J.G. Vibes

It was almost jury nullification, but not quite. Jason Andrews is a California Medical Marijuana dispensary owner who provides free cannabis to terminally ill patients, and for the past two years he has been facing state charges on Sales and Trafficking of Marijuana, in a state where medical marijuana is legal. Andrews even has all of the required government licensing, and complies with all of the regulations, his operation is 100% legal.

Earlier this year his case was to be decided in court, and things really weren’t looking good for him. Luckily, there was one juror who was informed about the power of jury nullification, and tried his best to convince the jury to rule in favor of the defense, seeing that the charges against Andrews were not only unjust, but also illegal, even according the state. The other jurors would not comply, but juror 101 stood his ground and refused to allow the rest of the jury to put Andrews away.

Ultimately, the deliberation came to a stalemate and a hung jury resulted in a mistrial for Jason Andrews. When Juror 101 got home from court he blogged about his experience , saying “always do your jury duty, you might have a chance to save a fellow citizen from a faulty charge and a lazy, zombie jury…. I did!! ayayayayayyayeeeeeee!”

At first Andrews was relieved, until his lawyer asked for more money and informed him that the court had scheduled a retrial in which he would be forced to face his charges all over again. At first glance it would seem that this second trial is a violation of the double jeopardy law, which prevents courts from charging people for the same crime twice.

However, Andrews was informed that the double jeopardy law does not apply to hung jury mistrials in the state of California. For him to be cleared of the charges, it would have to be a not guilty verdict or a case of full jury nullification, with all jurors in agreement. Since that was not the case in Jason Andrews trial, he can be sent up to court up to 3 times for this same offense if other mistrials occur. He is scheduled to appear again in court on October 28th for a pretrial, and he is reaching out to the alternative press to gather support for his battle against the state of California and these faulty charges. Jason’s complications began On October 12, 2010 when he was followed by police when leaving a dispensary that he worked with. This week I had a chance to ask him some questions about his run in with police and he was able to explain the events that led up to his charges. JGV: Can you explain more about your free delivery service and what exactly happened the night you had your run in with police? JA: The Collective I left that night was a Dispensary store front. They offered Medical Marijuana to Patients and I have a small Collective Delivery Service that I provide free medication to the terminally ill. When we have extra medicine we provided it to this Collective Store Front, who took it on consignment , then took donations from there other patients for the medicine. When they had gotten rid of it they would call me and reimburse us for it. This Collective was being watched as well as a few others in Lake Forest California by the Orange County Sheriffs because they had been fighting the city and won a recent appeal. JGV: Can you share some details about what police found on you and what happened after they found it? JA: I had a pound of Medical Marijuana on me, Two strains in two 8 oz. bags as well as $5800 in cash in the Bag and $420 in my wallet. I had received a car settlement two weeks earlier and had some cash.. They took all of this as well as other property. A signed copy of Jack Herer’s Book The Emperor Wears No Clothes and a phone which had the last picture of my older brother who died one month prior to this.. Those are important to me.. There were also letters from Congressman and Women and Senator on issues I wrote to them about. I was held in the car for what seemed like a few hours and then I was told that I was free to go. I was not given a ticket or anything other than a warning for speeding and a receipt for my money, I was released and told have a good night. So for a month or so I called the Sheriff’s Department and Internal Affairs Congressmen and Senators, I called everyone and anyone. No one would help.