State Courts

Call Florida Governor Jeb Bush and urge him to pardon Richard Paey.

The number is 850-488-7146.

Paey just lost his appeal, which means he'll have to complete his 25-year sentence unless the Governor intervenes.

I just spoke with a nice lady at the Governor's office and informed her that Richard Paey is a paraplegic whose substantial need for pain medication resulted in a misguided conviction for drug dealing. I asked her to inform the Governor that I support the Florida Court of Appeals recommendation that he pardon Mr. Paey.

It only takes a minute and together we might be able to help make life a little more bearable for this most unfortunate man.

For a quick refresher on the case before you call, check out Maia Salavitz at The Huffington Post and Radley Balko's article in National Review Online.

Now put down your laptop and make the call. We'll still be here when you're done.

Thanks!

Medical marijuana activist Dustin Costa was convicted in federal court last week and could now spend the rest of his life in prison. Costa’s was the first federal trial of a medical marijuana patient in three years, demonstrating that the feds remain willing to pervert justice and lie to jurors in order to undermine California’s medical marijuana law.

The defense was prohibited from informing jurors that Costa is president of the Merced Patients Group and that his 908 plants were unquestionably intended for medical use.

Meanwhile, further north, the Washington State Supreme Court recently upheld the conviction of medical marijuana patient Sharon Lee Tracy.

During the research I did for Friday's feature article on the prisoners doing "Katrina time", two of the of the people I talked to implored to look into the plight of another set of victims of the Louisiana criminal justice system: the "heroin lifers."

Our article about the South Dakota medical marijuana initiative and the likely lawsuit against state Attorney General Larry Long over what initiative supporters contend is his biased and possibly illegal description of the initiative that will appear on the ballot, got bumped this week, but we expect it to happen next week. I held off for a couple of reasons: First, the lawsuit has yet to actually be filed. Second, I couldn't manage to make contact with South Dakotans for Safe Access sole spokeswoman Valerie Hannah until Friday morning. Hannah, a Gulf War veteran who suffers from nerve gas exposure, will fill me in on what's going on Monday.