New Orleans man sentenced to life in prison for marijuana conviction

[mentalfloss]

Fourth marijuana conviction gets Slidell man life in prison

State Judge Raymond S. Childress punished Hood under Louisiana's repeat-offender law in his courtroom in Covington on Thursday. A jury on Feb. 15 found the defendant guilty of attempting to possess and distribute marijuana at his Slidell home, court records show.

Hood moved from eastern New Orleans to the Slidell area after he admitted to separate charges of distribution of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana on Dec. 18, 2009, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He received a suspended five-year prison sentence and five years' of probation for each -- which was precisely the same penalty he got in that court after pleading guilty to possessing and intending to distribute marijuana on Feb. 22, 2005.

When Hood switched homes, he also requested a new probation officer based in St. Tammany. Authorities granted the wish, and the officer, Dustin Munlin, drove to Hood's place for a routine visit on Sept. 27, 2010.

Prosecutors later charged him with one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

At Hood's one-day trial, the evidence presented by the prosecution included a digital scale and about a dozen bags that had contained marijuana before being seized from the house, testimony showed. Deputies also found $1,600 in cash and a student-loan application with Hood's name on it inside of a night stand.


Fourth marijuana conviction gets Slidell man life in prison | NOLA.com

 

[DurkaDurka]

Fiscally, for one of the poorer states, how can they justify locking a guy up for the next 30 years for selling pot?

 

[JLM]

Fourth marijuana conviction gets Slidell man life in prison

State Judge Raymond S. Childress punished Hood under Louisiana's repeat-offender law in his courtroom in Covington on Thursday. A jury on Feb. 15 found the defendant guilty of attempting to possess and distribute marijuana at his Slidell home, court records show.

Hood moved from eastern New Orleans to the Slidell area after he admitted to separate charges of distribution of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana on Dec. 18, 2009, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He received a suspended five-year prison sentence and five years' of probation for each -- which was precisely the same penalty he got in that court after pleading guilty to possessing and intending to distribute marijuana on Feb. 22, 2005.

When Hood switched homes, he also requested a new probation officer based in St. Tammany. Authorities granted the wish, and the officer, Dustin Munlin, drove to Hood's place for a routine visit on Sept. 27, 2010.

Prosecutors later charged him with one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

At Hood's one-day trial, the evidence presented by the prosecution included a digital scale and about a dozen bags that had contained marijuana before being seized from the house, testimony showed. Deputies also found $1,600 in cash and a student-loan application with Hood's name on it inside of a night stand.


Fourth marijuana conviction gets Slidell man life in prison | NOLA.com

The judge probably felt he wasn't "getting the picture" the other three times. :smile:

 

[CUBert]

The judge probably felt he wasn't "getting the picture" the other three times. :smile:

It's Marijuana

 

[mentalfloss]

Fiscally, for one of the poorer states, how can they justify locking a guy up for the next 30 years for selling pot?

It's not about the money, it's about the principle.

 

[CUBert]

YouTube - 911 Call-Cop "Overdoses" on Pot Brownies

 

[MHz]

Prisons only make money if they are full

 

[lone wolf]

It's all about taxes....

Incredible they'd spend billions to compensate for thousands....

 

[DurkaDurka]

It's not about the money, it's about the principle.

I realize that but in many of these states, the government claims to be fiscally responsible, I'm just wondering how jailing someone for life for pot dealing is fiscally responsible?

I think you would have better luck having these excessive punishments removed from the books via framing it as a money issue opposed to a morally principled argument.

 

[earth_as_one]

February 10, 2007

American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That's according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.

Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.

The new report is noteworthy because it undermines the common claim from law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, specifically White House drug czar John Walters, that few, if any, Americans are incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot.

Of course, several hundred thousand more Americans are arrested each year for violating marijuana laws, costing taxpayers another $8 billion dollars annually in criminal justice costs.

According to the most recent figures available from the FBI, police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.

These totals are the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and make up 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. Nevertheless, self-reported pot use by adults, as well as the ready availability of marijuana on the black market, remains virtually unchanged.

