Acknowledging the charges facing Steven and Michele Kubby are more substantial than a run-of-the-mill drug case, a judge ruled on Tuesday to allow attorneys to poll potential jurors on their bias toward marijuana being used for medicinal purposes. Defense lawyer J. David Nick argued in an almost empty Auburn courtroom that emotions run high in a case such as the one against the Kubbys, who face a total of 19 criminal counts of possession and cultivation of marijuana and other illicit substances. And the issue of medical marijuana, under which auspices the Kubbys claim to have grown their 265 plants, brings out what Nick termed as "violent responses" from both sides of the issue. [continues 258 words]
It Is Second Trial For Rocklin Dentist And Wife Accused Of Growing Marijuana A Rocklin dentist facing a second trial for possession of marijuana for sale lost a motion Wednesday to throw out evidence obtained by a Placer County Sheriff's Office search warrant. The attorney for Michael Baldwin, whose May 1999 trial ended in a 6-6 hung jury, claimed sheriff's investigator Jeff Potter misled the court in acquiring a search warrant for Baldwin's Loomis home. Attorney J. David Nick said after the hearing he would appeal the decision by Superior Court Judge J. Richard Couzens upholding the search. [continues 416 words]
The long-delayed trial of former Placer County residents Steve and Michele Kubby is tentatively scheduled to resume a week from Tuesday. Steve Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian candidate for governor of California, has applied his considerable political skills to organizing medical marijuana activists since his January 1999 arrest for growing marijuana at the couple's Olympic Valley home. Part of the prosecution's case involves an accusation that the Kubbys were planning to sell pot to the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Coalition, a charge the Kubbys deny. Instead, the Kubbys say they worked with the Oakland club, which had implemented standards approved by the Oakland City Council, to insure that their own pot garden complied with the guidelines. [continues 137 words]
Thieves broke into a Colfax home and stole several guns and marijuana used for medical treatment, a resident told authorities last week. On Sunday, Kathleen Campbell was still waiting to hear from deputies after reporting the theft to the Placer County Sheriff Department on Monday. She said she did not know who would break into her family's home in rural Colfax. Campbell told deputies someone used a ladder to break through her living room window to gain entry and steal three firearms and a 5-foot marijuana plant. She valued the property at about $2,100. The weapons taken included a .45 caliber H&K pistol, a Ruger .30 caliber rifle and another rifle, she said. [continues 149 words]
Ever since Al Gore and George W. Bush clinched the nominations of their respective parties, I've been pondering the significance of the apparent fact that both of the major party presidential candidates have an illicit drug history. Gore admits past use of pot, while Bush rebuffs inquiries into the party-animal period of his life, issuing instead Clintonesque statements about the duration of his illicit behavior. Both candidates, to be sure, now stand squarely behind the nation's war on drugs, although Gore has broken ranks with Bush on the issue of a patient's use of medicinal marijuana. [continues 851 words]
The smell of marijuana-scented money put Placer County on the trail of a drug dealer that ended Wednesday with Granite Bay's Eric Alfred Worm being sentenced in Auburn to a seven-year, eight-month prison term. The odorific cash came to the attention of the Special Investigations Unit drug enforcement team after Worm traded a quantity of $20 bills for $100s at a bank. The discovery touched off an 18-month investigation that culminated with a raid on Worm's upscale Granite Bay home in December. Officers seized 15 pounds of marijuana and more than a half-pound of cocaine all measured into ounces and packaged in plastic bags. Most of the drugs were found stashed in an attic office, along with computer records that detailed a decade of drug dealing, according to a Placer County Probation Department report released after sentencing. [continues 238 words]
Although cute and catchy, the smoke a joint, lose your license legislation currently stalled in the California Legislature represents a clumsily scattershot plan that would do little to either make the roads safer or to attack serous drug abuse. The measure, Assembly Bill 2295 sponsored by Assemblyman Dean Florez, D-Shafter, requires a six-month driver's license suspension for anyone convicted of a drug offense including possession of marijuana - even if the offense is not remotely driving-related. People could lose driving privileges if convicted for smoking pot in their living room, lying on a picnic blanket in the park or any other place that has nothing to do with traffic safety or automobiles. [continues 155 words]
Are harsh sentences for all drug offenders wise? Voters in at least two states will decide that this fall, even as Congress and many state legislatures debate the issue. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who bankrolled successful ballot drives for legalizing medical marijuana, is financing the latest initiatives. In California and Massachusetts, voters are being asked to create new laws that would require the option of treatment alternatives, not mandatory sentences. "What we're trying to do is restore a measure of the kind of discretion and judgment that judges used to have ... to render a just result, not just a harsh result," said Carl Valvo of Massachusetts. If voters agree, and advocates claim polls show they will, more alternatives will spread across the country, said Ethan Nadelmann. [end]
