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From: "Peter McWilliams"
Subject: I cannot use medical defense at trial
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 21:38:06 -0800
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In the most Kafkaesque turn of events to date, the trial judge has granted the government's
motion and ruled I cannot use a medical marijuana necessity defense, nor can I mention
Proposition 215, marijuana's medical usefulness, the 8 patients who get medical marijuana
monthly from the federal government, or my medical condition:
The closing paragraph of the ruling is attached to this e-mail. For the complete
ruling (4 pages), please go to http://petertrial.com/kafka.htm. This means my testimony
will go something like this:
PROSECUTOR: "Mr. McWilliams, did you grow marijuana?"
ME: "Yes."
PROSECUTOR: "How much marijuana?"
ME: "About 300 plants."
PROSECUTOR: "Thank you."
End of testimony.
The only question the jury will have to decide is whether I am responsible for Todd
McCormick's 4000 plants because I gave him a book advance for How to Grow Medical
Marijuana or the 1,600 plants Scott Hass allegedly grew with his severance package
money from my publishing company (he was the president of Prelude Press, Inc.).
The difference is the difference between a 5-year mandatory minimum (under 1,000
plants) or a 10-year mandatory minimum (over 1,000 plants).
At this point, due to my AIDS, I basically don't have an immune system, and any stay
in the germ-rich environment of a federal prison would be a death sentence. I would
no doubt be placed on the "hospital floor" where the tuberculosis and other highly
contagious patients are "quarantined" from everybody except the prisoners on the
hospital floor.
There are three possible alternatives to prison sentences:
1. Ask the trial judge for permission to appeal his ruling to the 9th Circuit Court
before trial. (In federal courts, almost all appeals are heard after conviction.)
If the 9th Circuit permits us a medical necessity defense, I am confident I would
be found not guilty.
2. Ask the judge after the guilty verdict to extend my bail during the appeal process.
(Usually in drug cases, the convicted are taken into custody immediately after sentencing.
Unlike rapists, kidnappers, and robbers, we pose a danger to the community.)
3. Ask the judge to sentence me to house arrest for the five or ten years based on
my medical condition.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public
trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have
been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and
to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the
witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his
favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
It doesn't say a thing about the right to put on a defense.
(The investigative new drug program is the one in which the federal government sends
marijuana to 8 patients each month for medical purposes and has been since 1972.)
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