MAPTalk-Digest Wednesday, July 16 2014 Volume 14 : Number 010
001 CN ON: Column: Criminal Juries Can Serve As Society's Conscience
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
002 US CA: Pot Farmers Market Closed
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
003 US CO: Distinction Between Legal, Illegal Operations Becoming Hazy
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
004 CN ON: Column: Criminal Juries Can Serve As Society's Conscience
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
005 CN ON: Column: Judges Have No Power To Order A Jury To Convict
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subj: 001 CN ON: Column: Criminal Juries Can Serve As Society's Conscience
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 08:57:30 -0700
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Tracknum: override
Pubdate: Mon, 14 Jul 2014
Source: Observer, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014, Sarnia Observer
Contact: http://www.theobserver.ca/letters
Website: http://www.theobserver.ca
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1676
Author: Alan Shanoff
Page: A4
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/grant.htm (Krieger, Grant)
CRIMINAL JURIES CAN SERVE AS SOCIETY'S CONSCIENCE
My column last Sunday advocating the abolition of civil jury trials
caused some confusion.
To be clear, I am not advocating the abolition of juries for criminal trials.
The right to a jury trial is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms for anyone charged with an offence - other than
under military law - for which there is a potential sentence of five
years or more.
More noteworthy is the fact a criminal jury can serve as society's conscience.
That's because criminal juries have the power to refuse to convict
obviously guilty people.
Juries can do this by refusing to apply the law.
This power represents "the citizen's ultimate protection against
oppressive laws and the oppressive enforcement of the law", according
to a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
In essence, jury nullification allows jurors to judge our laws as
well as the accused who appear before them.
Judges have no power to order a jury to convict.
That's been the case since at least 1670, when two Quakers were
prosecuted in England for unlawful assembly after publicly preaching
their views.
The judge, incensed at the jury's refusal to convict, fined the jurors.
Four of the jurors were imprisoned after failing to pay the fines.
Ultimately, the four were released with an appellate judge overruling
the trial judge and affirming the jury's independence.
There is a long, proud tradition of jury nullification based on
English Common Law, with jurors refusing to convict all manner of
people charged under unjust laws or laws prescribing unjust penalties.
A jury declared Joseph Howe not guilty of seditious libel in an 1835
pre-Confederation Canadian prosecution.
Howe, a newspaper publisher, had been charged with seditious libel
after publishing a letter accusing politicians of corruption.
He was clearly guilty and the trial judge told the jury they should
find Howe guilty, but the jury came back with a not guilty verdict in
under 10 minutes.
More recently, in the 1970s and 1980s, juries used this power to
acquit Henry Morgantaler of criminal abortion charges of which he was
clearly guilty.
At that time, legal abortions could only be performed in a hospital
and only after approval by the hospital's therapeutic abortion committee.
Morgentaler, however, performed abortions outside hospitals and
without any committee approvals, yet four juries refused to convict him.
The last significant Canadian case of jury nullification arose in the
1999 prosecution of Grant Wayne Krieger of Alberta who had been
charged with unlawfully producing marijuana.
Krieger, suffering from multiple sclerosis, used pot for medicinal purposes.
He also admitted to supplying the drug to other ill people.
The trial judge directed the jury "to retire to the jury room ... and
then to return to the court with a verdict of guilty."
When some jurors balked, the judge said "(i)t is apparent that some
of the members either didn't understand my direction this morning,
that is that they were to return a verdict of guilty ... or they
refused to do so."
The jury then came back with a guilty verdict but Krieger appealed.
The Supreme Court of Canada quashed the conviction, ruling the trial
judge erred in forcing the jury to convict.
The judge had wrongly taken away the right of jury nullification.
There's no way of knowing how frequently juries exercise their
nullification rights as our laws prohibit jurors from disclosing
information about their deliberations, save in very limited circumstances.
Instances of jury nullification, however, are likely rare in Canada
as our law doesn't permit either defence lawyers or judges to advise
jurors of their nullification rights.
Clearly juries have performed a valuable role in the development and
enforcement of our criminal law.
It's a pity, however, that juries aren't told of their rich history
and their absolute power.
------------------------------
Subj: 002 US CA: Pot Farmers Market Closed
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 08:58:27 -0700
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Tracknum: 17121.201407161435.s6gezq70017084
Pubdate: Wed, 16 Jul 2014
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Los Angeles Times
Contact:
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Veronica Rocha
POT FARMERS MARKET CLOSED
L.A. Wins a Temporary Restraining Order Against the Medical Marijuana Bazaar.
A Boyle Heights farmers market for medical marijuana users has been
temporarily shut down by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.
