JCT: Background:

ON: Judge knew pot smoker's reference
Posted: May 11 2006, 11:20 AM
Guelph Mercury Feedback: editor@...

He excuses himself from sentencing in medical marijuana
exporting case
SCOTT TRACEY, GUELPH MERCURY

Medical marijuana activist Marco Renda of Dundalk enjoys a
joint outside Guelph's Ontario Court of Justice yesterday.
GUELPH (May 11, 2006)

A Guelph judge's relationship with a medical marijuana user
derailed the sentencing yesterday of a pot crusader who has
admitted mailing the drug to users in the United States and
Britain. Justice Gary Hearn said while reviewing letters of
support last weekend filed by Marco Renda's lawyer, the
judge realized one of the letters was from "an acquaintance"
of Hearn's. "I feel it's not appropriate to proceed with
sentencing in view of that," the judge said. Hearn stressed
he already knew the letter writer, who was not identified in
court, uses marijuana to combat a medical condition. He said
the impact of seeing the person's name on the letter was
"zero" and he was not concerned it would taint his ability
to deliver a just sentence. "My concern is only for
appearances," the judge said, adding he is confident federal
prosecutor David Doney and defence counsel Leora Shemesh
were concerned about possible bias.

When court began yesterday morning, Hearn called the two
lawyers into his office and explained the conflict. He later
explained in open court why he could not continue to hear
Renda's case. Doney confirmed in court his "sole concern was
with the appearance of the matter." Shemesh said she had no
problem with Hearn continuing with the case, but understood
why the judge felt he must remove himself.

Renda, 46, of the Dundalk area northeast of Mount Forest,
pleaded guilty in February to exporting marijuana and
possession of hashish oil. He returns to court May 19 for a
pretrial hearing before a different judge. Even though the
case is back at square one it is possible another guilty
plea could be entered following the pretrial. Renda has been
authorized by Health Canada to possess and grow marijuana,
which he uses to alleviate the symptoms of hepatitis C.

Court earlier heard Renda operates a website --
treatingyourself.com -- through which he offered marijuana
seeds for sale to other medical users. On March 18, 2005, he
went to the postal outlet inside the Shoppers Drug Mart in
Fergus and dropped off 24 manila envelopes destined for
various addresses in the U.S., court heard. Canadian Border
Security officers intercepted two of the packages and opened
them because they believed a crime was being committed. The
two envelopes were each found to contain marijuana.

On March 31, border officers opened the remaining envelopes
and found them to contain a total of 79 grams of bud
marijuana -- valued at about $1,580 -- and dozens of seeds,
court heard. In the interim, Renda had gone to the same
postal outlet March 23 and mailed out two packages to
American addresses. These were also seized and found to
contain 80 grams of bud marijuana and four grams of powdered
marijuana with a total estimated value of $1,600, court
heard. On March 30, Renda mailed 17 packages to users in the
U.S. and United Kingdom. These were later found to contain
632 grams of bud marijuana and one vial of hashish oil with
an alleged value of more than $12,000, court heard. Police
later raided Renda's rural home, seizing eight vials of
hashish oil from the living room.

Shemesh earlier told court her client disputes the values
alleged by the prosecutor, and would provide evidence Renda
offered controlled substances through his website at a
greatly reduced rate. Outside court yesterday, Renda
expressed disappointment with the latest setback in his
case. But he said Hearn's acknowledgment he knows someone
who uses marijuana for medical purposes "shows judges
realize this is legit." Renda said following his guilty plea
in February that Health Canada revoked the growing portion
of his medical-use permit and said he would not be able to
reapply for 10 years. "They've given me a 10-year sentence,"
he said. "That's way more than any judge would give me."

Renda, who also publishes Treating Yourself magazine, said
he believes he was singled out because he is a vocal medical
marijuana activist. Before court yesterday, Renda and
several of his supporters stood outside the Wyndham Street
courthouse, openly smoking marijuana. Constable Ben Bair of
the Guelph Police drug unit, who was at court on another
matter, ensured each of the tokers had their Health Canada
exemption cards.
stracey@...

Source: The Guelph Mercury
Link: http://tinyurl. com/2zvfzu
Letters: editor@guelphmercur y.com

JCT: End Result:

Man pleads guilty to pot-by-post plan
Plea crafted to protect grower's licence

SCOTT TRACEY
GUELPH (Jun 7, 2007)

A medical marijuana crusader accused of mailing pot to
fellow users in the United States and Britain pleaded guilty
yesterday to committing mischief by using Canada Post
services "without proper authority." Following Marco Renda's
plea, federal prosecutor David Doney asked the court to
withdraw three counts each of trafficking and exporting a
controlled substance and a single count of possession of a
controlled substance.

JCT: From trafficking down to possession, a section that
Parliament has not yet re-enacted after the Parker and
Krieger invalidations. Lucky for him. I'll get that erased.
Like I got the six possession charges dropped against Marc
Emery out of the 4000 charges dropped across Canada! Even
the narc moles get out with the real victims in big wins.

