• Minnesota Constitution: Art. 1, Secs. 4, 6, and 8 provides for the right to a fair trial and due process of law. And Art. 1, Sec. 8 says: “Every person is entitled to a certain remedy in law for all injuries or wrongs …”

The injustice of Angela Brown’s dilemma:

In the first news reports about her arrest, Angela Brown was quoted as saying she just wanted to tell a jury about how cannabis medications helped her teen-age son, a victim of traumatic brain injury.

But Minnesota law, under the 1991 Appellate Court decision in the Gordon Hanson case, denies a defendant the right to use medical evidence to defend himself from a marijuana charge. Therefore, the jury wouldn’t be allowed to hear Mrs. Brown’s defense!

[Angela Brown is accused of contributing to the need for child protection, so her case will be somewhat different.]

The recent so-called medical cannabis law, passed earlier this year, is so badly written that it excludes nearly all patients from being eligible to receive cannabis-derived medicines; and even goes out of its way to further criminalize the disqualified patients and their families and caregivers.

So Angela Brown’s legal predicament is this: The combination of badly-crafted court precedents, along with the Legislature’s confusing and restrictive 2014 law, means that she can’t get a fair trial.

For her and her son there is no remedy in Minnesota law for the legal injury of being arrested and charged with the alleged crime of using a naturally-derived remedy to treat her son’s serious physical injuries.

HF 542/SF 404 is a one-page long bill that secures the right to a necessity defense in marijuana cases.

The Legislature shouldn’t have ignored HF 542/SF 404—a one-page long bill that secures the right to a necessity defense in cases like Mrs. Brown’s. Having that law on the books would let her lawyer tell a judge and jury exactly how cannabis helped her son and why she defied the letter of the law to give it to him. Even better, having that law on the books would provide the prosecutor with a statutory basis to decline to prosecute in the first place, when encountering a bona fide medical use situation.

The necessity defense bill was introduced in 2010 and in 2013, but didn’t get a hearing. Angela Brown’s case shows why this very modest but basic reform is needed. Let’s call upon the Governor and Legislature to restore the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to a fair trial and to a certain remedy in law, for all Minnesotans—including those who benefit from therapeutic use of cannabis, whether within the yet-to-be-established Rube-Goldberg-style mechanisms of the 2014 statute, or outside of it.

Those who are sick and suffering should not be criminalized for treating their symptoms and pain with cannabis or cannabis-derived products. They did not ask to be sick! No jury would convict a defendant such as Angela Brown.

And even if a jury is denied the right to hear her explanation, if the jurors simply knew that they have the legal power and authority NOT to convict her—in other words, to nullify the letter of the law as unjust in their eyes—then they also would find her not guilty.

Law without justice easily becomes tyranny. Let’s urge the leaders of our state to recognize the validity of a necessity defense for persons charged with cannabis offenses. A state which allows you to shoot someone if the motive is self-defense, ought to also excuse cannabis violations when the motive is also self-defense—especially considering that the consequence of the violation would be healing, not homicide!

—Oliver Steinberg, Saint Paul

It’s urgent that the Minnesota legislature pass HF 542/SF 404.

Signing the petition helps to send a message. But it’s even more important that you contact your Minnesota State Senator and Minnesota State Representative, directly. Find your legislators’ contact information by clicking here.

 

• Madison, Minnesota’s Angela Brown, was charged with a gross misdemeanor and faces up to one year in jail for giving her son, Trey, cannabis syrup to treat pain after suffering a traumatic brain injury. Pain isn’t one of the conditions that will qualify for Minnesota’s medical cannabis program. (Photo)

 

• David Patterson, a Rastafarian, was convicted on February 18, 2015, of possessing seven pounds of cannabis, with the intention of distributing it without profit. Hubbard County Judge Paul Rasmussen instructed the jury to ignore Patterson’s necessity defense. He will be sentenced on March 30.

 

• Legal Colorado marijuana patient, Benjamin Hallgren, arrested for carrying cannabis-chocolate bars while visiting his dying father in Minnesota, is currently facing a felony drug charge. At trial, Hallgren’s doctor cannot testify to defend him, under current Minnesota law.