The judge's ruling Tuesday grants a temporary restraining order
sought by Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer to stop the California
Heritage Market operations, saying it failed to comply with the
city's voter approved law regulating marijuana dispensaries.
"The bottom line is that we argued successfully that this so-called
farmers market was an attempt to make an end-run around the will of
the people," Feuer said. "The court saw through this subterfuge."
Los Angeles voters passed Proposition D last year, establishing legal
parameters under which marijuana dispensaries could do business in the city.
The court's ruling, Feuer said, supports the "spirit and the letter
of Proposition D."
The cannabis market opened to a booming business over the Fourth of
July weekend, attracting hundreds of customers and an array of
growers offering marijuana buds with airy names such as Blue Dream
and Banana Kush along with marijuana-infused balms, sunblock,
lollipops, tea and even a waffle mix.
Customers, who were required to show their IDs and prove they could
legally buy pot, said they appreciated being able to cut the
"middleman" out of the equation and buy their product at a discount
straight from the growers.
Jamie Brown of First Choice Farms said he found the marketplace to be
"absolute genius," a place where customers could find out about
different strains of marijuana.
But the temporary injunction issued Tuesday halts all that for now by
restricting the market's operators from setting up booths and
advertising it, according to legal documents.
Police and fire officials must also be granted access to the site.
"The court was very clear: There could be no multiple vendors selling
at this site, only bona fide employees," Feuer said.
The market - which attracted both old and young, tattooed and
clean-cut - was held over the Fourth of July weekend in a warehouse
directly behind the West Coast Collective dispensary in an industrial
zone in Boyle Heights.
The following weekend, the market opened again.
Proposition D, Feuer said, does not allow multiple, independent
vendors to sell on one site.
"That's essentially what this business model was," Feuer said.
But attorney David Welch, who represents the Progressive Horizon
collective, said Feuer's argument doesn't make sense.
He said a farmers market is no different from a dispensary in that
they both sell goods from a variety of vendors.
"Their arguments are basically a misunderstanding on how this
business operates," he said.
The city's actions, Welch said, were essentially proving that "you
can't actually open a marijuana dispensary" in Los Angeles.
A hearing is scheduled Aug. 6 to determine whether the market will be
permanently closed.
------------------------------
Subj: 003 US CO: Distinction Between Legal, Illegal Operations Becoming Hazy
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 08:58:18 -0700
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Tracknum: 30603.201407151445.s6fejofq030578
Pubdate: Tue, 15 Jul 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/DSNk6lzj
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold
Page: 1A
DISTINCTION BETWEEN LEGAL, ILLEGAL OPERATIONS BECOMING HAZY
As far as marijuana grow operations go, the three warehouses in
southwest Denver certainly looked legit.
They were in areas where commercial cultivation operations are
common. They had wireless security cameras, build-out plans drawn up
by an architecture firm and contracts with a carbon-dioxide supplier.
They even employed a security company often hired by legal marijuana
businesses.
But, according to search warrants filed in Denver District Court,
they lacked one key component: a license.
A worker at one of the grows nabbed by police told detectives, "he
did not know if it was licensed, but was pretty sure it was not
legal," according to a search warrant affidavit.
When police raided the warehouses in February and March, they took
nearly 1,300 plants.
But Denver authorities have yet to file charges against anyone
connected to the warehouses, and a police spokesman said the case is
ongoing. Far from an old-fashioned slam bang marijuana bust, the case
has come to show how difficult police say it now is to investigate
suspected illegal marijuana growing in Colorado.
"We're seeing some trends toward placing illegal grows near legal
grows," Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said. "But every case
is different. ... Just because a grow is unlicensed doesn't mean it's illegal."
Since the passage of limited marijuana legalization in Colorado in
2012, law enforcement officials say many agencies are making fewer
busts of illegal marijuana distributors and seizing fewer illegally
grown plants, though comprehensive numbers aren't yet available.
But those same officials contend the drop-off comes not from a
decline in illegal growing but from an increased hesitance of
detectives to make busts in a state where the margins of legal and
illegal cultivation can be blurry. What's more, if police seize and
destroy marijuana later deemed to be legal, they could be sued for damages.
"People are unsure of what they can and can't do," Tom Gorman, the
director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area,
said of investigators. "People are shying away. There's a lot of
confusion out there by law enforcement."
Adults in Colorado are allowed to grow up to six marijuana plants in
their homes or other enclosed spaces. Medical marijuana patients and
caregivers, however, may be able to grow more. Commercial grow
operations need a license, but that can be the subject of prolonged
administrative processes.
