One hashish trafficking case between California and Maryland is placing a highlight on the blatant hypocrisy of the justice system with regards to cannabis-related fees.
In keeping with prosecutors, Jonathan Wall, now 27, and 10 others transported over 1,000 kilograms of hashish from California to Maryland over a interval of two years. Given these quantities, Maryland legislation defines him as a “drug kingpin.”
A federal grand jury indicted him in 2019. Within the case of United States v. Wall, if convicted of “conspiracy to own with intent to distribute marijuana,” Wall faces a sentence of as much as 10 years to life in federal jail, with a compulsory 10-year sentence hovering over his head.
In the present day marks Wall’s first look in courtroom, as he’s confined to a federal supermax jail. The elephant within the room, nonetheless, is the truth that hashish is authorized for grownup functions in 18 states and a number of other jurisdictions, and authorized for medical causes in dozens extra.
On April 26, U.S. District Decide Stephanie Gallagher accepted a movement by prosecutors calling for the courtroom to bar any dialogue of the hashish legalization motion at the moment going down throughout america, in keeping with Outlaw Report.
In different phrases, the protection workforce is to not level out how hypocritical cannabis-related non-violent circumstances are in 2022, given the modifications in legislation.
Prosecutors from the Justice Division filed the motion weeks in the past requesting that the U.S. District Court docket of Maryland preclude Wall’s protection workforce “from asking questions, presenting proof, or making arguments concerning the best way the legislation in different jurisdictions treats marijuana.”
“Marijuana is a Schedule I managed substance and underneath federal legislation, it’s [a] crime to conspire with others to distribute or possess with the intent to distribute marijuana,” prosecutors wrote within the movement. “The truth that different jurisdictions have legalized marijuana, decriminalized marijuana, are contemplating decriminalization of sure portions of marijuana, or have declined to prosecute people for crimes involving marijuana, will not be related to the problems at this trial.”
The subject of legalization is irrelevant to the trial, the choose claims. The movement added that “proof and argument of this kind will not be related and needs to be excluded from this trial.”
Who’s Jonathan Wall?
Andrew Ward profiled Wall for Excessive Instances Most Affected final 12 months. “All people is aware of it’s federally unlawful, however actually to not that extent till they discover themselves affected first-hand,” he acknowledged. Wall was housed on the Chesapeake Detention Facility in Baltimore, identified for its excessive degree of violence. Is it actually honest that one individual has to climate excessive jail circumstances for one thing that’s now authorized?
Wall’s lawyer, Jason Flores-Williams, a famous activist, agreed that the Conflict on Medicine is a useless thought, and individuals are nonetheless paying the results due to it. It begs the query of whether or not or not it’s honest for Wall and others to be among the many final.
“There are such a lot of individuals who devoted and basically donated their life to getting this plant to the place it’s as we speak, on the verge of legalization,” Wall told Insider from inside jail. “Do I’ve to be the final one that is prosecuted for a product that’s making billions of {dollars} around the globe?”
Federal authorities allege that Wall served because the “architect” of this system, when he was only a 20-year-old in Humboldt County. If Wall merely had a license to move that quantity, he wouldn’ve merely been a “distributor” on the earth of authorized hashish. One piece of paper makes the distinction between that and trafficking fees.
Learn Wall’s personal account of the alleged crimes. In it, Wall particulars how rape fees can yield much less time in jail than the drug fees he’s dealing with.
Wall tried to get the courtroom to dismiss his case on geographic procedural grounds and once more on equal protection grounds, given the arbitrary enforcement of the federal ban on hashish, relying on the state.
Wall’s trial begins Monday morning within the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. As of the time of writing, his petition on Change.org gained over 16,000 signatures.
Go to FreeJonathanWall.com to be taught extra about his ongoing case.