Kangaroo Court Judge In The News

In an earlier post we reported or re-reported news about the farce of a medical marijuana trial that occurred in the Long Beach Superior Court this past December.

Now comes word that the Honorable Judge Charles Sheldon who presided over the trial sent a complimentary letter to the prosecutor after the trial was concluded.  However the end of the trial does not mark the end of a case.  Technically this matter is still pending since sentencing and other post-conviction motions still have to be adjudicated.  Sound messy?? So how to fix this mess?  What any honorable jurist would do-punt.

Yes Judge Sheldon has now recused himself from the rest of this case admitting a huge mistake. As you can expect this will not be the last we hear about this matter and it will be ripe for Appeal.

One cautionary note for the defense the new judge is Judge Comparet-Cassani.  She came into fame for electric wanding a criminal defendant in her courtroom.

For the rest of the story from the Press Telegram:

http://www.presstelegram.com/breakingnews/ci_19720457

Long Beach Update

As many of you are aware of by now the up and down legality of collectives in Long Beach is now on life support.  There is a slight reprieve until January 17, 2012.  So for now the patient that is safe access to medical marijuana in Long Beach breaths is alive- for now.

As their are some fine collectives in Long Beach, here is for hoping that they continue to live.  They are calling for your support at the city council meeting on January 17, 2012.

Stay tuned.

Garden Grove Sends Out Notices

According to a few collective owners, the city of Garden Grove has begun issuing cease and desist notices to those stores who were not approved during the so called "licensing" procedure.  Garden Grove began their licensing procedure last fall.  It called for a retroactive application to June 30, 2011 for stores that were in operation prior to that point.

Fomrer Collective Owners Convicted

Surprise, surprise, surprise.  Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron former collective owners and verified caregivers if there ever were caregivers have been convicted in Long Beach Superior Court.

Personally being very familiar with both Long Beach Courts and the Judge involved here, Judge Shelton, this conviction is hardly a surprise.  Neither was the one sided nature of things which according to the OC Weekly included shielding the jury from the audience, limiting defense witnesses etc.

An appeal is expected.

Here is the full story:

http://www.ocweekly.com/2011-12-22/news/judge-charles-d-sheldon-joe-byron-grumbine-medical-marijuana/

Long Beach Seeks Ban

  The Long Beach City Council will discuss a potential complete ban on medical marijuana collectives during next week’s council meeting.
  Ordinance 5.89, if approved by the City Council, would prohibit “medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation sites from locating in the city of Long Beach.”

    Earlier this year, the appellate court judge who presided over the Pack v. City of Long Beach trial ruled that Long Beach’s 5.87 ordinance was at least partially against federal law — specifically, its permitting process that created a lottery system was ruled illegal.
       Here is a quote from city officials.

      “Protecting citizens from the secondary impacts and effects associated with medical marijuana and related activities, including, but not limited to, loitering, increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic, increased noise, fraud in obtaining or using medical marijuana identification cards, sales of medical marijuana to minors, drug sales, robbery, burglaries, assaults or other violent crimes.”

Lake Forrest Dispensaries Voluntarily Close

Patients in Lake Forrest

Score another one for the bad guys as attorneys for medical mariuana dispensaries have advised their clients to shut down while the this federal crackdown issue is being address.

Full story from OC Register: http://www.ocregister.com/news/marijuana-321612-federal-medical.html

Long Beach Shutting Down?!

More bad news on the medical marijuana news front as word from the dispensaries is that the city of Long Beach has sent out notices to all dispensaries in Long Beach to close within 21 days. 1 Love one of the coolest collectives in the LBC has sent out emails to their patients notifying them of this latest development. Those email notices apparantly went out on October 13, 2011.

The possibility that Long Beach will shutting down or atempting to shut down its dispensaries is an epic event.  Long Beach had enacted a controversal lottery system that allowed dispensaries to operate in a quasi-legal way. That lottery system was over thrown by a the Appeals court earlier this month.