Charles “Eddy” Lepp Sentenced To 10 Years

[Jim Finnel]

A Lake County man who pushed the boundaries of medical marijuana laws by growing more than 20,000 pot plants in plain view was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel ordered Charles “Eddy” Lepp, 56, to turn himself in to federal authorities July 6, said U.S. Attorney Dave Hall.

Lepp was convicted last year of conspiracy to possess marijuana with the intent to distribute more than 1,000 pot plants and of cultivating more than 1,000 plants.

Ten years was the minimum mandatory sentence, Hall said.

Lepp’s attorneys had argued that Lepp should not go to prison because he is in poor health.

Lepp also will be subject to five years of supervised release following his prison sentence, Hall said.

Lepp has said he will appeal last year’s conviction. He claims he is entitled to use pot for religious and medical reasons, but was not allowed to use those claims during his federal trial. Federal authorities do not recognize medical marijuana.

Lepp’s conviction stems from a 2004 raid on his Upper Lake pot operation, where authorities said they seized about 25,000 plants. Lepp has said the number of plants was higher.

High Times magazine, a publication focused on marijuana production and laws, said it was the single largest crop of medical pot seized in the United States. The plants were grown in neat rows in plain view of Highway 20 and next door to a strawberry field.

Investigators estimated the crop could have been worth more than $80 million had they been allowed to mature.


News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: PressDemocrat.com
Author: GLENDA ANDERSON
Copyright: 2009 PressDemocrat.com
Contact: Contact Us | PressDemocrat.com | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA
Website: Lake County pot grower sentenced to 10 years in prison | PressDemocrat.com | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA

 

[Jim Finnel]

This is just the first article I've seen and wanted you all to know. More details will be posted as they are found.

You can learn more about Eddy Lepp here:
Cannabis Warrior of the Month - Eddy Lepp

End Mandatory Minimums

With this happening on the same day - U.S. Supreme Court Affirms California's Medical Marijuana Law how can this be reconciled? This is wrong and I'm angry. This must not stand. People have brought up civil disobedience in the past and I've said not yet. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is time. Maybe short of civil disobedience we could flood obama again like we did before. We Need To Do Something!

 

[brider]

Their is a law in the united states of america where if the juriors do not agree that the charge the person is geting charge with should be a crime they can throw the whole case out.Like if you get caught growing marijuana but not selling it and the people of your good county feal like growing marijuana should not be a crime,they have the right to strike down the charge on the grounds that growing and consuming the plant should not be against the law.The judge is not requird to tell the jurious this,so they chose not too.

 

[Jim Finnel]

^

Jury Nullification
by Doug Linder (2001)

What is jury nullification?Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a verdict of "Not Guilty" despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation charged. The jury in effect nullifies a law that it believes is either immoral or wrongly applied to the defendant whose fate that are charged with deciding.

When has jury nullification been practiced?The most famous nullification case is the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, charged with printing seditious libels of the Governor of the Colony of New York, William Cosby. Despite the fact that Zenger clearly printed the alleged libels, the only issue the court said the jury was open to decide as the truth or falsity of the statements was ruled to be irrelevant, the jury returned with a verdict of "Not Guilty."

Jury nullification appeared at other times in our history when the government has tried to enforce morally repugnant or unpopular laws. In the early 1800s, nullification was practiced in cases brought under the Alien and Sedition Act. In the mid 1800s, northern juries practiced nullification in prosecutions brought against individuals accused of harboring slaves in violation of the Fugitive Slave Laws. And in the Prohibition Era of the 1930s, many juries practiced nullification in prosecutions brought against individuals accused of violating alcohol control laws.

More recent examples of nullification might include acquittals of "mercy killers," including Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and minor drug offenders.

Do juries have the right to nullify?Juries clearly have the power to nullify; whether they also have the right to nullify is another question. Once a jury returns a verdict of "Not Guilty," that verdict cannot be questioned by any court and the "double jeopardy" clause of the Constitution prohibits a retrial on the same charge.

Early in our history, judges often informed jurors of their nullification right. For example, our first Chief Justice, John Jay, told jurors: "You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge [both the facts and law]." In 1805, one of the charges against Justice Samuel Chase in his impeachment trial was that he wrongly prevented an attorney from arguing to a jury that the law should not be followed.

Judicial acceptance of nullification began to wane, however, in the late 1800s. In 1895, in United States v Sparf, the U. S. Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 to uphold the conviction in a case in which the trial judge refused the defense attorney's request to let the jury know of their nullification power.

Courts recently have been reluctant to encourage jury nullification, and in fact have taken several steps to prevent it. In most jurisdictions, judges instruct jurors that it is their duty to apply the law as it is given to them, whether they agree with the law or not. Only in a handful of states are jurors told that they have the power to judge both the facts and the law of the case. Most judges also will prohibit attorneys from using their closing arguments to directly appeal to jurors to nullify the law.

Recently, several courts have indicated that judges also have the right, when it is brought to their attention by other jurors, to remove (prior to a verdict, of course) from juries any juror who makes clear his or her intention to vote to nullify the law.

If jurors have the power to nullify, shouldn't they be told so?That's a good question. As it stands now, jurors must learn of their power to nullify from extra-legal sources such as televised legal dramas, novels, or articles about juries that they might have come across. Some juries will understand that they do have the power to nullify, while other juries may be misled by judges into thinking that they must apply the law exactly as it is given. Many commentators have suggested that it is unfair to have a defendant's fate depend upon whether he is lucky enough to have a jury that knows it has the power to nullify.

Judges have worried that informing jurors of their power to nullify will lead to jury anarchy, with jurors following their own sympathies. They suggest that informing of the power to nullify will increase the number of hung juries. Some judges also have pointed out that jury nullification has had both positive and negative applications--the negative applications including some notorious cases in which all-white southern juries in the 1950s and 1960s refused to convict white supremacists for killing blacks or civil rights workers despite overwhelming evidence of their guilt. Finally, some judges have argued that informing jurors of their power to nullify places too much weight on their shoulders--that is easier on jurors to simply decide facts, not the complex issues that may be presented in decisions about the morality or appropriateness of laws.

On the other hand, jury nullification provides an important mechanism for feedback. Jurors sometimes use nullification to send messages to prosecutors about misplaced enforcement priorities or what they see as harassing or abusive prosecutions. Jury nullification prevents our criminal justice system from becoming too rigid--it provides some play in the joints for justice, if jurors use their power wisely.

Source

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.[Edmund Burke]

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them [Henry David Thoreau]

 

[tee420]

Re: Charles "Eddy" Lepp Sentenced To 10 Years

I don't know anything about Lepp other than to say 25,000 plants is a little bit of overkill if you want to claim religious and medical purposes. Dealers and people like this in my opinion should not be called warriors, they actually do more to send the 420 community underground and give authorities more ammunition against medical marijuana thereby negatively effecting those who seek to grow a few plants in the garden to help with their ailment.