Don't let your son grow pot in the house.

[Sky]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/10/editor.killed.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Short: PC World editor slain in his house by gunmen in a drug-related break-in. His son was growing medical marijuana.

[Yegolev]

I did not know you could grow your own "medical" weed.

My eyes hurt.

[Strazos]

And from what I remember, there hasn't been anyone writing pot scripts for decades.

[Righ]

And from what I remember, there hasn't been anyone writing pot scripts for decades.

Your memory serves you poorly. The CA state legislature passed medical marijuana statutes fairly recently, putting them at odds with federal law. There was a huge deal made about a guy who got busted after having been deputized to grow medical marijuana. There are doctors writing scripts, patients getting supplied, and suppliers getting busted by feds. Bad shit.

[Polysorbate80]

There was a huge deal made about a guy who got busted after having been deputized to grow medical marijuana.

Interesting side-read on 'jury nullification' in there, I wasn't aware of that capability...thanks for the linkage.

[HaemishM]

Man's son grows perfectly legal pot, his father gets killed because someone wants to sell the pot illegally.

Yeah, those marijuana laws are doing a fine job.

[CmdrSlack]

There was a huge deal made about a guy who got busted after having been deputized to grow medical marijuana.

Interesting side-read on 'jury nullification' in there, I wasn't aware of that capability...thanks for the linkage.

Nullification is great theory, but pretty much not a reality in our system at the moment.  Since judges aren't required to instruct juries that they have the option to ignore the law, it's really one of those neat law trivia things as opposed to a real factor in most trials.

[Polysorbate80]

Since judges aren't required to instruct juries that they have the option to ignore the law...

I got the impression that they went out of their way to prevent any such instruction taking place

[geldonyetich]

Interesting side-read on 'jury nullification' in there, I wasn't aware of that capability...thanks for the linkage.

Must I open old wounds?

Well, I could see the debate going either way on this one:
Pro: If pot was legal, there would not be organized crime people breaking in and shooting people who grow it at home.
Con: If pot was legal, people would still break in and shoot people for it like they would any object of value they can steal and sell.

Money's legal, as is tobacco and alcohol.  People still knock over stores and occasionally kill a clerk to get what's in the cash register, smokes, and alcohol.

I wish the story had mentioned whether or not the pot was actually stolen.  The way it reads, it sounds like the cops simply jumped to the conclusion that was the reason why the assailants were there when they learned the son was growing pot.

[geldonyetich]

Whoops, I had meant to quote this block:

Man's son grows perfectly legal pot, his father gets killed because someone wants to sell the pot illegally.

Yeah, those marijuana laws are doing a fine job.

[Triforcer]

Jury nullification is an ex poste description of what has happened, not a recognized ex ante maneuver.  It would be retardedly stupidiculous to instruct juries on it, because all law would essentially become worthless.  But AFTER the fact, we don't inquire into WHY a jury did what it did (especially in acquittals, you can go into the jury "black box" on a conviction but judges are extremely reluctant to do so).  Thus, we describe jury actions taken contrary to a commonly understand definition of law as "jury nullification".  But it has no independent existance in and of itself.

[Yegolev]

The thing is that pot would have much less monetary value if it was not illegal.  If people that cannot otherwise hold down a minimum wage job are able to grow it in a closet in their trailer, surely it would be child's play for someone of average competence.

I might suggest that the marijuana laws are, in fact, doing a fine job if one considers the reason they exist.

[HaemishM]

I might suggest that the marijuana laws are, in fact, doing a fine job if one considers the reason they exist.

To make alcohol the profitable legal stimulant of choice?

[Signe]

Well, maybe not out of choice but out of necessity for those who want some sort of stimulation via substances.  Of course, I can't drink alcohol in any sort of quantity at all, so I must seek other avenues for methods of chilling out.  Like... umm... nutmeg.  And err... banana peels.

Yeah, that's it.  Banana peels.

[Samwise]

Yeah, that's it.  Banana peels.

Does that actually work?  The people I know who have tried it say it's bogus.

