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| Lode Judge Disqualified From Pot Preachers' Case |
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Posted by FoM on July 04, 2001 at 14:11:19 PT Editorial Source: Stockton Record 
A Calaveras County Superior Court judge who accepted and then rejected a plea-bargain agreement for two Wallace ministers accused of cultivating marijuana is off the case. The district attorney's office filed a motion to disqualify Judge Douglas Mewhinney from the case involving Ricky Dewayne Garner, 43, and Sue Melinda Garner, 40, both ministers of the Northern Lights Church. The prosecution and defense can file such motions to disqualify one judge each, and both county judges -- Mewhinney and John Martin -- have been disqualified from the Garner case. Assigned Judge Duane Martin presided over a hearing for the Garners on Tuesday. They are scheduled to go to trial Sept. 19 on the cultivation charge. The Garners had their property raided in August by sheriff's deputies who found 290 marijuana plants and seized weapons, smoking pipes, growing equipment, church documents and doctors' recommendations for medicinal-marijuana use. The Garners were not hiding their growing operation and said they were cultivating it for their own medicinal use and for 16 other people who had a legal right to the drug under Proposition 215. The Garners eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of possessing more than an ounce of marijuana as part of a plea-bargain that Mewhinney endorsed. But the terms and conditions of probation called for the Garners to abide by medical-marijuana guidelines the county Board of Supervisors adopted last year, guidelines that allow for six marijuana plants and 2 pounds for each person who has a doctor's recommendation for medicinal-marijuana use. A day after approving the plea bargain, Mewhinney called the Garners' attorneys and Seth Matthews, a deputy district attorney, and said he feared the probation terms he approved were illegal in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative case. Mewhinney last month ruled the probation terms indeed were illegal and needed to be stricken, at which time the Garners withdrew their guilty pleas and a new trial date was set. Source: Record, The (CA) Related Articles & Web Site: Northern Lights Church OCBC Versus The US Government Judge Fears Pot Ruling Illegal Ministers' Pot Trial Delayed Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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