Lafayette Judge Resigns Protesting Increased Penalties
I am the Lafayette ex-associate judge who resigned on Monday to protest the attempts by the City Council, inspired by the "main" judge, to increase the penalty for petty offense possession (under 1 oz) of cannabis, from $100 to $1,000 and a year in jail, maximum. Although this was never my "day job," and in spite of not having taken the bench as a backup judge in quite some time, I was still #2 in line if needed.
The mayor of Lafayette told the press that since this was not a set penalty, but just a max penalty, that we were free to stick with the $100 fine. I personally believe that it is wrong to sit as a judge with a hidden agenda. It seems wrong to me to be willing to take the bench, and to impose sentences, even at the municipal level, while being absolutely unwilling to enforce the law as the City Council intends.
This issue has taken on a life of its own, and when the City Council addresses it again on 2/20/2007, they will have the spotlight of the media, SAFER, SANE, NORML, MPP, and the ACLU, as well as the citizens of this fair city watching. That is as it should be.
Lenny Frieling
(See Judge Frieling's press release from yesterday afternoon here.)
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redditscrew druggies
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 02/18/2007 - 3:10pmpenalty for drug trafficking for profit should be death, everywhere, regardless... this planet is in no shortage of human beings anyway.
as for those who use illegal drugs, bad choice on their part (not so "cool" now eh?), what can i say?
petty offenses for posessing cannabis.... well, hopefully the $1000 fine would make them think twice about it.
Why just drugs?
Comment posted by Scott Morgan on Sun, 02/18/2007 - 3:45pmYeah, the penalty for all crimes should be death. Let's just go around killing people. We'll let this "screw druggies" guy decide who dies.
And as for this..
"petty offenses for posessing cannabis.... well, hopefully the $1000 fine would make them think twice about it."
You're absolutely right. A few fines and what not is all it takes to stop people from smoking weed. Good thing we finally figured it out.
Soon there will be piles of dope sitting around with no one to smoke it.
So you are one of those who
Comment posted by Darthmalles on Thu, 03/15/2007 - 7:14pmSo you are one of those who believe that all that matters is whether a law exists , and not its morality or constituionality that should decide if we, the other half of the social contract, obey it? Doesn't that make gov't power absolute? Are you saying that you should be killed for having a sip of bath-tub gin if alcohol prohibition came back? Or would you rail against the injustice of the law? What if they outlaw fast food since more ppl die from diet related heart and organ failure and disease than all drugs combined? Should people die for eating an illicit big mac? It's hard to try and send you a reasonable comment, because I suspect that reason is an alien concept to you, but at least do some research on drugs and prohibition before giving out your inane and uniformed opinoins.
"It's hard to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Amen!
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 02/18/2007 - 3:11pm"screw druggies"
"petty offenses for posessing cannabis.... well, hopefully the $1000 fine would make them think twice about it."
amen.
good for you
Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 02/16/2007 - 9:21amat least one judge has some heart .he should be govener