Pubdate: Sun, 25 May 2014
Source: Casper Star-Tribune (WY)
Copyright: 2014 Lee Enterprises
Contact:  http://www.trib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/765
Author: Michael J. Dee

WYOMING SUPREME COURT TREATED ME LIKE A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN

Editor:

Why is it, to change the marijuana laws, criminal laws, you have to 
go through a political process to be secure from state police power 
which is unreasonable when it is not used to protect the rights of others?

Why has the Wyoming judiciary declared the marijuana laws are a 
political question? Why is it the courts claim no fundamental rights 
are being deprived by the enforcement of the marijuana laws? Why do 
the courts declare the use of police power has a rational basis when 
due process of law requires the use of state police power to be 
either reasonable or unreasonable by the Fourth and Fifth Amendment?

The only answer is that marijuana users are discriminated against by 
the Wyoming courts because we are second-class citizens. We are not 
considered persons with fundamental right to be secure in our persons 
houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and 
seizures, but denied the fundamental right that no person shall be 
deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law 
provided by the Fourth and Firth Amendments.

In 2007, I filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit to question the 
validity and construction of the marijuana laws I was convicted of in 
1982. The Wyoming Supreme Court declared I did not present a 
justiciable controversy because marijuana is not a fundamental right: 
"Dee alleged the laws violated his fundamental right to possess, use 
and grow marijuana and contravened the tenets of the Fourth and Fifth 
Amendments of the United States Constitution."

The fact is I never ask the court to declare marijuana is a 
fundamental right. I'm a second-class citizen because the Wyoming 
Supreme Court ignored my basic claim that being arrested was seizure 
of my person, deprivation of my liberty without a compelling state 
interest, without due process of law.

All marijuana users are second-class citizens if we have to go 
through the political process to be secure from unreasonable police power.

MICHAEL J. DEE, August, Maine
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