Montana Jury Stages 'Mutiny' In Marijuana Case

A marijuana mutiny? According to a prosecutor in Missoula County, Mont., potential jurors made it clear they wouldn't convict anyone for possessing a few buds of pot. District Judge Dusty Deschamps found it impossible to seat a jury, and decided to work out a plea bargain for the man in question, Touray Cornell, instead.

The Missoulian reports:

"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.

Authorities reportedly worry that Cornell's situation will set a precedent for prosecuting future drug cases in Montana.

Comments

[Daniel Malo]

11:50 PM on 12/24/2010

BEST PRESENT EVER. for 40,000+ reasons.
visit------>www.facebook.com/free.the.leaf
cannabis=industry.medicine.peace.

[singletaxonland]

02:21 AM on 12/24/2010

The jury has the "Right" and "Duty" to weigh the evidence and the law, when reaching a decision. In this case the law is stupid, created by ignorant legislators who are paranoid.

We the people have two inputs regarding our laws and their enforcement:
1) At the beginning of the process we elect the legislators to make the laws.
2) At the conclusion we preside as jurors to determine what evidence is brought forward by the state along with the law created to arrive at a decision of guilt or innocence.

The judges are way out of line harassing jurors not to determine the law just the evidence. Judges should not be inquisitors, period. They are lawyers with robs on, nothing more. Just umpires. In fact, all should stand when the jury arrives in court, not when the judge appears.

The founding fathers and Chief Justices have numerous statements in the affirmative directly stating jurors will determine the "Law". The Fugitive Slave Laws were ignored in the Northern States by countless jurors prior to the Civil War. History is on our side, not the Judges in our courts.

[fumes]

04:40 PM on 12/23/2010

powers-that-be: 0

pitiful-pathetic-powerless-people: 1

[Acadieman]

11:08 AM on 12/23/2010

It baffles me that in the enlightened judgement of the state, its lawyers and judges, that putting a man away and taking him away from his infant daughter would somehow better society because he smoked the wrong type of leaf. Had it been tobacco, that would be fine. But taking parents away from children and children from parents almost always results in ruined lives and much higher societal costs.

[MadHeart]

07:47 AM on 12/23/2010

The People have spoken. What don't the "authorities" understand about this?

[Uncle Rico]

10:02 AM on 12/23/2010

Everything.

[Coinspinner]

01:14 PM on 12/24/2010

We'll clarify it for them over the next few cases hopefully.

Note to all: STOP plea bargaining pot cases.

[Intelligent Solar Ejecta]

04:06 AM on 12/23/2010

Just to bring this back on topic...

It turns out that this guy who was helped by the "jury mutiny" wasn't really just a small time pot user. http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_464bdc0a-0b36-11e0-a594-001cc4c03286.html This article has more info. He was a dealer and a known felon from Chicago. This information might have swayed the jurors once it became known to them.

Still, I support the notion that people are sick of a system that punishes people for marijuana use. People need to read up on "Jury Nullification" and practice it wherever and whenever possible. Even the judge in this case questions the logic of only being able to seat jurors who actually believe that possession of small quantities of grass should result in punishment. This is simply not a jury of anyone's peers.

By now, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that marijuana is not some evil drug that will ruin your life. The fact that we have been lied to only causes people to question the "official story" on other drugs which may or may not be as innocuous.

I am sure that everyone here already knows (for 25+ years) that this is not about the flowers of the Cannabis plant or their byproducts. Hemp was made illegal because of its industrial uses. The best biofuel we have is being kept from us. A natural source of plastic, paper, cloth, amino acids and more... google it.

[Bogstomper2]

07:22 AM on 12/23/2010

"Hemp was made illegal because of its industrial uses."

That's a a great post, but I want to correct something. The original prohibition of cannabis in the USA didn't happen for business reasons. According to the Schaffer Commission report, prohibition began around 1914. The country was awash in both patriotic and prohibitionist fervor, and all it took to pass a law against cannabis was someone complaining about "killer Mexicans."

Nobody bothered to check their facts before passing these laws. Most of the legislators voting to ban cannabis had no idea that the "Mexican weed" was a medical herb listed in the U.S Pharmacopoeia. They didn't care. They were politicians showboating for a frightened constituency.

Different story in the Anslinger years, but the first phase of the drug war was fueled by ignorance and fear.

