Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott says she was just helping set work priorities for her office during a period of short staffing when she decided not to prosecute basic marijuana cultivation cases involving fewer than 200 plants or 20 pounds of processed marijuana.
It was a temporary guideline never intended for public dissemination and not meant to signify a new direction or policy for the District Attorney's Office, she said.
"As part of trying to get through this period, through trying to get the new people on board, we had to do some restrictive filing for a time," Lintott said.
But a week after a memo containing the guidelines was leaked to a Ukiah newspaper and made public, Lintott finds she's under fire from some of her constituents – not to mention law enforcement types.
Some argue she's opened a county already rife with pot growers to even more people bent on profiting from the area's most celebrated cash crop.
Others complain she's betrayed county voters who last year signaled their weariness with pot production by repealing a 2000 ballot measure decriminalizing cultivation of up to 25 plants for personal use. The 2008 proposition also limited individuals to growing six mature plants for medicinal use.
"There's a lot of heat falling my way," Lintott acknowledged Thursday.
"I think everybody's concerned about what's going to be happening in the future," Ukiah Police Chief Chris Dewey said.
Law enforcement chiefs were informed confidentially of the change made in late May, he and Lintott said.
They also were told they could bring individual cases to her attention if they wanted to argue in favor of prosecution.
Cases involving firearms, suspects with criminal histories, the use of paid trimmers or workers, the presence of children, clear signs of commercial sales or other factors that make the incidents more serious are to go forward in any case, Lintott said.
But Dewey and Fort Bragg Police Chief Mark Puthuff said the shift was still troubling, given the potential for violence regardless of the number of plants being grown in a particular setting.
"We don't want to have a house that's converted to a commercial-grow situation and have the neighbors on either side of that house be at risk of a home invasion robbery," Dewey said. "We're continuing to enforce the rules as we've always done."
Like Dewey, Puthuff said he's taken a hands-on approach to evaluating and highlighting cases that most beg for prosecution, but said it's discouraging for him and his officers to make arrests, seize plants and expend resources, only to have cases rejected.
"I can just tell you it's been bit frustrating. And I have tried not to politicize the issue, but I can assure you that I and Chris Dewey, we're doing our part to safeguard our communities and our people, and the mission's clear for us," Puthuff said.
Neither Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman nor Willits Police Chief Gerry Gonzalez was available for comment Thursday.
Lintott said she narrowed prosecution guidelines after she lost three senior attorneys from an office of 16 to resignation, retirement and termination. Two other deputies are working limited schedules, she said.
The remaining 11 include Lintott, her assistant and her chief deputy, who besides focusing on supervision and training also are handling serious felony cases, she said.
She said she and her senior deputies decided in the spring to forego cultivation cases under 200 plants and some minor misdemeanors, determined on a case-by-case basis.
"Part of the real focus was to be able to take the attorneys that we had left, that prosecute the serious felonies, to be able to concentrate and make sure the cases they have are good cases," she said.
She has since sent a letter to the county sheriff and local police chiefs asking them to reassure their staffs that her office is "committed to prosecuting cases and working with you to enforce the law."
Law enforcement authorities routinely seize thousands, even tens of thousands of plants at a time from Mendocino County's illicit gardens.
But it's sometimes other factors – proximity to neighbors or availability of weapons, for instance – that make the difference, Dewey said.
"I don't want the message to be in our community that it's OK to grow marijuana," he said.
Lintott said she hopes to back to full marijuana prosecutions soon. One deputy position has been filled, and recruitment and interviews are under way to fill the vacant position, hopefully by fall, she said.
In the meantime, cases that have enough evidence for prosecution but were put on hold because of staffing problems will be re-evaluated and still could go to court, she said.
Though unable to say how many cases were affected by the decision, "I would suggest it's a small number of cases in our world of marijuana cases," Lintott said.
