cannabisnews.com: Petaluma Duo Acquitted In Pot Growing Case 





Petaluma Duo Acquitted In Pot Growing Case 
Posted by FoM on May 02, 2001 at 19:58:56 PT
By Eileen Morris, Argus-Courier Staff 
Source: Argus-Courier 
For the second time this year, a Sonoma County jury has done what the state Legislature has failed to do for the last three years: interpreted the California Medical Marijuana law. A jury last week found Ken Hayes and Michael Foley not guilty on several counts connected to the cultivation of 899 marijuana plants for distribution through a medical marijuana club in San Francisco. 
Hayes and Foley were arrested at their home on King Road in Petaluma in May of 1999. Police seized 899 plants, 15 pounds of dried marijuana, a pound of hashish, scales, receipts and a shotgun. At the time, Hayes was executive director of Cannabis Helping Alleviate Medical Problems, a San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary which had been honored by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sonoma County District Attorney Mike Mullins contended that Hayes and Foley could not be defined as "caregivers" under the Compassionate Use Act, because they did not have a one-to-one relationship with all the people to whom they provided marijuana. The act exempts caregivers and patients from prosecution, but does not define caregiver, quantify legal doses of marijuana, or detail how physicians can recommend marijuana use. Hayes was represented by William Panzer, co-author of the successful 1996 ballot measure which put medical marijuana on the books. Charges against Hayes' girlfriend Cheryl Sequeira were dropped during jury selection. Sequeira was being represented by Santa Rosa attorney Chris Andrian. Carla Claeys, who prosecuted the trial, attempted to convince the jury that Hayes was growing marijuana for profit, and questioned him minutely about his accounting systems and his knowledge of the over 1,000 people to whom he claimed to be giving care. San Francisco District Attorney Terrence Hallinan testified in Hayes' defense. After seven weeks of testimony, the jury deliberated for a little less than five hours before delivering its verdict. Earlier this year, a jury found Santa Rosa resident Allan McFarlane not guilty of criminal drug cultivation for his medical marijuana plants. State Sen. John Vasconcellos has introduced legislation to clarify the medical marijuana laws. Last week, his bill, SB 187, passed in the Health and Human Services Committee. It moves next to the appropriations committee. SB 187 contains most of the provisions of an earlier bill -- SB 848 -- which was drafted in 1999 by the Medical Marijuana Task Force, convened by Attorney General Bill Lockyer, and co-chaired by Vasconcellos. Mullins was a regular task force participant, and was "very much committed to working out a solution," Vasconcellos said Monday. "We had DAs, sheriffs, cops, narcs, patients, doctors and lawyers in the room," said Vasconcellos. "We worked for seven or eight months and came up with a plan that was elegant and balanced." Work on that earlier bill died when Governor Gray Davis let it be known that he would veto it. Mullins said Monday that Davis did not have unequivocal support for the 1999 bill from law enforcement organizations. "The big difference this year is that law enforcement were the ones pushing for a renewed effort," Vasconcellos said about the new bill. Mullins said that he met with representatives from the Police Chiefs and Sheriffs associations in Sacramento last month "to get some clarity and to iron out our differences." After their meeting, they asked Vasconcellos to resubmit the bill. Mullins said he was hopeful that the governor would sign it. The new bill would define "caregiver" more narrowly than the jury did, and it would prevent large growers in one county to provide for sick people in another county. It would also establish a medical marijuana registry and identification card system. "The public clearly wants people left alone who are sick and want to use medical marijuana," Vasconcellos said. "The law enforcement community has been surprisingly open to working things out." Mullins is meeting Thursday with representatives from all the law enforcement agencies in the county to review current practices in cases where marijuana may be being used or grown for medicinal purposes. Petaluma Police Chief Pat Parks said Monday that he is looking forward to the meeting. "It's very difficult right now for a police officer to enforce the law because the standards aren't very clear. Getting some concrete guidelines would be extremely beneficial to us." Despite Mullins' participation in the task force, Panzer said that he doubts that his work in Sonoma County is over. "Mullins is Captain Ahab trying to take down the great white whale of medical marijuana. He's going to go down with it," Panzer said, predicting defeat for Mullins in the next election. Panzer said that he would be applying to Lockyer for an investigation into an incident involving Claeys which occurred during the trial. At a shooting range, Claeys shot at two human-shaped targets on which her friends had scrawled Panzer's name and the name of Foley's attorney, Nicole DeFever. "She was showing off the paper targets to anyone who would look," said Panzer, who said that he felt threatened by Claeys' actions and viewed them as terrorist threats. Panzer objected to the fact that Claeys was recently promoted. Mullins confirmed that the target practice had occurred but said that he could not comment on a personnel matter. The promotion occurred before the verdict and had been in the works for several months, Mullins said. The district attorney said that he did not believe that his staff was currently preparing to bring any medical marijuana cases to trial. Source: Petaluma Argus-Courier (CA) Author: Eileen Morris, Argus-Courier Staff Published: April 25, 2001Copyright: 2001 Pulitzer Community Newspapers, Inc. Contact: csamson arguscourier.com Website: http://www.arguscourier.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:C.H.A.M.P.http://www.champsf.org/2 Acquitted in Medical Marijuana Case http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9407.shtmlSonoma County Jury Acquits Medical Pot Farmers http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9406.shtml
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