Trimmers Busted on Brown Paper Bag Evidence—
Kym Kemp / Nov. 15, 2011 @ 7:03 p.m. / Humboldt , marijuana , News
The raid which resulted in the arrest of multiple foreign nationals and which marked the acknowledged beginning of a new slant of targeting trimmers also marks a great I-told-you-so point for the more paranoid. According to today’s piece in the Times Standard, some of the major pieces of evidence against the trimmers are scribbled onto the sides of paper bags. The piece says, “… investigators also found brown paper grocery bags with the defendants’ names or initials on them that contained processed marijuana. Cox said the bags were used to track who trimmed how much marijuana…” Countless folk are now muttering, “I told you guys not to write names on the bags!” In the future, folk will be back to using symbols or code.
Meanwhile, in a guest post, Skippy Massey offers up a summary and opinion on
DISTRICT ATTORNEY PAUL GALLEGOS GOING AFTER TRIMMERS: PART II
(Much thanks to the Times Standard’s Thaddeus Greenson for his excellent work which is the basis for much of Skippy’s and my work)
Trimmers, the Scales of Justice, and the Long Arm of the Claw
Kym recently pointed out the glaring disconnect of District Attorney Paul Gallegos’ new enforcement slant of going after lowly cannabis trimmers while an organizing kingpin goes free. Stanislaw Kopiej’s massive $1 million Hydesville marijuana bust and probation-only plea bargain is a stark contrast to the bud tending female trimmers soaked and hammered with felony charges by the DA’s office. He’s free on bail— while the trim ladies languish in the 5th Street Salmon Slammer. Birds of a tether do time together, per the wobbly scales of justice and Gallegos’ new attitude.
THE COSTS of the two-day preliminary hearing for the four female co-defendant trimmers in the Hydesville/Bridgeville grow operation has exceeded $10,000— and that’s just to determine if there’s enough evidence holding the defendants to answer to felony charges of cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale. The defendants required court-appointed defense attorneys and four interpreters traveling from Southern California to translate the proceedings into Russian and Bulgarian costing $8,000. Incarcerating the trimmers for the past 25 days have so far cost an additional $8,000. Taxpayers footing the bill will see increasingly significant expenses should the case ultimately proceed to a jury trial.
IS THE District Attorney’s hard line on marijuana trimmers a costly new policy— a waste of resources by not pleading them down from felonies— or a cost-effective, long-term ‘tough love’ strategy? It all depends upon whom you speak to.
“We try to do things efficiently and not waste taxpayer resources, but my job is to make sure the law applies to everyone,” Gallegos said. “If someone makes it more expensive and therefore I don’t prosecute, then where do you draw the lines? Once I get involved in drawing lines other than the law, I don’t know where to start and I don’t know where to end,” he said. Gallegos noted it’s the defense strategy of drawing out these hearings that makes them more expensive.
TAKING A tough line with methamphetamine and heroin dealers, Gallegos refuses to ignore the area’s illicit marijuana industry. “Those profiting from the industry whether by trimming or running grow operations are enjoying the benefits of society without paying for them,” Gallegos said. “Even after arrested, they’re given taxpayer funded interpreters and defense attorneys and are afforded the protections of the society they’ve been cheating.” GALLEGOS SAID he expects trimmers to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy, possession, or maintaining a residence or property for cultivation. “The felonies can be ‘wobblers,’ meaning that if defendants successfully complete one year of probation they can petition to have them reduced to a misdemeanor and, after a few more years, petition to have the conviction expunged. I think that’s fair,” Gallegos said.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY Eddie Schrock strongly disagrees. “The message (my client) received is that if you have enough money in our system you can buy your way out of jail. I think the judge was very clear that, at best, these are low-level individuals that have certainly been treated much more harshly than (the grower in this case) Mr. Kopiej.”
“It’s a waste of resources,” said attorney Jeffrey Schwartz, also representing one of the co-defendants. “When you can’t go after everything, you have to pick and choose. So why pick and choose trimmers? Trimmers are at the bottom of the marijuana food chain. They generally get paid about $200 per pound of processed marijuana that they produce— roughly equal to 10 percent of the market price, about $20 an hour for the average worker. Spending
large amounts of limited public funds going after what are essentially hourly employees looking to make a bit of money just doesn’t make much sense,” Schwartz said.
SCHWARTZ ALSO believes the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office’s approach to the case represents a clear departure. “They are, in essence, treating the trimmers equal to the growers, and that’s unprecedented in this county, if not in the entire state,” Schwartz said, adding that prosecutors are offering nothing less than a felony plea. “It’s a huge disparity. You’re supposed to go by culpability, and I think everyone would agree that trimmers are way low down the chain in Humboldt County.” In fact, Schwartz said he thinks trimmers would fall lower than hydroponics stores, fertilizer dealers and nutrient shops. ”Those are all way more involved in the cultivation of marijuana in Humboldt County than trimmers,” he said.
CALIFORNIA HASTINGS College of Law professor David Levine sees both sides of the issue. “Prosecutors prioritize cases all the time. The short-term cost-effectiveness of these cases and strategy looks very expensive, and it does seem harsh to go after these little people and force them to plead to a felony,” Levine said. “But one interesting thing about going after some of these low-level people is that maybe word will spread that this is a dangerous place to go work, and then maybe some of the work force will dry up… but you really won’t know for a couple of years if this was a smart move by the DA or not.”
