INSIDE
Bill & Peggy Riddick
 
Charge: Marijuana Cultivation

Sentence: After 5 years of trials and staggering legal fees, they were sentenced to 30 months federal prison.
 
Bill and Peggy were hard-working grandparents, with no criminal records, who had raised their now-adult kids in a rural home in Placerville. Their property was blessed, they said, and their garden had always provided ample fruits and vegetables for the family. They were loved by their neighbors and a group often gathered on the huge flat rock in the trees behind their house to light candles and meditate as the sun went down. After the passage of Prop 215, they met with Dennis Perone, and while not smoking pot themselves, they agreed to grow plants for his S.F. Cannabis Club.  This would supplement their Social Security income and help those suffering from AIDS and cancer. And since Prop 215 had passed, they knew there wouldn't be any legal problems.
 
Except that a friend of the Riddick's kids, who did smoke pot, got busted and decided to turn State's evidence. On Valentine's Day, 1997, with a hundred plants growing in a shed behind the Riddick house, a squad of Sheriff's deputies stormed onto their property, broke in without a warrant, handcuffed them and proceeded to systematically ransack their home. They remained cuffed for six hours while the police went back for their warrant. They were held for a month in Placer jail, released, then immediately picked up by Federal authorities and moved to Sacramento County Jail. Judge Garland E. Burrell set bail at $1,500,000 for Bill and $1,000,000 for Peggy. When a motion was presented protesting the warrantless bust, Judge Burrell said, "I don't even read these things." When Judge Burrell abruptly left to take on the Unibomber case, a magistrate lowered their bail and three local families put their own homes up as collateral to get the Riddick's released.
 
Their court battle lasted for five years, during which time Bill had open heart surgery and Peggy had a hysterectomy. They also supported others with similar charges and were often in court with them as well. When they were finally sentenced in 2002, their home was taken by the government and sold within two weeks. The Riddick's were placed in separate prisons and forbidden to write to each other--to avoid felonious conspiracy, no doubt. They are scheduled for release around Christmas, 2004.  They have no home, no savings, and have lost their Social Security.
 
These people should be Outside.

When Garland Burrell worked for the Sacramento city attorney's office, he defended the police department, sued several local bookstores under an anti-smut ordinance, and supervised litigation aimed at drug abatement. He also defended the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in a civil rights case over illegal searches.
 
It was Judge Garland Burrell, the first African-American federal judge in Sacramento, who presided over the trail of B.E. Smith, the first California medical marijuana patient to be tried and convicted under federal law since California voters passed Prop. 215 in 1996. Smith, a Vietnam veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, claimed his 87 plant marijuana crop was for his medical use and thus protected under state law. He notified state and federal authorities that he was growing the plants. When state authorities declined to bring charges, the federal prosecutor initiated prosecution.
 
Early in the trial, Burrell granted a motion by the prosecutor to ban any defense testimony regarding either state law or the medical properties of marijuana. At sentencing Judge Burrell handed down a sentence of 27 months in prison, the top of federal sentencing guidelines range, citing what he called Smith's "utter disdain for federal marijuana law." Calling Smith "beyond rehabilitation," Judge Burrell handed him a longer sentence than prosecutors had recommended. 
 
Burrell was quoted as blaming Smith for "the great evil that marijuana causes throughout our nation." NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup said "It is a sad day when the federal government ignores the will of the citizens of California by prosecuting medical users."
 
Barred by Burrell from presenting any evidence regarding his medical condition or his use of marijuana to treat himself, Smith's defense was limited entirely to character witnesses. One of the witnesses, actor/activist Woody Harrelson, drew the judge's ire when answering an already sustained question about whether he was surprised to see Smith standing trial. "Certainly, for a medical marijuana case, I consider it odd," said Harrelson. When Burrell warned Harrelson to obey the rulings from the court, Harrelson replied, "I'm just wondering why you're keeping the truth from the jury." At that point, Burrell immediately sent the jury from the room and lectured Harrelson on a judge's rights to legally control the proceedings. "I didn't think you had much respect for the law", retorted Harrelson, who then asked Burrell how he slept at night.
 
How Judge Burrell sleeps is questionable, but where he sleeps--Outside and free--is a given. Perhaps Judge Burrell should spend the same amount of time behind bars as the people he has convicted for marijuana cases.