Search warrants detailing what raids there have been show that police
believe some suspected illegal growers are trying to capitalize on
the confusion.
The three warehouses in southwest Denver - on South Jason and South
Kalamath streets- are an example.
Also this year, Denver police raided another suspected illegal grow
in a warehouse district popular with legal growers, as well as a
suspected illegal marijuana distribution operation that advertised
itself with its own website.
The Denver district attorney's office has charged three people in
connection with a hash-oil explosion at an unlicensed warehouse in the city.
Jim Gerhardt, a sergeant with the North Metro Drug Task Force in
Adams and Broomfield counties, said most of the unlicensed grows
detectives have busted in his area are in homes. But he said the task
force's number of busts "are way down" this year, something he
attributed to pot legalization.
When anyone over 21 can grow up to six plants, it's tougher for
police to unravel whether the plants they find are legal or not.
"There's a ton of grow operations out there," Gerhardt said. "There's
a ton of activity in the community. It's just not as easy to
investigate as it was."
Marijuana advocates, however, say police claims of investigative
hardship are overstated.
MasonTvert, one of legalization's most visible proponents in
Colorado, said the basic police work behind marijuana cases today
remains unchanged: Figure out what's going on and apply it to the law.
"They were counting marijuana plants and determining what the penalty
should be before," Tvert said. "And that's the same as it is today.
.. It's really difficult to see why this is so confusing."
------------------------------
Subj: 004 CN ON: Column: Criminal Juries Can Serve As Society's Conscience
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 08:57:51 -0700
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Tracknum: override
Pubdate: Mon, 14 Jul 2014
Source: Niagara Falls Review, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Niagara Falls Review
Contact: http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/letters
Website: http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2907
Author: Alan Shanoff
Page: A4
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/grant.htm (Krieger, Grant)
CRIMINAL JURIES CAN SERVE AS SOCIETY'S CONSCIENCE
My column last Sunday advocating the abolition of civil jury trials
caused some confusion.
To be clear, I am not advocating the abolition of juries for criminal trials.
The right to a jury trial is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms for anyone charged with an offence - other than
under military law - for which there is a potential sentence of five
years or more.
More noteworthy is the fact a criminal jury can serve as society's conscience.
That's because criminal juries have the power to refuse to convict
obviously guilty people.
Juries can do this by refusing to apply the law.
This power represents "the citizen's ultimate protection against
oppressive laws and the oppressive enforcement of the law", according
to a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
In essence, jury nullification allows jurors to judge our laws as
well as the accused who appear before them.
Judges have no power to order a jury to convict.
That's been the case since at least 1670, when two Quakers were
prosecuted in England for unlawful assembly after publicly preaching
their views.
The judge, incensed at the jury's refusal to convict, fined the jurors.
Four of the jurors were imprisoned after failing to pay the fines.
Ultimately, the four were released with an appellate judge overruling
the trial judge and affirming the jury's independence.
There is a long, proud tradition of jury nullification based on
English Common Law, with jurors refusing to convict all manner of
people charged under unjust laws or laws prescribing unjust penalties.
A jury declared Joseph Howe not guilty of seditious libel in an 1835
pre-Confederation Canadian prosecution.
Howe, a newspaper publisher, had been charged with seditious libel
after publishing a letter accusing politicians of corruption.
He was clearly guilty and the trial judge told the jury they should
find Howe guilty, but the jury came back with a not guilty verdict in
under 10 minutes.
More recently, in the 1970s and 1980s, juries used this power to
acquit Henry Morgantaler of criminal abortion charges of which he was
clearly guilty.
At that time, legal abortions could only be performed in a hospital
and only after approval by the hospital's therapeutic abortion committee.
Morgentaler, however, performed abortions outside hospitals and
without any committee approvals, yet four juries refused to convict him.
The last significant Canadian case of jury nullification arose in the
1999 prosecution of Grant Wayne Krieger of Alberta who had been
charged with unlawfully producing marijuana.
Krieger, suffering from multiple sclerosis, used pot for medicinal purposes.
He also admitted to supplying the drug to other ill people.
The trial judge directed the jury "to retire to the jury room ... and
then to return to the court with a verdict of guilty."
When some jurors balked, the judge said "(i)t is apparent that some
of the members either didn't understand my direction this morning,
that is that they were to return a verdict of guilty ... or they
refused to do so."
The jury then came back with a guilty verdict but Krieger appealed.
The Supreme Court of Canada quashed the conviction, ruling the trial
judge erred in forcing the jury to convict.
The judge had wrongly taken away the right of jury nullification.