RECENT CASES that featured the arrest of dozens of trimmers should send a message, Gallegos said. “These people need to understand that they are engaged in illegal activities and there will be consequences until the law is changed,” Gallegos said. “I hope they understand that we are looking and we are watching and we are waiting until they’re there to do our busts.”
BUT IF these recent cases are any indication, defense attorneys are holding firm by advising their clients not to plead, leading to lengthy and costly proceedings. In essence, the ante has been raised and pockets are being lined. Humboldt and SoHum residents overwhelmingly voting for Paul Gallegos wonder why he’s employing a tougher hard line approach above and beyond the appropriate level of social justice and good common sense. In the wake of this case, one questions whether there’s good reason for the pricey new policy of targeting trimmers. And why the organizing growing kingpins go free.
(Information sourced from Thadeus Greenson/Times-Standard here and here, Kym Kemp, and the Humboldt Sentinel)
so lets say this goes to court with a jury and everything like that, dont you think most of the jurors (assuming they are all locals) have their hand in the marijuana industry, whther that means they have helped a buddy trim before, grown themselves, or anything else that connects them. what im getting at is if they get a jury i would think the jury is gonna laugh in the face of the prosecution and find them all not guilty…..i know i would.
what do you think kym?…..everyone?
By the way, if someone actually wrote their own full name on a bag of pot and it was sitting right in their lap when the cops burst in, well that’s one thing. But some bag found in another room, with just initials on it, or a name on it but written in someone else’s handwriting… well that seems like some pretty weak evidence.
Bags may get consolidated, and buds may get moved from one bag to another, so the fact that such and such initials are on such and such bags doesn’t really prove anything. If that’s the kind of weak-assed “evidence” the prosecutors are hoping to use to prove “constructive possession,” then no wonder the trimmers’ lawyers are advising them to hang tough and take that kind of bullshit to trial.
Unfair but standard.
I’m not sure that’s really 100% accurate. He’s out of jail because he had the money to post bail. I believe the plea bargain is basically a seperate matter, dealing with the eventual disposition of his case, not his immediate custodial status. (But maybe I’m wrong and the plea bargain actually does have some bearing on the bail situation. In my opinion it shouldn’t, but maybe it does in some way that I’m not aware of?)
Either way, in both cases the key ingredient is money — and lots of it. The grower apparently had lots of money (or access to lots of money, perhaps from some of his associates further up the distribution chain) so he could put up the bail and get out of jail. And he apparently has plenty of money for a private lawyer, which no doubt helped him obtain the generous plea bargain. Perhaps most importantly, there was a lot of money seized at the site, which the system wants to get their hands on and for which the DA seems willing to trade leniency in the plea bargain negotiations in exchange for the immediate forfeiture of this cash.
The lesson for big growers seems clear: Just make sure there is plenty of money on-site that can get seized, so you can later exchange forfeiture of that cash for a lenient plea bargain. Meanwhile, make sure you have a bunch of money socked away somewhere else, to cover your bail and a private lawyer. As long as everyone gets paid, everyone goes home happy.
Well, everybody except your labor force of trimmers — and as far as that goes, I guess the idea is “fuck ‘em, they’re on their own.” Apparently if they didn’t want to risk rotting in jail they ought to have become big, well-capitalized growers, not just a bunch of broke-ass, expendable day laborers.
Mr. Gallegos previously stated in the Times-Standard: “(Trimmers) are all engaged in a criminal enterprise so we expect them all to plead guilty to a felony…. people should keep in mind that growers sustain other losses when busted. The people that we believe are running the business, we are taking them out of business. The trimmers lose less at a bust because they have not invested in the enterprise. The big people, they lose all their money, all their product, and all the capital.”
Think about this for a moment. While big growers walk away having lost capital, trimmers, on the other hand, have no such material assets. They aren’t ‘big people.’ In fact, they are more likely to be on the fringe of being poor with little to show. Under the DA’s unprecedented reasoning they’re expected to to plead guilty to felonies— while in one example at least one grower walks away and likely receiving a sweet plea bargain in return for forfeiture. Also keep in mind that after being found guilty by a plea of felony, trimmers risk being sentenced to State Prison by the nature of their plea.
And there certainly are other options available than expending taxpayers’ money to incarcerate trimmers for court proceedings, too. Today, the jail population was at 400 individuals housed in a facility with 391 beds. It’s overcrowded, filled with more serious felony offenders (and perhaps 18 Occupy Eureka protesters on lesser charges as of late). Trimmers should be allowed to post a reasonable bail amount, be considered for temporary release based on their own recognizance, or, if need be, receive supervised electronic monitoring until court disposition.
We outlawed the idea of Debtors’ Prison in this nation long ago in 1833. Incarcerating trimmers and expecting them to cop to a felony plea because they have nothing to forfeit— ‘no money, product, and capital’ and believing they ‘lose less’ because they ‘have not invested in the enterprise’— is, at best, unreasonable, disingenuous, and draconian. It’s a glaring disconnect of justice.
To note, yours truly asked an attorney well-connected to the case today about the DA’s new slant against trimmers. His response? “It’s true. Paul’s being harsh and I believe it’s because he’s being leaned on by the Drug Task Force to do so.”
Ron Paul has wanted to legalize MMJ for 35 years.
Gallegos is using MMJ to further his NAZI career. Vote that prick out too. Gallegos is a pussy.
Thanks