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: The Press Democrat
Author: MARY CALLAHAN
Contact: The Press Democrat
Copyright: 2009 PressDemocrat.com
Website: Mendocino D.A. Under Fire For Marijuana Memo
It was a temporary guideline never intended for public dissemination and not meant to signify a new direction or policy for the District Attorney's Office, she said.
"As part of trying to get through this period, through trying to get the new people on board, we had to do some restrictive filing for a time," Lintott said.
But a week after a memo containing the guidelines was leaked to a Ukiah newspaper and made public, Lintott finds she's under fire from some of her constituents – not to mention law enforcement types.
Some argue she's opened a county already rife with pot growers to even more people bent on profiting from the area's most celebrated cash crop.
Others complain she's betrayed county voters who last year signaled their weariness with pot production by repealing a 2000 ballot measure decriminalizing cultivation of up to 25 plants for personal use. The 2008 proposition also limited individuals to growing six mature plants for medicinal use.
"There's a lot of heat falling my way," Lintott acknowledged Thursday.
"I think everybody's concerned about what's going to be happening in the future," Ukiah Police Chief Chris Dewey said.
Law enforcement chiefs were informed confidentially of the change made in late May, he and Lintott said.
They also were told they could bring individual cases to her attention if they wanted to argue in favor of prosecution.
Cases involving firearms, suspects with criminal histories, the use of paid trimmers or workers, the presence of children, clear signs of commercial sales or other factors that make the incidents more serious are to go forward in any case, Lintott said.
But Dewey and Fort Bragg Police Chief Mark Puthuff said the shift was still troubling, given the potential for violence regardless of the number of plants being grown in a particular setting.
"We don't want to have a house that's converted to a commercial-grow situation and have the neighbors on either side of that house be at risk of a home invasion robbery," Dewey said. "We're continuing to enforce the rules as we've always done."
Like Dewey, Puthuff said he's taken a hands-on approach to evaluating and highlighting cases that most beg for prosecution, but said it's discouraging for him and his officers to make arrests, seize plants and expend resources, only to have cases rejected.
"I can just tell you it's been bit frustrating. And I have tried not to politicize the issue, but I can assure you that I and Chris Dewey, we're doing our part to safeguard our communities and our people, and the mission's clear for us," Puthuff said.
Neither Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman nor Willits Police Chief Gerry Gonzalez was available for comment Thursday.
Lintott said she narrowed prosecution guidelines after she lost three senior attorneys from an office of 16 to resignation, retirement and termination. Two other deputies are working limited schedules, she said.
The remaining 11 include Lintott, her assistant and her chief deputy, who besides focusing on supervision and training also are handling serious felony cases, she said.
She said she and her senior deputies decided in the spring to forego cultivation cases under 200 plants and some minor misdemeanors, determined on a case-by-case basis.
"Part of the real focus was to be able to take the attorneys that we had left, that prosecute the serious felonies, to be able to concentrate and make sure the cases they have are good cases," she said.
She has since sent a letter to the county sheriff and local police chiefs asking them to reassure their staffs that her office is "committed to prosecuting cases and working with you to enforce the law."
Law enforcement authorities routinely seize thousands, even tens of thousands of plants at a time from Mendocino County's illicit gardens.
But it's sometimes other factors – proximity to neighbors or availability of weapons, for instance – that make the difference, Dewey said.
"I don't want the message to be in our community that it's OK to grow marijuana," he said.
Lintott said she hopes to back to full marijuana prosecutions soon. One deputy position has been filled, and recruitment and interviews are under way to fill the vacant position, hopefully by fall, she said.
In the meantime, cases that have enough evidence for prosecution but were put on hold because of staffing problems will be re-evaluated and still could go to court, she said.
Though unable to say how many cases were affected by the decision, "I would suggest it's a small number of cases in our world of marijuana cases," Lintott said.
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: The Press Democrat
Author: MARY CALLAHAN
Contact: The Press Democrat
Copyright: 2009 PressDemocrat.com
Website: Mendocino D.A. Under Fire For Marijuana Memo
