Buckley Denounces Prosecution of McCormick and McWilliams In Strongest Terms Yet.
"On the eve of the trial Judge King decided, so to speak, to eliminate the Bill of Rights."

In Pursuit of Truth and Justice in California
By William F. Buckley, Jr.
November 30, 1999
(Marijuananews note: I met Peter McWilliams through Buckley, who has written a number of scathing commentaries on the prosecution of his old friend. This one is the strongest one yet.)
See
Buckley Writes On McWilliams And Kubby Cases; Great Ending, If I May Say So.
and
Buckley Deplores The Mistreatment of McWilliams By The Feds
and
Buckley Denounces Suppression of Medical Marijuana and Harrassment of Author Peter McWilliams

The Federal narcomaniacs decided, at some point, to move in on the California scene.

Background: In l996, a plebiscite was conducted. Proposition 215 ruled that a Californian
could take marijuana if counseled to do so for reasons of health by his doctor.

That would seem a reasonable decision, by a self-governing state. But it ran athwart a federal ruling. It is that marijuana is a proscribed substance and that its use under any circumstances is therefore unlawful.

California, then, became the legal battleground.

And the Feds walked into a quandary when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last September authorized a cannabis club in Oakland to resume providing marijuana to patients where there was medical necessity. In such cases, said this honorable court, medical necessity could be used as a defense against a court injunction obtained by the Washington narcs.
See
A Major Disaster For Marijuana Prohibition in Oakland
– Federal Appeals Court Rules For Medical Necessity Defense
What apparently happened in the past fortnight was a policy decision to force the hand not only of California, but of the Ninth Circuit. Judge George H. King of Los Angeles was given two indictments to try.

Peter McWilliams, an author, publisher, and poet, and Todd McCormick, an entrepreneur. McWilliams and McCormick were charged with conspiring to manufacture marijuana, which indeed is exactly what they did, growing 4,300 plants. The design, said the defense, was to make these plants available to the cannabis clubs to pass the drug along as authorized by Proposition 215.
See
Four Thousand Plants In Los Angeles Is A Felony;
Twenty Thousand Plants In The UK Is Venture Capital.
– 2 Stories and Infinite Irony.
The trial was scheduled to begin on November 30.

On the eve of the trial Judge King decided, so to speak, to eliminate the Bill of Rights.

Defense strategy had been to advise the jury of the reasons the defendants thought to act as they did.

They would cite Proposition 215, expressing the will of the citizens of California. Then they would recite the medical story.

Todd McCormick has fused vertebra from childhood cancer treatments. Peter McWilliams has AIDS and also an AIDS-related cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He went through chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer and then a pharmaceutical therapy for AIDS. In the account of Charles Levendosky, writing in the Ventura County Star, "The cancer treatment brought on complete remission. The AIDS treatment calls for a mixture of chemically derived protease inhibitors and anti-viral medications in order to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus in his body. He must continue his AIDS treatment in order to live."

In July l998, federal agents arrested McWilliams. They put handcuffs on him, took him to jail, kept him there for several weeks, then released him on bail on the proviso that he must not use marijuana, an edict the enforcement of which called for random urine tests.
See
"The federal prosecutor personally called my mother to tell her that if I was found with even a trace
of medical marijuana, her house would be taken away." -- Peter McWilliams

Again in the account of the Ventura County Star: "McWilliams stopped smoking marijuana. He now takes the prescription anti-nausea drug, Marinol, that he claims only works about a third of the time. He vomits much of his AIDS medications and, by the fall of l998, the amount of live AIDS virus in his blood had reached a critical stage. McWilliams can no longer walk any farther than 50 feet and uses a wheelchair. All of this since his arrest."

The judge issued his ruling: The defendants would not be permitted to advise the jury of the existence of Proposition 215, which presumably would have served to extenuate the guilt the prosecution was asserting (one wonders whether a juror would have been dismissed for cause if he/she had voted for Prop 215?). And, the jury would not be permitted to hear the medical record of the defendants. McWilliams' attorney would not be
permitted even to tell the jury that he could not address certain issues in the case, or give the reasons why he could not do so.
See
Judge Rules Against Medical Necessity Defense For McCormick and McWilliams
There Cannot Be Even a Mention of Medical Marijuana! Defies 9^th Circuit Ruling.
Press Release From McCormick and McWilliams
So...the defense folded. There isn't much point in undertaking to defend yourself is the reasons why you acted as you did you are prohibited to bring up.
See
McCormick and McWilliams Plead Guilty to Avoid Ten Year Minimums.
McCormick Reserves Right To Medical Necessity Defense.
Sentencing Set for February 28.
Obviously the high command of Narcs Inc. feared that the temptation would be felt by the jury to "nullify." That happens, to use the language of Mr. Levendosky, "when a jury deliberately rejects the evidence of guilt or refuses to apply the law because it wants to send a message about a social issue or because the result dictated by the law is contrary to the jury's sense of justice, morality, or fairness."
See www.fija.org

So the fate of Peter McWilliams and of Todd McCormick is in the hands of Judge King.
(Marijuananews note: McCormick and McWilliams actually took different deals. McCormick reserved the right to appeal to the 9th Circuit.)

Perhaps the cool thing for him to do is delay a ruling for a few months, and just let Peter McWilliams die.

Copyright Universal Press Syndicate