Posted on 12/22/2010 8:01:24 PM PST by Notary Sojac
A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week.
Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt.
They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana. Never mind that the defendant in question also faced a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.
The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel.
No, they said, one after the other. No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce.
In fact, one juror wondered why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, said a flummoxed Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul.
District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree. Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised their hands. A couple of others had already been excused because of their philosophical objections.
“I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we can seat a jury,’ ” said Deschamps, who called a recess.
And he didn’t.
During the recess, Paul and defense attorney Martin Elison worked out a plea agreement. That was on Thursday.
On Friday, Cornell entered an Alford plea, in which he didn’t admit guilt. He briefly held his infant daughter in his manacled hands, and walked smiling out of the courtroom.
“Public opinion, as revealed by the reaction of a substantial portion of the members of the jury called to try the charges on Dec. 16, 2010, is not supportive of the state’s marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances,” according to the plea memorandum filed by his attorney.
“A mutiny,” said Paul.
“Bizarre,” the defense attorney called it.
In his nearly 30 years as a prosecutor and judge, Deschamps said he’s never seen anything like it.
*****
“I think that’s outstanding,” John Masterson, who heads Montana NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), said when told of the incident. “The American populace over the last 10 years or so has begun to believe in a majority that assigning criminal penalties for the personal possession of marijuana is an unjust and a stupid use of government resources.”
Masterson is hardly an unbiased source.
On the other hand, prosecutor, defense attorney and judge all took note that some of the potential jurors expressed that same opinion.
“I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount,” Deschamps said.
The attorneys and the judge all noted Missoula County’s approval in 2006 of Initiative 2, which required law enforcement to treat marijuana crimes as their lowest priority – and also of the 2004 approval of a statewide medical marijuana ballot initiative.
And all three noticed the age of the members of the jury pool who objected. A couple looked to be in their 20s. A couple in their 40s. But one of the most vocal was in her 60s.
“It’s kind of a reflection of society as a whole on the issue,” said Deschamps.
Which begs a question, he said.
Given the fact that marijuana use became widespread in the 1960s, most of those early users are now in late middle age and fast approaching elderly.
Is it fair, Deschamps wondered, in such cases to insist upon impaneling a jury of “hardliners” who object to all drug use, including marijuana?
“I think that poses a real challenge in proceeding,” he said. “Are we really seating a jury of their peers if we just leave people on who are militant on the subject?”
Although the potential jurors in the Cornell case quickly focused on the small amount of marijuana involved, the original allegations were more serious – that Cornell was dealing; hence, a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.
Because the case never went to trial, members of the jury pool didn’t know that Cornell’s neighbors had complained to police that he was dealing from his South 10th Street West four-plex, according to an affidavit in the case. After one neighbor reported witnessing an alleged transaction between Cornell and two people in a vehicle, marijuana was found in the vehicle in question.
The driver and passenger said they’d bought it from Cornell, the affidavit said. A subsequent search of his home turned up some burnt marijuana cigarettes, a pipe and some residue, as well as a shoulder holster for a handgun and 9mm ammunition. As a convicted felon, Cornell was prohibited from having firearms, the affidavit noted.
Cornell admitted distributing small amounts of marijuana and “referred to himself as a person who connected other dealers with customers,” it said. “He claimed his payment for arranging deals was usually a small amount of marijuana for himself.”
Potential jurors also couldn’t know about Cornell’s criminal history, which included eight felonies, most of them in and around Chicago several years ago. According to papers filed in connection with the plea agreement, Cornell said he moved to Missoula to “escape the criminal lifestyle he was leading,” but he’s had a number of brushes with the law here.
Those include misdemeanor convictions for driving while under the influence and driving with a suspended license, and a felony conviction in August of conspiracy to commit theft, involving an alleged plot last year to stage a theft at a business where a friend worked, the papers said. He was out on bail in that case when the drug charges were filed.
In sentencing him Friday, Deschamps referred to him as “an eight-time loser” and said, “I’m not convinced in any way that you don’t present an ongoing threat to the community.”
Deschamps also pronounced himself “appalled” at Cornell’s personal life, saying: “You’ve got no education, you’ve got no skills. Your life’s work seems to be going out and impregnating women and not supporting your children.”
The mother of one of those children, a 3-month-old named Joy who slept through Friday’s sentencing, was in the courtroom for Friday’s sentencing. Cornell sought and received permission to hug his daughter before heading back to jail.
Deschamps sentenced Cornell to 20 years, with 19 suspended, under Department of Corrections supervision, to run concurrently with his sentence in the theft case. He’ll get credit for the 200 days he’s already served. The judge also ordered Cornell to get a GED degree upon his release.
“Instead of being a lazy bum, you need to get an education so you can get a decent law-abiding job and start supporting your family,” he said.
Normally, Paul said after the sentencing, a case involving such a small amount of marijuana wouldn’t have gone this far through the court system except for the felony charge involved.
But the small detail in this case may end up being a big game-changer in future cases.
The reaction of potential jurors in this case, Paul said, “is going to be something we’re going to have to consider.”
I was interested in the potential jurors freeing this nightmare welfare guy that came to Montana to run his dope and crime operations, and how that will destroy Montana and make it like California, not another doper discussion.
