In the most Kafkaesque turn of events to date, the trial judge has granted the government's
motion and ruled:
For complete ruling (4 pages), please click here.
(The investigative new drug program is the one in which the federal government sends
marijuana to 8 patients each month for medical purposes and has been since 1972.)
This means my testimony will go something like this:
PROSECUTOR: "Mr. McWilliams, did you grow marijuana?"
ME: "Yes."
PROSECUTOR: "How much marijuana?"
ME: "About 300 plants."
PROSECUTOR: "Thank you."
End of testimony. The only question the jury will have to decide is whether I am
responsible for Todd McCormick's 4000 plants because I gave him a book advance for
How to Grow Medical Marijuana or the 1,600 plants Scott Hass allegedly grew with
his severance package money from my publishing company (he was the president of Prelude
Press, Inc.).
The difference is the difference between a 5-year mandatory minimum (under 1,000
plants) or a 10-year mandatory minimum (over 1,000 plants).
At this point, due to my AIDS, I basically don't have an immune system, and any stay
in the germ-rich environment of a federal prison would be a death sentence. I would
no doubt be placed on the "hospital floor" where the tuberculosis and other highly
contagious patients are "quarantined" from everybody except the prisoners on the
hospital floor.
There is one possible alternatives to prison sentences:
Ask the judge after the guilty verdict to extend my bail during the appeal process.
(Usually in drug cases, the convicted are taken into custody immediately after sentencing.
Unlike rapists, kidnappers, and robbers, we pot smokers pose a grave danger to the
community.)
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and
public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall
have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law,
and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with
the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in
his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
It doesn't say a thing about the right to put on a defense.