When the police start coming into the schools brainwashing our children I believe our country is in trouble. This is a police state! The Red Chinese brainwashed their children against their parents and their parent's way of life. This again is a police state. I am sure that the Communist police, Communist State were very nice to the children. The children started turning their parents over to the police for every so-called wrong doing that did not fit into the Communist program. The parents were sent to indoctrination camps. The state took over the children. This is what is happening in this country today. [continues 86 words]
A little while ago, one of my part-time jobs was at a call center, talking to people on the telephone and inviting them to subscribe to the newspaper. One day I was assigned a desk next to a person who, between the automatically dialed calls, was studying an education text. When we had a chance to converse, I discovered this person was about to attend graduation ceremonies, as a graduate of Judge W. Jackson Willoughby's drug rehabilitation program. I heard her enthusiastic praise for Judge Willoughby's program, and heard her tell me how through his program she had found the strength and courage to turn her life around, to look to her future, and to begin studies to enter the teaching profession. This beautiful young life was one among many saved by the drug rehabilitation program instituted by Judge Willoughby. Yvonne Holden, Foresthill [end]
I currently am employed by the Placer County Sheriff's Department and I have seen firsthand the positive effect the DARE Program has on grade-school children. I have watched the officers put in hours that they have not been paid for, helping the children of this community. One good example of this was the DARE Fun Run that was held this past weekend at Sierra College. If the DARE Program is a failure as Mr. Kubby alleges (Journal letters, May 11), why were so many kids there to participate in a 5K run? Perhaps Mr. Kubby could have benefited from a DARE Program. Both of my daughters completed the DARE Program and benefited greatly from it. Deputy Mark Wiseman did a great job and should be commended for a job well done. [continues 96 words]
I hope the citizens of California will oppose Assembly Bill 2295, the "Smoke a Joint, Lose Your License" bill recently passed by the Assembly Public Safety Committee to mandate a six-month driver's license suspension upon conviction of any drug offense. Please instead support legislation to officially opt out of this provision. "Smoke a Joint, Lose Your license" is an irrational extra punishment imposed upon people who have already suffered whatever penalty a judge saw fit to impose on them. This law would clog California's courts by causing huge numbers of very low-level drug offenders, many of whom might otherwise be willing to plead guilty and accept some minor penalty, to take their cases to a full trial instead. [continues 126 words]
A fifth judge approved another delay Thursday in the medical marijuana trial of former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Steven Kubby and his wife, Michele Kubby. The continuance will set the case back another two months. Judge John L. Cosgrove, who took over the case earlier this week from Judge James Roeder, agreed with defense attorneys Carolyn Hagin and J. David Nick that more time was needed to decipher the mountains of prosecution evidence in the case. "Give me two months and I will be here and I will try this case, barring some catastrophe," said Nick, who signed on Monday morning to represent Michele Kubby. [continues 338 words]
After more than a year of bouncing around the Placer County courts system, the high-profile marijuana case of Steven and Michele Kubby will finally begin Thursday, presided over by Judge John Cosgrove, in a modest DeWitt Center courtroom. Before reassigning the case to Cosgrove Monday, Judge James Roeder denied a defense motion for continuance and rebuked the Kubbys for trying to further postpone a trial already fraught with delays. "I thought the court was being very generous back on March 7," Roeder said, referring to the date he allowed the Kubbys to fire their original attorneys, which put off the trial for another six weeks. [continues 552 words]
California's highest-profile case testing Proposition 215's legalization of medical marijuana is scheduled to kick off again today in an Auburn courtroom. But neither the prosecution nor defendants Steven and Michele Kubby of Olympic Valley expect Superior Court Judge James Roeder to be happy to see them. Two months ago, Roeder warned both sides to be ready to start the trial today. However, attorneys for Steven Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian Party candidate for governor and a key player in the passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, have filed several motions - including a challenge to Roeder's ability to hear the case - that threaten to delay the trial once again. [continues 930 words]