Hey, since the jury won't cooperate on the buds prosecution, I got another idea. Give the guy a library card. When he's late returning a book, prosecute him for theft. Just claim he intended to steal the book.
Maybe the jury will buy that one.
ansel, are you trying to drive me to drinking or something? LOL.
We just disagree about the role of government.
He committed the crime, and possessed the drug.
Montana is going downhill.
I would like to see those potential jurors.
Really? Well, there are a lot of us suckers out here. no way, no how would I encourage the wastage of my tax dollars by consenting to convict any adult for posessing or dead plants or selling them to consenting adults.
And you see, the problem with getting your moralistic panties in a know over this issue, is that you then give license to the government to go regulate everything else they feel like regulating. Don't like the idea that that damp spot in the middle of your property is now a protected wetland and you get to go to jail if you shovel dirt into it an fill in the depression? Well, you want to regulate dead plants, someone else wants to regulate live ones. What is the difference?
There is none.
Maybe you could offer to buy them a drink sometime. ;-)
Listen, I'd have to start taking drugs myself to stay up all night and maybe I would, but I've never had anything against a good night's sleep.
Thanks for the conversation. I like you ansel. Your heart is in the right place.
I hope there are 12 of you. Night. ;-)
Read post 2 he should have been convicted, he found OJ jury types that wanted him immune from Montana laws.
READ THE STORY AGAIN. There was NO GUN. Cops found a holster and some 9mm ammo. NO GUN.
Sorry, citizen, you aren't going to convince the idiots that freedom means people doing things that they don't like. They believe that somehow being against things that they don't like will be a talisman against bad things happening, and if things they have been told are BAD are made illegal they won't happen ever if the holy unicorn that poops skittles says they won't happen if Barney Frank swears it and makes it so... well then they will be safe from the BAD things! You see, there is a LAW against it that Nancy Pelosi and Chucky Schumer passed and those two said that bad things can't happen if Congress says they can't happen and the omniscient police officer has the power to shoot some poor citizen who was whittling with an evil KNIFE in public; so he can be executed legally without trial because he OFFENDED the holy policeman who can do no wrong because he has the holy badge...
You aren't going to convince these fools that they are national socialists. They are firmly convinced that freedom is exactly what Rudy Guliani said it was. The freedom to OBEY, and naught more. They are the symptom of what ails us, and they don't deserve to occupy the same space as the old, dead, white guys who figured out that we are free, and only the willing serfs can ruin us.
We are surrounded now by serfs. Let us remove them to old Europe where they belong. Because they damn sure don't belong in the land of the FREE!
They tend to make a quick grab at the moral high ground , asserting they are the only real conservatives, and everyone else is a left wing troll.
If we had an FR poll on this case, I suspect they'd find themselves in a tiny minority. I'm sure that would only harden their resolve, but at least the rest of us would be able to point to those poll results whenever one of them divebombs a thread.
Removing the airbag from your personal auto is a felony. So is filling in a "wetland" on your property.
If "living without health insurance" becomes a felony, does that go on your list too??
I did. No sell. I happen to agree with my other citizens around here that this prohibitionist scheme of yours is unsupportable and unsustainable. We have an enormous prison population and enormous public expense. It is funny that it is the so-called conservatives who are behind this bonanza for law enforcement, the legal system and the private incarceration of fellow human beings business bonanza.
It is shear and utter lunancy and you cannot claim to be anything of a constitutional conservative when you are in a country whose prison populations rivalled only that of Apardheid South Africa and the Soviet Union.
Guess maybe the DA shoulda left off the mini-pot charge and focused on the DEALING. Trouble is lots of DA’s really are DumbAsses.
Neat looking data you have there. Anything to verify its fact not just your imagination?
First even old Europe understands the difference between sin, which is between you and your God, if you even believe in on, and the criminal code.
the fundamental issue, I believe, is a psychological one. They cannot stand the idea of other folks doing things that might be fun, but they don't allow themselves to indulge in. Sort of like finding out your neighbor three blocks way has open invite, free for all, sex orgies twice weekly. It is far enough away that it is not a personal nuisance, and let us say that the direct neighbors have no problem and may even be particiapnts, but instead the nuisance is the voyeuristic enticement of the whole thing. You cannot stand the notion that someone else might be having some fun. I am about to hear about transmission of STD's and car accidents by drunker revelers, and broken marriages, and a host of ills that follow.
It is an old Calvinist strain that tears our country apart. Ever notice how Eurpeans have high walls around their properties for privacy. Sometimes, in summer, they sunbath NAKED behind those walls. NAKED people out of doors where god and their fairy godmother can SEE them. Ever note that in lots of American neighborhoods you cannot have high fences around your property. WE have a right to see what YOU are up to.
Hey Ansel, whaddya think of this case...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2646609/posts
A couple years in juvie be enough, or should we tune up Old Sparky??
You never spoke truer words. The hardcore moral NKVD on Free Republic is pretty much tied into the Calvinist/Reconstructionist world view.
Judging by screen names, there are no more than 8-10 of them, but clearly they have time to post like crazy.
I used to argue with them a lot. Until I remembered the old adage about why one should never wrestle with a pig.
I think it's a very large group... :)
OK, so far the poll is tied. 1 to 1. ;-)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2646690/posts?page=1
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