Marijuana isn't a harmless substance, and those who argue for a change in the drug's legal status do not claim it to be. However, pot's relative risks to the user and society are arguably fewer than those of alcohol and tobacco, and they do not warrant the expenses associated with targeting, arresting and prosecuting hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.

According to federal statistics, about 94 million Americans -- that's 40 percent of the U.S. population age 12 or older -- self-identify as having used cannabis at some point in their lives, and relatively few acknowledge having suffered significant deleterious health effects due to their use. America's public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it. It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals.

 

[mentalfloss]

That was in 2007.

One could only imagine what is being spent now.

 

[The Old Medic]

Wonderful!

That's what happens to STUPID CRIMINALS. He was DISTRIBUTING an illegal drug, while on probation for distribution of an illegal drug, while on probation for distributing an illegal drug.

If he can not figure out that he WILL get caught, and can't maintain long enough to finish a probation period, then he deserves what he gets. get such a kick out of ultra liberal folks who just can not understand that other countries have laws that people are actually expected to obey.

And, unlike Canada, in Louisiana, they actually PUNISH criminals.

 

[mentalfloss]

Wonderful!

That's what happens to STUPID CRIMINALS. He was DISTRIBUTING an illegal drug, while on probation for distribution of an illegal drug, while on probation for distributing an illegal drug.

If he can not figure out that he WILL get caught, and can't maintain long enough to finish a probation period, then he deserves what he gets. get such a kick out of ultra liberal folks who just can not understand that other countries have laws that people are actually expected to obey.

And, unlike Canada, in Louisiana, they actually PUNISH criminals.

I think most people understand that they have the authority to punish him.

It's just that we also realize how bat**** insane it is.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Wonderful!

That's what happens to STUPID CRIMINALS. He was DISTRIBUTING an illegal drug, while on probation for distribution of an illegal drug, while on probation for distributing an illegal drug.

If he can not figure out that he WILL get caught, and can't maintain long enough to finish a probation period, then he deserves what he gets. get such a kick out of ultra liberal folks who just can not understand that other countries have laws that people are actually expected to obey.

And, unlike Canada, in Louisiana, they actually PUNISH criminals.

Yeah, lock em up and throw away the key for pot trafficking, brilliant. Do you have any idea how much it will cost to house him for the rest of his life? Talk about a waste of tax dollars.

 

[JLM]

It's Marijuana

Don't matter.............he still wasn't getting the picture. It's not the substance that got him into the sh*t, it's the contempt.

 

[CUBert]

Wonderful!

That's what happens to STUPID CRIMINALS. He was DISTRIBUTING an illegal drug, while on probation for distribution of an illegal drug, while on probation for distributing an illegal drug.

If he can not figure out that he WILL get caught, and can't maintain long enough to finish a probation period, then he deserves what he gets. get such a kick out of ultra liberal folks who just can not understand that other countries have laws that people are actually expected to obey.

And, unlike Canada, in Louisiana, they actually PUNISH criminals.

I'll put it bluntly (heh), if you believe marijuana use is deserving of life imprisonment, you're retarded.

 

[Colpy]

I'll put it bluntly (heh), if you believe marijuana use is deserving of life imprisonment, you're retarded.

Well, this was distribution....but when you're right, you're right.

If you believe the use or the distribution of marijuana deserves life imprisonment, you have some serious problems.

 

[Unforgiven]

But this way they will be able to release a violent offender because of over crowding and keep the fear factor up. Seems to me it's getting to the point where you might as well just shoot it out with the cops over anything.

 

[lone wolf]

Someone might have to eat more crow if it ever got out that Anslinger got his laws posted on foreign shores.

 

[PoliticalNick]

Let's be real for a minute. The costs to the healthcare systems from tobacco far exceeds the costs attributed to pot. The cost to healthcare and justice systems from alcohol are probably 25 times than the costs arising from pot. Unless you are out there physically forcing kids to smoke pot you are involved in a victimless crime which is really a moral argument where those who oppose it want to impose their morality upon others. I for one do not use pot, or liquor, but I think if an adult wants to make a choice to use it that is their business and I have no place telling them not to. This is a far cry from from what the intention of 'law' is, which is to provide redress for 'victims'.