cannabisnews.com: Kubby Denied Change in Bail, Jail Conditions


cannabisnews.com: Kubby Denied Change in Bail, Jail Conditions 





Kubby Denied Change in Bail, Jail Conditions 
Posted by FoM on April 08, 2001 at 18:38:47 PT
By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer 
Source: Auburn Journal
A Placer County Superior Court judge said Friday he wants to have a closer look at whether California's Proposition 36 could apply to Steve Kubby's sentence on drug charges.Judge John Cosgrove considered a motion by Kubby to commute a 120-day jail sentence that had been imposed March 2 for misdemeanor convictions for possession of a magic mushroom stem and peyote buttons. He decided to hold a hearing April 27 on the potential of applying Prop. 36 to Kubby's case.
"It may cause some modification," Cosgrove said. "I think it deserves a look."Passed last year by California voters, Prop. 36 mandates treatment instead of jail time for the first two convictions on drug possession charges. At sentencing, Cosgrove had denied a motion by Defense Attorney Carol Hagin to delay sentencing until after July 1, when the proposition takes effect.Kubby said he can't afford home monitoring – the alternative to 120 days in the Placer County Jail. And he said that if he did serve the jail sentence, that he feared for his life.A hearing date was set for 1:30 p.m. April 27 in Cosgrove's court.Kubby was tried last year on possession-of-marijuana-for-sale charges connected with a Jan. 19, 1999, raid on his Olympic Valley home that netted 265 pot plants. He and his wife had doctors' recommendations to use and grow marijuana under Proposition 215.Cosgrove declared a mistrial after a jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal. But Kubby was convicted on felony magic mushroom and peyote possession counts that Cosgrove reduced to misdemeanors at the sentencing.Kubby described any jail time in Placer County as "a death sentence" because law enforcement officers and jailers consider his use of marijuana as medicine to keep him alive a "fraud." Kubby has been diagnosed with a rare form of adrenal cancer and testified pot has kept him from dying.Kubby said it was unlikely he would get help from jail personnel if he told them he was having a stroke or heart attack.Saying that the last two years of litigation have resulted in his own bankruptcy and a financial situation where he doesn't know whether his family will have food to eat by the end of the month, Kubby asked Cosgrove for "closure.""I believe you have the key in your hand to end this nightmare," Kubby said.Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran told Cosgrove that the court doesn't have jurisdiction to modify probation unless there is a change in circumstances."The facts are still the same as they were at a rather extensive sentencing hearing," Cattran said. He also argued that Prop. 36 has no bearing on the case because charges were filed in January 1999 and proceedings were delayed mostly by the defense. Source: Auburn Journal (CA)Author: Gus Thomson, Journal Staff WriterPublished: April 8, 2001Copyright: 2001 Auburn JournalContact: ajournal foothill.netWebsite: http://www.auburnjournal.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:The Kubby Fileshttp://www.kubby.org/California's Proposition 36http://www.drugreform.org/Medical Pot Group Targets Placer DA http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9293.shtmlKubby Asks Supes To Stop Pot Raids http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9091.shtmlKubby Says He Won't Accept Terms of Sentencinghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9079.shtml
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Comment #10 posted by dedbr on April 11, 2001 at 03:36:28 PT:
Kubby
   Would you rather have him dead than alive and still fighting for us?If he goes to jail that is a very real possibility.
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Comment #9 posted by Jeaneous on April 09, 2001 at 15:28:21 PT:
Pee Tests
Actually, I live in California too, and I was sentenced to drug diversion. I presented the Sacramento County Probation Department my written recommendation for marijuana and it was listed on my medications list. They "did" honor "dirty" pee tests in my program. Kubby should shoot for "36", it will allow him to live his life rather normally, and legally, with his medication. 
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Comment #8 posted by kaptinemo on April 09, 2001 at 09:30:30 PT:
Bang on target, Observer!
And many thanks for the refernces. I've not had the time lately to do much research; especially into the kind of mindsets that seem to inhabit the craniums of the antis. I've tended to think the Apollonian/Dionysian refernces myself, (Apollonians like restrictive social order and distrust the new; Dionysians celebrate change, openness and diversity) but the Freudian ones are dead ringers.And seeing how so much of the anti diatribes, when distilled down into their basic components, seem to resemble little more than the screams of infants that demand they get their way, the 'anal retentive' sobriquet is most apt. 
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Comment #7 posted by Dan B on April 09, 2001 at 07:31:31 PT:
Kubby Admiration
I applaud and admire Steve Kubby's stand here. As others have said, he is truly placing his health--ultimately his life--on the line, and I would place him right up there with Patrick Henry ("Give me Liberty or Give me Death!") on the courage scale.I have watched all of his Kubby Files shows and have read many of his words. He is an intelligent, articulate, personable spokesman for our cause. Although I haven't met the man, I feel like I know him, and I greatly respect all that he has done and is doing.God Bless You, Kubby Family! Dan B
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Comment #6 posted by greenfox on April 09, 2001 at 06:11:11 PT
When I do speak...
