Imprisonment
for
Legal
Cooking
Herbs
in
Oklahoma
10/02/98
Last February, George Singleton was driving home to Vermont from Los Angeles when he was pulled over by an Oklahoma state trooper. The officer, who has 12 years of experience on the force, seized a bag of what he thought looked like marijuana, decided that Mr. Singleton was driving under the influence, and noted that the tags on Singleton's license plates had expired. Singleton was promptly arrested and taken to a local hospital for blood tests. The blood tests came back negative for alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other known intoxicants. The substance in the bag turned out to be a combination of mullein and rosemary, herbs that Mr. Singleton uses to treat his tuberculosis. But Mr. Singleton spent twenty-five days in jail anyway, and this Thursday completed the first day of a jury trial in what may be one of the more bizarre examples of face-saving by a police department in a botched drug case. Mr. Singleton is a black man, and wears his hair in dreadlocks down to his waist. He and his attorney suspect that this, as much as anything, is why he was arrested in the first place. "He's not guilty of anything but being black and having butt-long dreadlocks and driving in Oklahoma," attorney Jim Hadley of Vinita told the Associated Press. Craig County, OK district attorney Gene Haynes hopes that the arresting officer's report will prove what the physical evidence did not. "It is an unusual case because of the fact that we don't have proof of any illegal substance," he said. "We're continuing to pursue it because we feel he was under some type of influence that rendered him a danger on the roadway." Mr. Singleton was ultimately charged with driving with expired plates, which carries a maximum fine of $100, and with driving under the influence of an intoxicating substance, which carries a fine and a maximum sentence of one year in jail. In court this Thursday, his
attorney filed a motion to dismiss, on the grounds that the prosecution
had failed to meet its burden of proof. The judge has taken this
under advisement, and plans to make his decision on the motion Friday morning, and will be reported on this page later today or as soon as we have the information.
Note: On October 2, the judge agreed with Singleton's attorney and dismissed the State's charges against him based on a lack of evidence. --Ed.
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