[Signe]

I think you should try it for yourself.  Here you go:

The Definitive Instructions for Smoking Banana Peels

   1. Go to the grocery store and buy 10 pounds of bananas. (You used to need 200 pounds, but the potency has gone up 20x in the last 30 years.)
   2. Remove the skins from the fruit. Save the fruit for later - if you mix it with orange juice and drink it while you're smoking, it'll make you trip real hard.
   3. Dry the skins in the microwave. This won't affect the potency, as bannadine is not microwave soluble.
   4. The next two steps are a simple nonpolar-polar extraction of the bannadine. This is necessary to get rid of the fungicide they put on the skins, which is a type of strychnine. Grind up the dried peels really well, and soak them in methylene chloride (zippo lighter fluid makes a good substitute). Let soak for 2 days, and then rinse well with ether. Discard the liquid and save the mush.
   5. Take the mush from step 4 and soak it in ethyl alcohol for another 2 days. Filter, and put the mush aside - you won't be smoking it.
   6. Evaporate the alcohol. The resultant crystals are 150% pure bannadine. Put these in your pipe, light up and enjoy! (Keep reading for the secret step 7!)
   7. Bannadine is normally only active when smoked; that's why eating bananas won't do anything. However, that mush left over from step 5 is pretty tasty, and that's how I discovered that bannadine is orally active if potentiated by dried peanut skins! Yes, its true. I looked up the structure, and it turns out bannadine is really closely related to DMT - it has carbon atoms and everything!

Hope this helps! And all of you who say bananas don't work can just shut up.

Good luck to you, Samwise.  Enjoy with Bogusity.

[Sky]

I once talked a kid into smoking Fruit Loops. I can still see his face as he deeply inhaled those acrid burnt sugar fumes.

[Samwise]

The word "bannadine" trips my BS alarm.   

[CmdrSlack]

Since judges aren't required to instruct juries that they have the option to ignore the law...

I got the impression that they went out of their way to prevent any such instruction taking place

Yeah, there's that too. ;)  I was all trying to understate for teh funnay, I guess.  My guess is that if an attorney made nullification part of his closing argument, that would cause an objection.  And some hassle.  It did when I tried it in practice during trial ad one year.  Hell, doing it in real life might amount to saying, "Sure, he did it.  But you can render a verdict of not guilty anyway!"  That's just bad policy if you want your malpractice insurance premiums to remain low. 

It does work if a jury just chooses to ignore the law.  I'm sure it worked that way to the detriment of more than a few people back in the day as well.  So, basically, the main outreach is "let's inform people that they can do this!"  I guess it only takes one juror on a panel to inform the others of how it works.

ETA -- Triforcer's Latin-ey explanation is also accurate, but, you know, Latin-ey.

[Signe]

Nullification had a part in the most recent episode of Boston Legal.  I'm guessing lawyers shouldn't watch that show if they want to maintain a good blood pressure.  The lawyer husband of a friend of mine used to stomp around the house and mutter when she watched L.A. Law.  Of course that show didn't have Captain Kirk in it.

[CmdrSlack]

Kirk makes everything...well, he makes it something.

[El Gallo]

Back in the day, juries used to be allowed to determine facts and laws.  Then, when we decided to let poor people serve on juries in the later 1800's, we ripped away all the law-determining authority from juries.  Once in a while, they still get uppity with their betters and say "fuck what your law says, I ain't putting this guy in jail for that."  God knows why we don't have them flogged.

Protip: You will get kicked from a jury pool if you say you believe in the right of jury nullification, or even if you use the words.

[Ironwood]

Mandatory Minimums.  Fucking Hell.


On the subject of Jury Nullification, the Judges over here (No, Not Dredd) are given right of final 'Jury Counsel' where they can, if you like, 'direct' a jury to reach a certain verdict.  In one of the more famous Kilmarnock Wife-Battering cases, the jury was so instructed to find the defendant guilty because she was, in fact, quite clearly guilty of stabbing the wife-beating son of a bitch after she got him drunk and unconscious.  So moved were the jury by her story of quite ridiculous amounts of abuse, they returned a verdict of 'Good Fucking Riddance'.

It was a bad day for lawmaking, but a good day for Justice.

[Polysorbate80]

Scottish law can't be all bad; don't they still have the option of finding someone "Not Proven", as in "We know you fucking did it even though we can't quite pin it on you"?

[geldonyetich]

I had an instructor of Human Genetics class that said on more than one occasion in front of the class that if, during an jury interview, you mention that you had taken a genetics class you can expect to be dismissed.

Suffice to say, by the time the lawyers are done grooming their jury, there's going to be a minimal chance of anyone left on the jury who has any idea what the evidence means.

