cannabisnews.com: Home Pot Growers Face Longer Sentences 





Home Pot Growers Face Longer Sentences 
Posted by CN Staff on October 19, 2002 at 10:26:34 PT
Torstar News Service 
Source: Toronto Star 
Kitchener — People convicted of operating large-scale marijuana grows in residential areas have a greater chance of going to jail following a landmark decision this week by the Ontario Court of Appeal, a Kitchener drug prosecutor says."The appeal basically, as far as the Crown is concerned, confirms that conditional sentences are most often not appropriate" for pot growers who endanger the lives of neighbours and others in the community, said David Rowcliffe, a federal drug prosecutor, who heads a Kitchener-based satellite office of the federal Department of Justice.
"The Crown will be using the Court of Appeal decision as a precedent for all future sentencing," Rowcliffe said.Even Hal Mattson, a Kitchener lawyer who represents many of the people charged locally with these indoor grows, said the decision will decrease the possibility of future conditional sentences, the most common sentence given in local cases. Rowcliffe called the decision a "test case," as it should give the lower courts guidance on sentencing. Locally, the sentences have ranged from suspended sentences to 15 months in jail for this crime. More than 100 cases are slowly moving through the court system.The case that caused the three appellant judges to turn their eye, for the first time, to this crime involved a two-year sentence a Stoney Creek man received last June for turning his family home into a large-scale grow operation.In sentencing Khuong Van Nguyen last June, Justice Bernd Zabel of Hamilton said courts across Canada have tended to treat residential grow operations leniently, but it was now time to make the "risk-reward ratio" less favourable for these people."They have invaded our community with apparent impunity," Zabel said in June."They have boldly entered residential areas where our citizens have saved to purchase dream homes for themselves and their families only to be confronted with large scale, high risk criminal activity on their street and even next door," the judge said.Nguyen's defence lawyer appealed the sentence saying it was too harsh, and Rowcliffe, who was the Crown who argued the case before the Ontario Court of Appeal, said he argued that the sentence was appropriate considering the negative impact of such operations on communities.The appellant court agreed that jail was appropriate, but said two years less a day was too long. Instead, they imposed a sentence of time already served, which Rowcliffe said amounted to about 14 months."We agree that the trial judge was entitled to decline to impose a conditional sentence in light of the evidence of increasing prevalence of this form of offence in the local communities," and the danger caused by bypassing hydro lines to steal the large amounts of electricity needed to grow the plants, the three higher court judges ruled."However, in our view, the trial judge failed to give sufficient weight to the fact that the appellant (Nguyen) was a first offender; and that he (the trial judge) overemphasized the evidence of increasing prevalence when he imposed a sentence that is beyond the range for similar offences in Ontario," the judges said in their hand-written decision.Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)Published: October 18, 2002Copyright: 2002 The Toronto Star Contact: lettertoed thestar.com Website: http://www.thestar.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmPolice Drug Squad Hit with Lawsuitshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14449.shtmlSpotlight On Vancouver http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13650.shtmlU.S. Pot War Comes Northhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11937.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #1 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on October 19, 2002 at 11:01:36 PT
LTE
Sirs,  Why are homes that grow marijuana dangerous to their community, and yet the Canadian government's own mine shaft in Flin Flon, Manitoba, is not considered dangerous? Could it be that the Flin Flon operation was installed by certified electricians and run by people who pay for their own electricity? If there was a system of legally licenced commercial growing operations, could they not be held accountable to the same standards? And if the public could buy their marijuana from a licensed retail outlet for less than it costs on the black market, would there be any need for the illegal grow operations to continue?
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment