Thirty patrons gathered at Joani's for chili then went uptown Basin to the Hewitt Building (about half a city block away) where Burke Jam, played as Churchmouse, then 2/3 of AM String Band, Johanna Davis and Adam Nordell performed. The three artists, former residents of the Montana Artists Refuge, played in the front downstairs studio while the wood stove crackled.What a sweet, intimate treat!
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Montana Mutiny – the pot shot heard 'round the weed world?
December 25th, 2010 10:39 am ET
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News & Commentary from the liberterrain...
"Can Jury Nullification End The War On Drugs?" – The Atlantic
When prospective jurors in Missoula, Montana, refused to be seated in a marijuana possession case the New York Times reported, "Marijuana fans are calling it the Mutiny in Montana."
In a news release Friday Iloilo Jones of the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) said that she "applauds the actions of the Missoula jurors, but not the government label of 'mutiny,'”
Jones elaborated, "Jury veto, or jury nullification, is the lawful vote of the People to prevent government employees from enforcing bad laws."
And that's sort of what happened in Missoula on December 13 when the prosecution asked the jury pool if they could prosecute a person for possessing as little as 1/16th of an ounce of marijuana.
The resounding answer, from one person after another, was "No!"
So resounding, in fact, that the court couldn't seat a jury.
Mathew Frank, who writes a blog for the Missoula Independent, has been tracking the reverberations nationwide. In Friday's blog he noted the NY Times and Atlantic articles above along with similar stories in such pillars of mainstream media as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Slate.
Although this wasn't technically an instance of jury nullification, since no jury had been empanelled, responses to the action have been predictable.
The prosecutor labeled it “A mutiny” while the defense attorney called it “Bizarre.”
But John Masterson, head of Montana NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) said, "I think that’s outstanding."
And The Libertarian Standard concluded that the people summoned for jury duty "recognize the sheer absurdity of prosecuting someone for possessing a tiny amount of a plant that has been cultivated and used by humans for thousands of years."
The defendant and recipient of the juror's "revolt," Touray Cornell, has previously been convicted of one real crime (theft) but more frequently for what libertarians call victimless lifestyle "crimes" such as dealing drugs and possessing a handgun as a convicted felon.
The following day he entered an "Alford plea" in which he didn’t admit guilt, and was sentenced to 20 years with 19 suspended.
Libertarians will likely agree with Masterson that marijuana prosecutions are "an unjust and a stupid use of government resources.”
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