WEED FEED / John Ross Ferrara / Monday, Aug. 14, 2017 @ 9:14 a.m.

Weed Feed: Prosecution of Two Humboldt Growers Blocked by Federal Judge

Graphic by John Ferrara. Photos sourced from Wikimedia and Lost Coast Outpost.

A federal judge in San Francisco halted the prosecution of a pair of Humboldt County growers last week, citing the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment — an article passed in 2014, prohibiting the U.S. Justice Department from infringing upon any state’s medical marijuana laws.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg. | U.S. District Courts.

Anthony Pisarski and Sonny Moore, who both plead guilty to drug charges in 2014 after they were arrested during a mass raid near Miranda in 2012, had their pending three-year sentences wiped away on August 8, after U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg suspended any further proceedings.

SF Gate reports that Judge Seeborg’s decision to bar the prosecution, on the grounds that it violated the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, was the first ruling of it’s kind.

Judge Seeborg is quoted in the SF Gate article saying that evidence shows Pisarski and Moore “strictly complied with all relevant conditions imposed by California law.”

The Humboldt growers are reportedly free on bail, and will now seek to withdraw their guilty pleas. Pisarski’s lawyer Ronald Richards is also quoted in the article after successfully challenging federal prosecutors.

“We’re finally seeing the tide turning and the law changing,” Richards told reporters. “I never thought I’d have the right to stop a federal criminal prosecution.”

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