"A natural source of plastic, paper, cloth, amino acids and more... google it."

It's almost impossible to exaggerate the usefulness of cannabis. It's like soybean and cotton combined in one plant. It's hardy. And it seems to be easy to breed it to enhance any of its natural properties. Our American farmers could spin weed into gold, if our laws weren't based on the ignorance of the past.

[Intelligent Solar Ejecta]

08:05 AM on 12/23/2010

Bravo.

True enough about the racism that enabled marijuana prohibition. William Randolph Hearst and his yellow journalism did their best to equate stories of Jimson Weed (Yerba Del Diablo, Datura, Angel's Trumpets, Belladona etc.) with Marijuana... they also tied it to the scary black jazz musicians who were starting to have sex with white women. [note: Datura is still legal]

I was under the impression that Cannabis wasn't illegalized on a national level until the Marijuana Tax Stamp Initiative of the late 30's. Considering that the year before that act, the Hemp Decorticator (a kind of Cotton Gin for Cannabis) was granted a patent... I still think that they primary rationale at the time was the unbeatable competition that Hemp presented towards cotton, logging, petrochemicals and the newly invented nylon.

The facts are that hemp will grow with little or no human attention from northern Alaska down to the equator. Corn, for instance, only grows well in 25 states. Hemp produces more biomass per acre in a shorter amount of time than corn... and 4 times as much paper per acre as trees. When you grow corn... you just get corn. When you grow hemp, you get pulp, fiber, seeds, leaves, flowers... and even the roots prevent topsoil erosion and put nitrogen into the soil.

Corn currently sells for $5.28 a bushel on the CME... what do you think the price for Hemp would be if it were legal?

[Kenneth Halverson]

09:17 AM on 12/23/2010

Yeah it was partially fear of mexicans and black jazz but it was also the pharmaceutical companies and William Randolf Hearst. hemp competed with new discoveries by scientists like nylon and morphine. The doctors of the AMA(American Medical Association) were takin by surprise cause they didnt associate the word marijuana with cannabis or hemp. by the time the AMA did figure out what the politicians were talking about there was only a few days to gather support for the medical uses Cannabis had and when the directors of the AMA finally arrived in washington it was one day before the vote.

[Intelligent Solar Ejecta]

03:53 AM on 12/23/2010

Hmmm... it seems that this board has been overrun by off topic links to Prince & Madonna videos. If BoyInBoycott is truly a Politics Pundit (as per his badge) then, his account has surely been hacked or is being used by one of his children.

Makes you wonder how they decide to ma-der-ate these posts... intelligent comments tossed and wholesale spamming, ok?

[Kenneth Halverson]

02:19 AM on 12/23/2010

where is the mod in this forum I have only read one post about the issue in the first five pages. if you people want to talk bout music then go to a site that is about frikin music.

[BoyInBOYCOTT]

02:00 AM on 12/23/2010

Nutcracker pas-de-deux
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRlIy1zNnyE
 
has anyone seen Black Swan?
I want to go this week

[hoodydoody]

03:27 AM on 12/23/2010

This 12 year old has had too much to drink!

[hoodydoody]

03:35 AM on 12/23/2010

Boy, we can't wait 'till your mother gets home!

[BoyInBOYCOTT]

04:04 AM on 12/23/2010

She died a decade ago...so I'd say she's HOME
 
now unless you want to impart another ignorant statement....you can FCK OFF

[Eileenla]

01:59 AM on 12/23/2010

Awesome! If the system doesn't see fit to enact the will of the people, let 'em enact their own will!

[hoodydoody]

03:30 AM on 12/23/2010

This 12 year old has had too much to drink!

[hoodydoody]

03:30 AM on 12/23/2010

This 12 year old has had too much to drink!

[LOL LoveOfLife]

01:52 AM on 12/23/2010

Heading towards a magical Christmas night ......remembering "what is beauty" ...... :

Swan Lake ....the ballet : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ea90L91eZk

Sweet dreams ; )

[BoyInBOYCOTT]

01:55 AM on 12/23/2010

sweet dreams

[hoodydoody]

03:31 AM on 12/23/2010

This 12 year old has had too much to drink!

[hoodydoody]

03:28 AM on 12/23/2010

This 12 year old has had too much to drink!

[hoodydoody]

03:28 AM on 12/23/2010

This 12 year old has had too much to drink!