Posted on 07/27/2018 10:52:36 PM PDT by Simon Green
(Javonnie McCoy and Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard after his acquittal)
Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine.
The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison.
The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a muddled prosecution of a muddy case. Or it may have been jury nullification, another case of citizens saying prosecutions for pot are not worth law enforcement’s time and effort — or the impact on otherwise law-abiding people’s lives.
It was the second such win in the Laurens County circuit for Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard, a conservative Republican who’s also a staunch civil libertarian. Late last year, another client of hers ‘fessed up to a jury that he had sold a couple of nickel bags to an insistent undercover drug cop. That client was cut loose after just 18 minutes of deliberation.
And this is no liberal soft-on-crime region. Donald Trump won the county 2-1.
Bernard also helped get North Georgia authorities to drop charges against the parents of a 15-year-old whose parents allowed him to smoke pot to help combat severe seizures.
Ultimately, what may have kept McCoy out of an orange jumpsuit was that his lawyer urged the jury to empower themselves. She told them they are not potted plants or an unthinking arm of government. They, in fact, are the government.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Javonnie? Is that the new masculine version of Joanie?
Great story. Obscene that pot is illegal.
I love the smell of collapsing Prohibition in the morning.
Dublin Ga is in rural farm country, lots of pickups with rifle racks and necks that are red. In spite of what liberals want everyone to believe there is more tolerance in places like that than on college campuses and inner cities. You can drive around with a Hillary bumper sticker with no fear down there. Try walking around with a MAGA hat across a college campus or in a big city run by Dems.
What a novel idea. I think they used to call it Liberty, or Freedom, or some such craziness—before authoritarian Nanny-Staters became an ascendant force in advocating for Big Government...
Well said.
Yup. Legalize it.
Figures. Busting people for pot is Sessions’ #1 priority. Maybe he’ll go do something else, like eat pudding.
Sessions’ second priority: Take pain meds from suffering patients.
To say he has been an incredible disappointment is an understatement of epic proportions.
He is a completely different man than when he was our Senator.
After the defendant’s lawyer passed a blunt around so they could examine the evidence the jury acquitted.
I was gonna vote out Trump before I got high
I was gonna wear my pussy hat but then I got high
that bastard still in House and I know why
cause I got high (3x)
What she’s doing is considered a cardinal sin by most trial attorneys and ALL judges. Telling jurors they aren’t potted plants is akin to teaching slaves to read. Expect to see a serious attempt to get her disbarred.
Big medicine has been at that for years.
They are so concerned about terminal patients becoming addicted to pain meds, they'd rather the patients suffer their last days out than go in peace.
“That client was cut loose after just 18 minutes of deliberation.”
That’s less time than it takes to get a Domino’s pizza delivered.
Great job by the jurors in this case. I have tried it (can’t now because I go to pain MIS-management and get pee tested) and it worked to remove my nerve pains where opiods will not touch it. BUT thinks to our government, I live in pain but this may get me to rethink my path forward.
I would love to get on a jury and do this. But I would make sure we deliberated long enough to get a free lunch! :-)
She is definitely one of my heroes!
I am really sorry to hear you live with constant pain. It should not have to be this way. Maybe some lawmakers will grow a pair.
Why not skip the scam pain meds & go back to pot?
I am considering it, sitting here on this sack of seeds........
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