[CmdrSlack]

I had an instructor of Human Genetics class that said on more than one occasion in front of the class that if, during an jury interview, you mention that you had taken a genetics class you can expect to be dismissed.

Suffice to say, by the time the lawyers are done grooming their jury, there's going to be a minimal chance of anyone left on the jury who has any idea what the evidence means.

Well, you know, it's sort of the duty of the expert witnesses and attorneys to explain the evidence to the jury.  I mean surely you of all people can understand the phenomena of those who take a single class and then consider themselves versed in the subject matter.  Having people who think they "know about" a complex field can completely ruin a case that hinges on very specific determinations of fact.  The last thing you want are jurors trying to educate other jurors.  Why do you think that it's very rare to see a lawyer on the jury?  The last thing any lawyer wants is another goddamn lawyer playing jury room  professor.  But I'm sure you knew that, what with your compreshensive knowledge of the voir dire process -- you took a government class, obviously. ;)

[Samwise]

 

[geldonyetich]

The only advantage of having a blank slate for an expert witness to inform is that you can color the information however they like without the person being educated having a way of telling they're being force fed bullshit.  Somebody who took a rudimentary genetics class wouldn't assume they know more than the expert witness, they'd just have a little knowledge that would allow them to better understand what they were talking about.

[CmdrSlack]

The only advantage of having a blank slate for an expert witness to inform is that you can color the information however they like without the person being educated having a way of telling they're being force fed bullshit.  Somebody who took a rudimentary genetics class wouldn't assume they know more than the expert witness, they'd just have a little knowledge that would allow them to better understand what they were talking about.

No, I really think it's more like those people know just enough to be a danger to themselves and others, and the experts who can bully a panel into agreeing with them -- even self-proclaimed experts can misrepresent things to push a personal agenda.  If I was selecting a jury in a case where the facts hinged on a bunch of DNA evidence, I sure as shit would dismiss both the jacktard who said, "I took a survey course once that talked about basic biology-level human genetics, so I think I'd be useful in this case." and somebody along the lines of Dr. David Curiel.  If you like, I can go back and post examples of situations where a partially-informed layperson has said something astronomically stupid in the face of more "expert" opinion. 

[Ironwood]

You mean like any of Geld's posts ?

[geldonyetich]

Cheap shot.  +3 points.

I'm not really sure having a prior education regarding a certain subject matter being presented in a case is going to make you any less likely to be a full-of-yourself layperson.  On the contrary, it seems the more I know about a topic, the less certain I am I know everything I need to know about it.

In any case, unlike many a Geldonyetich-is-being-a-stubborn-cock-related post, these laypersons would be properly informed ahead of time that individual x is an expert in y.  I've always bowed out when this was revealed to the case.  I know CmdrSlack's a lawyer, I'm not really disagreeing in anything legal, I'm just suggesting that there seems to be a hole in the logic of dismissing a jury member just because they happen to know something about an aspect that comes up in a trial.  You're looking for impartial jury members, not uninformed ones.

Wow, the spell checker is totally fudged up on this post for some reason.

[Strazos]

What he is saying Geldon, is that people who are less informed on a subject are easily to mold in respect to that subject - they have no knowledge with which to challenge the expert.

[Ironwood]

[geldonyetich]

Well, we're in agreement there, that's what I meant when I said, "The only advantage of having a blank slate for an expert witness to inform is that you can color the information however they like without the person being educated having a way of telling they're being force fed bullshit."  In that sentence you can also see the problem I have with it. 

To an extent, there's the check and balance of prosecution versus defense - if you take a blank slate and argue both sides whatever remains should be relatively close to the truth.  What I'm having trouble with is idea that the blank slate truly exists, and that an informed jurer may be in a position to make a better judgment than an uninformed one because they can better understand how to interpret all the evidence, including that of expert witnesses.

[CmdrSlack]

IMO, the key is not that they be able to interpret the testimony of the expert witnesses.  If they are forced to interpret the information you have presented to them by the end of the trial, then you deserve to lose.  Leaving jurors to guess at what your evidence means is a near-guarantee that they'll just come up with whatever they pull out of their asses first.  The whole point of trial practice is to basically tell a story to the jury, one that they can understand and appreciate.  In a similar vein, you shouldn't ask witnesses questions for which you don't know the answer.  You also shouldn't ask your opponent's witnesses open-ended questions.  All of those situations involve random occurrences that could totally fuxxor your case.