There's no way of knowing how frequently juries exercise their
nullification rights as our laws prohibit jurors from disclosing
information about their deliberations, save in very limited circumstances.
Instances of jury nullification, however, are likely rare in Canada
as our law doesn't permit either defence lawyers or judges to advise
jurors of their nullification rights.
Clearly juries have performed a valuable role in the development and
enforcement of our criminal law.
It's a pity, however, that juries aren't told of their rich history
and their absolute power.
------------------------------
Subj: 005 CN ON: Column: Judges Have No Power To Order A Jury To Convict
From: Jay Bergstrom <>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 08:58:09 -0700
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Tracknum: 15566.201407151552.s6ffqjpf022523
Pubdate: Tue, 15 Jul 2014
Source: Simcoe Reformer, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Sun Media
Contact: http://www.simcoereformer.ca/letters
Website: http://simcoereformer.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2386
Author: Alan Shanoff
Page: A4
Referenced: Melanie Janelle Murchison's master's thesis, Law,
Morality and Social Discourse: Jury Nullification in a Canadian
Context: http://mapinc.org/url/7TQAne8Z
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/grant.htm (Krieger, Grant)
JUDGES HAVE NO POWER TO ORDER A JURY TO CONVICT
Judges can't force jurors to find people guilty under unfair laws
My column last Sunday advocating the abolition of civil jury trials
caused some confusion.
To be clear, I am not advocating the abolition of juries for criminal trials.
The right to a jury trial is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms for anyone charged with an offence - other than
under military law - for which there is a potential sentence of five
years or more.
More noteworthy is the fact a criminal jury can serve as society's conscience.
That's because criminal juries have the power to refuse to convict
obviously guilty people.
Juries can do this by refusing to apply the law.
This power represents "the citizen's ultimate protection against
oppressive laws and the oppressive enforcement of the law", according
to a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
In essence, jury nullification allows jurors to judge our laws as
well as the accused who appear before them.
Judges have no power to order a jury to convict.
That's been the case since at least 1670, when two Quakers were
prosecuted in England for unlawful assembly after publicly preaching
their views.
The judge, incensed at the jury's refusal to convict, fined the jurors.
Four of the jurors were imprisoned after failing to pay the fines.
Ultimately, the four were released with an appellate judge overruling
the trial judge and affirming the jury's independence.
There is a long, proud tradition of jury nullification based on
English Common Law, with jurors refusing to convict all manner of
people charged under unjust laws or laws prescribing unjust penalties.
A jury declared Joseph Howe not guilty of seditious libel in an 1835
pre-Confederation Canadian prosecution.
Howe, a newspaper publisher, had been charged with seditious libel
after publishing a letter accusing politicians of corruption.
He was clearly guilty and the trial judge told the jury they should
find Howe guilty, but the jury came back with a not guilty verdict in
under 10 minutes.
More recently, in the 1970s and 1980s, juries used this power to
acquit Henry Morgantaler of criminal abortion charges of which he was
clearly guilty.
At that time, legal abortions could only be performed in a hospital
and only after approval by the hospital's therapeutic abortion committee.
Morgentaler, however, performed abortions outside hospitals and
without any committee approvals, yet four juries refused to convict him.
The last significant Canadian case of jury nullification arose in the
1999 prosecution of Grant Wayne Krieger of Alberta who had been
charged with unlawfully producing marijuana.
Krieger, suffering from multiple sclerosis, used pot for medicinal purposes.
He also admitted to supplying the drug to other ill people.
The trial judge directed the jury "to retire to the jury room ... and
then to return to the court with a verdict of guilty."
When some jurors balked, the judge said "(i)t is apparent that some
of the members either didn't understand my direction this morning,
that is that they were to return a verdict of guilty ... or they
refused to do so."
The jury then came back with a guilty verdict but Krieger appealed.
The Supreme Court of Canada quashed the conviction, ruling the trial
judge erred in forcing the jury to convict.
The judge had wrongly taken away the right of jury nullification.
There's no way of knowing how frequently juries exercise their
nullification rights as our laws prohibit jurors from disclosing
information about their deliberations, save in very limited circumstances.
Instances of jury nullification, however, are likely rare in Canada
as our law doesn't permit either defence lawyers or judges to advise
jurors of their nullification rights.
Clearly juries have performed a valuable role in the development and
enforcement of our criminal law.
It's a pity, however, that juries aren't told of their rich history
and their absolute power.
For more information on jury nullification, readers are encouraged to
read Melanie Janelle Murchison's master's thesis, Law, Morality and
Social Discourse: Jury Nullification in a Canadian Context, which is
available online.
------------------------------
End of MAPTalk-Digest V14 #10
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