I must comment on this "political" based attempt to silence Kubby. Kubby has been on the front lines of this "war on drugs" since the beginning. He is partly responsible for Prop215 and its makings, and also has put his health, family, and financial (sp?) life on the line for the cause.What does he get in return? It makes me sick, really.-gf
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Comment #5 posted by J.R. Bob Dobbs on April 09, 2001 at 04:57:56 PT
Steve is a very brave man
>>Sounds like he got a real good deal, anyway.Just wear the bracelet, Steve and live to tell us more.  I disagree. Fight the bracelet. Steve is right - if he goes on probation, it'll just be an excuse for the prosecutors to go after him again for some "probation violation". They'll urine-test him, to see if he's taking his medicine, and that'll count as a probation violation. It really is absurd. It sucks that he really does have to tell them to choose between his liberty and his death, but it takes a very brave man to make this kind of stand. 
Steve and Michelle's RealVideo show on Pot-TV: The Kubby Files
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Comment #4 posted by dedbr on April 09, 2001 at 03:00:22 PT:
Kubby
   Compassion.Isn't that what Steve Kubby wants?The fact is that society is not going to be served by this man dying in a county jail.But....   People die in jail every day.Hope ole Steve doesn't join them.   Sounds like he got a real good deal, anyway.Just wear the bracelet,Steve and live to tell us more.
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on April 08, 2001 at 21:53:50 PT
bad scene
Isnt it absurd to see this type of vicious persual of a harmlessperson....And it becomes even more remarkable when you considerthe fact that this type of lopsided,senseless legal Hate,,is quitecommon. These prosecuters who persue these innocents,are not much morethan government sanctioned hate cults.There is absolutely no dicernable reason for these people to continueto harass Mr Kubby,unless it is ordered from the upper ranks.Strange new world....d.d..d...d...
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Comment #2 posted by observer on April 08, 2001 at 20:35:27 PT
how do they sleep at night?
 i believe society would be better off releasing the non-violent drug offenders . . . how do they sleep at night? In smug self-righteousness, they are are satisfied with themselves, that they have punished the wicked 60's people with their dangerous counter-culture attitudes. They have done God's work; they have saved The Children; they rest well from their labours thinking they do God service by putting down drugies.That society has deployed its resources exactly opposite of strategic rationality suggests either mass stupidity or that reduction of violence and other real harm is not the purpose of criminal justice authority. This alternative hypothesis itself requires explanation. If the criminal code is not meant to primarily produce safety, then what is its product? One answer has already been given. Illegal drugs may be safer from a public health perspective than alcohol and tobacco, but they carry elements of counter-culture, ethnic diversity and deviance. The criminal code serves as a mechanism to try to affirm traditional culture within a population that is significantly broader in its behaviors and sociology. This role of cultural enforcement is similarly suggested in the punishment of sexual conduct, pornography and prostitution. Emphasis on criminal justice as means to cultural purification is a big portion of why the Constitutional promises regarding limitation of police power have so thoroughly retreated. Lack of social rationality in the deployment of criminal justice resources is further explained by consideration of who does benefit from public policy emphasis on crimes against culture.David Sadofsky Baggins, Drug Hate and the Corruption of American Justice, 1998, pg. 25http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275959/0275959562.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275959562/. . .Studies suggest insight as to why conservatives have focused so much of their attention on drugs. One scaled 4-year-old children on an index of creativity and adventure seeking to find that such characteristics are the greatest predictor of recreational use of marijuana in subsequent high-school years. Drug users are perhaps by personality disposed to be the least obedient to orthodoxy and convention just as the orthodox are most disposed to believe that social rules must be reinforced with persecution of the non-conformists. Conflict over drug use is the great continuation of the unending dialectic between what Freud called anal retentive personalities and their natural opponents, the oral compulsives. Rule lovers are in a constant effort to bring rule breakers to task, while rule breakers seek new horizons for their will to creative non-conformity. . . .William Bennett as Drug Czar and prophet of religious virtue expressed the identity of the drug war best. As Secretary of Education, he argued that the "cultural war" must be fought against "bilingual education, multiculturalism and the chasing of God from the classroom." As Drug Czar he proclaimed that there was no need to consider the public health or public safety costs of the drug war because "the simple fact is drug use is wrong. And the moral argument in the end is the most compelling argument."Drug Hate, p. 98,99http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275959562/  
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Comment #1 posted by lookinside on April 08, 2001 at 19:45:37 PT:
sanity?
i'm afraid we live in a sick society...where prosecutorswill insist on punishing a sick person to win favor withtheir superiors is a sign of inhumanity...they got theirconviction...now suspend the sentence in the name ofjustice...any other outcome is purely vindictiveness from acrooked legal system...that's right...it's my belief thatEVERY DA's office in california is CROOKED...self servingservants of nobody...i believe society would be better offreleasing the non-violent drug offenders and placing all theprosecuting attorneys in the state in their place...  i like to think that these asst. DA's will serve theirkharmic sentence as innocent prisoners for dozens oflifetimes after their tour as "protectors of society"  how do they sleep at night?
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