News » ASA and Jovan Jackson File Appeal Based on Judge’s Lack of Objectivity

November 28, 2011 by Aaron Turpen

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The San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access has announced that they’re filing an appeal on behalf of convicted dispensary operator Jovan Jackson who was found guilty on three charges of illegal possession and sale of marijuana in 2010. The conviction, the ASA says, came as a result of the lack of objectivity of a hostile judge towards the accused.

In a 2009 state court, Jackson was acquitted after using California’s medical marijuana laws in his defense. He was then taken to superior court on similar charges and convicted in 2010 after Judge Howard Shore refused his state MMJ defense and referred to marijuana as “dope” and the state’s medical marijuana laws as “a scam.”

ASA chief counsel Joe Elford plans to take the trial to a jury and force the issue of both using the state’s MMJ laws as defense and to challenge the notion that the “sale” of marijuana is a crime in California. This would overturn precedent that state prosecutors have been using in spite of guidelines set by the state’s attorney general in 2008. Prosecutors have been insisting that a medical patient must take an “active role” in their marijuana cultivation in order to be a part of a collective.

[source San Diego Reader]

Tags: California, medical marijuana, MMJ