and shotguns kept at the Helena grow
operation where he worked. Federal law prescribes a
five-year mandatory minimum penalty for the first such offense and
25 years ;for each subsequent offense. Furthermore,
the sentences must be served consecutively. Hence Williams, who was
convicted of all four gun charges, will get ;at
least ;80 years when he is sentenced in January, even
though he was not charged with wielding the guns, let alone hurting
anyone with them. In fact, having the guns around would have been
perfectly legal had he not been growing marijuana. (This is the
same provision under which ;Weldon Angelos, a 24-year-old
record producer, received a ;55-year
sentence ;for a few small-time pot sales in
2004.) ;The Missoulian ;reports
that Williams could get an additional 12 years for the four
marijuana counts on which he was convicted, but whatever the
precise number it is effectively a life sentence.
The mandatory penalty is so absurdly, unfathomably harsh, in
fact, that after Williams’ trial U.S. Attorney Mike Cotter took the
extraordinary step of
offering ;to drop one count of
manufacturing ;marijuana, two counts of possession with intent
to distribute, and the three firearm counts associated with them,
which would have made it possible for Williams to serve “only” 10
years. All Williams had to do was refrain from appealing his
convictions. He refused, insisting that he did nothing wrong and
that the feds had no business interfering with a medical marijuana
system blessed by the state of Montana. ;
During his trial ;Williams was not allowed to mention
Montana’s medical marijuana law, since it is not deemed relevant to
his guilt under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which
recognizes no legitimate use for cannabis. In addition to his
criminal appeal, Williams is pursuing a
civil suit arguing that the federal crackdown on medical
marijuana violates the 10th Amendment by usurpring powers “reserved
to the States.” I think he is right, but I don’t see how he can
prevail in light of
Gonzales v. Raich, the 2005 case in which the Supreme
Court held that the power to regulate interstate commerce
authorizes ;federal action against people who grow and possess
marijuana for medical use in compliance with state law. Robert
Raich, who helped argue that case on behalf of his wife, Angel
Raich,
tells A.P., “”The War on Drugs is too sacrosanct a sacred cow
for the courts to weigh in [Williams'] favor.” ;
[via the
Drug War Chronicle]

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