Will Foster Extradited to Oklahoma

[User]

Medical marijuana patient Will Foster is en route to prison in Oklahoma after being picked up Friday by Oklahoma law enforcement officials. He had been held at the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa, California, for the past 15 months as he fought bogus marijuana cultivation charges there--he was a registered patient with a legal grow--and, after the California charges were dropped, on a parole violation warrant from the Sooner State.

Foster had been arrested and convicted of growing marijuana in Oklahoma and sentenced to 93 years in prison in the 1990s. After that draconian sentence focused national attention on his case, he was eventually resentenced to 20 years in prison. He later won parole and moved to California, where he served three years on parole and was discharged from parole by California authorities.

That wasn't good enough for vindictive Oklahoma authorities, who wanted to squeeze more years out of Foster. He refused to sign Oklahoma paperwork requiring him to return there to serve out the remainder of his sentence. He also refused to sign paperback that extended his original service. Oklahoma authorities issued a parole violation warrant, and the governors of both states signed it.

Foster had sought to block extradition by filing a writ of habeas corpus--he had won a similar writ against Oklahoma earlier--but that effort failed on Friday, and Oklahoma authorities were there to whisk him away. Foster is scheduled to be held at the Tulsa County Jail before being assigned to a prison in the Oklahoma gulag.

Efforts by Foster supporters to secure his release continue and are now focusing on Oklahoma parole authorities and the state governor. For more information about the Foster case, see our Chronicle story here and at Ed Rosenthal's blog here.



News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: StoptheDrugWar.org
Author: Phillip Smith
Copyright: 2008 StoptheDrugWar.org
Contact: drcnet@drcnet.org
Website: Will Foster Extradited to Oklahoma | Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)

[User]

More about Will Foster:
Will Foster

[Caber1]

Stories like these are gut wrenching. I feel for his family and hope they find the strength to deal with this nightmare.
What kind of society does this to people?

[Soniq420]

I've been following this and just can't see how this isn't a form of double jeapordy.

I mean Oklahoma agreed to let him go to Cali. He served his prob time in Cali. He should be a free man.

The fact that Oklahoma doesn't like California's parole length policy is tough cookies. They shouldn't have agreed to let him go in the first place.

They shouldn't be allowed a mulligan for their bad decision.

This is persecution.