The Initiative process came into being in order to bypass entrenched legislatures that refused to respect the will of the people. Because final authority rests with the people, big government types were thwarted. Until recently. Now the courts block every initiative passed by the people that runs counter to their social agenda. Isn't this upside down? Since when can the courts subvert the will of the people? Take Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative, for example. Yesterday's flower children are today's voters who recognize a legitimate medical need and turned it into law by a whopping majority vote. State officials, in a panic, passed the buck to the Washington' bureaucrats who decided their law overruled state law. Since when can the federal government overrule the will of the people? [continues 269 words]
The medical marijuana trial of Steven and Michele Kubby hit another snag Tuesday when one of the Kubbys' attorneys ran into a scheduling conflict with a Sacramento County court. Joseph Farina, who represents Michele Kubby, had a court-appointed case in Sacramento and was unable to appear in Auburn until the afternoon. Farina said the case could last through the week if his client decides not to plea bargain. Judge James L. Roeder, though, was able to set a tentative timeframe for the Kubby trial once Farina appeared. Jury selection should begin next Tuesday and opening arguments are tentatively set for March 5. [continues 126 words]
Judge Turns Down Continuance Request Medical marijuana proponents Steven and Michele Kubby appeared in an Auburn courtroom Monday seeking to delay a trial to prosecute them on charges of possession of marijuana for sale. However, Judge James L. Roeder denied two motions to continue, saying the case has dragged on for more than a year and has hit several bumps along the road to trial. Furthermore, Roeder assigned the case to himself and both parties will appear Feb. 22 to begin the trial phase. [continues 465 words]
Regarding Commander Freelove's response to my letter of November 22, about shocking police corruption arising from the war on drugs, I can only say his Clintonesque response of changing the subject and attacking the messenger avoids a solution. Yes I did observe drug running and crooked cops first hand when I was married to the father of my children, a stage and film director and producer in Las Vegas. We viewed the parade from a front row seat. Remember that this was in the 50's when the mob ruled, and yes they maintained an iron handed order. It was woe to the petty thief or mugger that might discourage the public from bringing their money to tinsel town. [continues 242 words]
Yes, I did observe drug-running and crooked cops firsthand when I was married to the father of my children, a stage and film director and producer in Las Vegas. We viewed the parade from a front row seat. Remember that this was in the '50s when the mob ruled, and yes they maintained an iron-handed order. It was woe to the petty thief or mugger that might discourage the public from bringing their money to tinsel town. The topic I addressed was retired police Chief Joseph McNamara's forthcoming book, "Gangster Cops: The Hidden Cost of America's War on Drugs." A Research Fellow at Stanford, his expose details decay that can only be described as cancerous, fed first by the obscene profits made possible by drug prohibition and second by the police "code of silence" that keeps the rot under wraps. [continues 154 words]
However, I am 65 years old and have seen police corruption in the '50s when I was a child in Butte, Mont. They would jail and take the paychecks of working men on payday for being drunk. I witnessed police corruption in New York City when I was a young woman of age 21. When I went to the police precincts to complain and sign papers against the offenses, I was laughed at and told to go back to Montana before they jailed me. [continues 217 words]
The Placer County Marijuana Eradication team arrested Sacramento resident Joshua J. Thuss, 28, on charges of suspicion of cultivation and sales of the drug. The team served a search warrant at Thuss' residence Thursday and found a sophisticated grow operation set up in a spare bedroom, said Sgt. Keven Besana. Along with the equipment, the team seized 49 plants, in flowering and nursery stages, scales and packing materials. Thuss was taken into custody without incident and booked into the Sacramento County jail. [continues 137 words]
Deputy District Attorney (whew) Dave Tellman said that Chris Miller should not be prosecuted because of "the small number of plants, his serious medical condition documented through years of medical records and the absence of any indication that he was selling." Excuse me, but did he not precisely describe the case of Steve and Michelle Kubby? Puzzled in Florida. Stephen Heath [end]
OLYMPIC VALLEY -- For six months drug investigators and Steve and Michele Kubby engaged in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. As investigators of the North Tahoe Task Force pored over details of the couple's lives for evidence of marijuana violations, the Kubbys -- tipped off about the investigation -- tidied up the loose ends of their growing operation. Launched by an anonymous letter claiming the former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate was financing his campaign by selling marijuana, the investigation climaxed Jan. 19 with the arrest of Steve and Michele Kubby on various marijuana charges. [continues 650 words]
