Notable whimper for end of decades long federal prosecution of California medical marijuana dispensary owner
As detailed in posts linked below, nearly 15 years ago, I blogged a bit about some interesting sentencing developments in the federal prosecution of Charles Lynch, a fellow who ran a medical marijuana dispensary in California. This new Los Angeles Times piece, headlined “He opened a medical pot dispensary in California. The feds spent 16 years prosecuting him,” details that the case is only now reaching a resolution. One needs to read the full piece to get the full story, but here are excerpts to whet appetites:
For nearly 17 years, the federal government has been after Charles Lynch for running a medical marijuana dispensary. Prosecutors refused to drop their criminal case against him even as marijuana became fully legal in California and 23 other states. They refused to let it go when Congress forbade the Department of Justice from using its funds to criminally prosecute medical marijuana activities that were consistent with state law.
Prosecutors have pursued Lynch’s case — which involves conflicting state and federal marijuana laws — through appeals and delays and criticisms that they were spending too many resources on a case that meant so little. “Twenty-five percent of my life,” Lynch, now 61, said in a Southern drawl at a hearing in downtown Los Angeles this month.
When federal authorities launched their probe in 2007, George W. Bush was in the White House and Lynch was a respected businessman in Morro Bay with a three-bedroom ranch-style house in nearby Arroyo Grande. These days, he struggles financially, lives in a single-wide trailer on his mom’s property in New Mexico and strains to remember the details of the marijuana operation that got him in so much trouble….
Lynch and his lawyers have portrayed the case as a pointless exercise by the Department of Justice that has cost taxpayers — who are footing the bill for both the prosecution and his public defenders — millions of dollars. Even the federal judge has expressed impatience, telling the prosecutor: “At some point in time, this case has to be resolved.”
Why the federal government continued to pursue the case so ardently remains unclear — even this week, when it took a new twist that caught everyone involved by surprise.
Prior related posts from 2009: