Conflicting marijuana laws take stage in trial

[flashl]

San Luis Obispo County businessman is fighting prosecutors' contention that he is a drug trafficker

By Scott Glover, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 26, 2008

A highly anticipated trial involving conflicting marijuana laws got underway Friday in Los Angeles federal court with a prosecutor painting the owner of a Morro Bay medicinal marijuana store as a brazen drug trafficker who sold dope to teenagers and toted around a backpack stuffed with cash.

Defense attorneys struggled to provide context for their client's alleged crimes after being barred by the judge from mentioning the phrase "medical marijuana."

...

Prosecutors contend that Lynch violated federal law by selling $2.1 million worth of marijuana in less than a year, some of it to people "not yet old enough to legally drink."

Lynch's defense attorneys would like to present evidence that their client was dispensing doctor-prescribed medical marijuana to sick people in accordance with state law and with the blessing of elected officials in Morro Bay. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that federal drug laws trump those of the state and that the reasons why the drug is distributed are irrelevant.

[midnight]

1. I always thought state law trumped federal? And federal

with holds money as a way to get states to comply.

[flashl]

2. Isn't that the trick here, defense can't use state's 'medical marijuana' definition? nt

[BalancedGoat]

4. No.

Federal law trumps state law provided the Federal law is found to be with constitutional limits. The Federal Government uses threats of withholding funds as a way to get around constitutional limits on its power; it's a way to force the states to create laws that the Federal Government has no legal authority to create itself.

[flashl]

6. If Feds have Medical Marijuana Program what do you think is illegal about CA's 'medical def'?

[aspergris]

8. no

federal law (generally) rules- in FEDERAL court. which is where this case is being tried.

most crimes aren't federal. if you murder somebody, that's almost never a federal crime. so state law is the ONLY law that applies.

in the case of drugs, the laws parallel, but many states have legalized medical MJ. those cases can still be tried as criminal possession etc. of mj under FEDERAL law since MJ remains a sched I federal drug.

there was a court case a while ago that challenged the feds right to supersede state mj medical laws, where the federal authority was upheld based on a (imo flawed) reading of the commerce clause.

[RC]

3. Sounds like the judge is biased.

If the words are defined in the law, use them and also use those words to remove the judge.

[BalancedGoat]

5. The words would be defined by state law...

... which is irrelevent to a Federal case. The defense wants to use the phrase because it's a great way to get a jury to decide based on their personal opinions' of what the law should be rather than what it is. Higher courts have already decided that Federal law trumps state law so there is no legal defense in citing state law in this case. The judge is trying to keep the jury from being influenced by their personal biases with regards to medical marijuana.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

7. They tried gagging the defense attorney in the Ed Rosenthal trial several years ago...

Immediately after the guilty verdict the jurors found out the truth about Rosenthal and angrily protested the trial for denying them evidence about the medical marijuana laws. The end result was that the judge sentenced Rosenthal to one day in prison already served.