Justice Walter Gonet gave Renda, 47, formerly of the Mount
Forest area, a conditional discharge and put the man on
probation for two years. Outside court, Renda's lawyer,
Leora Shemesh, said the plea was carefully crafted to
protect her client's Health Canada licence, which allows
Renda to possess and grow marijuana. He uses the drug to
alleviate the symptoms of hepatitis C. Shemesh said if Renda
had pleaded guilty to any drug-related counts it could have
cost him his federal exemption from marijuana laws. "The
court was compassionate with that and so was the Crown,"
Shemesh said, noting the plea to mischief was hammered out
between the judge and lawyers for both sides during a series
of pretrial meetings. "His honour was aware of not wanting
to affect his licence," Shemesh said. "It was a
compassionate resolution."

Renda was accused of mailing 43 packages of marijuana to
people in the U.S. and United Kingdom during March 2005. He
was arrested April 13, 2005, when members of the Ontario
Provincial Police's drug enforcement section executed a
warrant at his home in Southgate Township, northeast of
Mount Forest. In entering his plea yesterday, Renda admitted
only that he used the postal service to send out "plant
materials."

JCT: 43 packages!

Shemesh said as well as the compassionate reasons to
conclude the case, the Crown might have had difficulty
proving its case because of "continuity issues" surrounding
Canada Post's handling of the packages, including who had
authority to open them.

Renda has since moved to Toronto, where he publishes
Treating Yourself magazine, billed as "a journal for
patients by patients." He said the resolution of the
charges "gives me some breathing room to get back to what I
was doing, which is educating the uninformed to the value of
medical marijuana." Renda said he also intends to give away
marijuana seeds through his website (treatingyourself. com)
and to continue lobbying Health Canada to provide free
marijuana to those who qualify to legally possess it. The
federal government pays Prairie Plant Systems to grow
marijuana in an old mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man., which is
then provided, at a cost, to exempted people.
stracey@guelphmercu ry.com

JCT: I can just imagine Leora Shemesh's summation to get the
judge to agree to a plea of mischief instead of
"international drug trafficking."

Leora Shemesh could have started by saying:

I was on Alan Young's legal team when Terry Parker won his
first Superior Court opinion that the MMAR had failed to
comply with the court's ruling and the possession offence
was no longer valid. Alan helped the Crown get that criminal
jurisdiction ruling set aside pursuant to the civil rules of
practice (because there's no avenue in criminal law to set
aside a judge's order without appealing and we didn't want
the notoriety of an appeal).

Then as Parker continued his quest for the declaration that
the prohibition dam had come down on Terry Parker Day 2001
because the government had failed to install the working
exemption doors though the dam, Alan Young and I started the
Hitzig decision to fix the doors in the downed dam hoping to
bring the dam back up.

Remember, Terry Parker was seeking the declaration that the
law had become invalid on Terry Parker Day 2001 and here it
was 2003 and your court had been convicting people daily for
over 2 years without anyone but Parker's legal counsel
knowing that the Terry Parker Day Declaration of
invalidation of the section 4 possession offence had taken
effect. Suddenly, everyone would find out that the law had
been dead for the past 2 years, they'd have to drop all
charges and wait for Parliament to prohibit it all over
again.

That's where Alan Young's Hitzig case comes in. It was the
companion case to fix the exemption system that was
consolidated with the Parker case trying to declare that the
prohibition had died and that we didn't need an exemption
system.

To make sure no one would hear about Parker saying the court
had screwed up over the past 2 years, when the court ruled
that the exemption system had failed to work over the past 2
years, they also granted Alan Young's motion to fix the
exemption system in the Hitzig case which brought the
prohibition back to life and saving anyone finding out about
all the bogus convictions this, and every other court in
Canada, were derelict in signing. But by bringing the law
back to life on the very day everyone finds out its' been
dead for 2 years lets prosecutions go merrily on with no one
the wiser that 2 years worth of convictions, Your Honour
having your share, were registered across Canada.

Of course, only Parliament can resurrect an invalidated
statute but we got the court to order that lower courts
ignore the Interpretation Act that says "laws declared of no
force and effect are to be deemed repealed" and treat them
as only absent until fixed by Parliament or the courts. And
they're busy working on fixing what was wrong with capital
punishment to put an end to John The Engineer's annoying
attacks on the marijuana prohibition.

All thanks to the accused Marco Renda here, who financed the
Alan Young and his team of marijuana activist lawyers that
brought the marijuana law back to life and that you could
continue convicting with no one noticing the hundred of so
bogus convictions you signed and never corrected or
apologized for. Alan Young fixing the exemption system to
bring the law back to life on the very day Terry Parker gets
it declared having been dead for the past 2 years was pretty
smooth!

So here's Marco Renda, exporting 43 packages all around the
world, leading the pro-marijuana activists in his defiance.
But believe me, he's really working for us, he's really just
a Judas Goat leading the innocent astray.

So he doesn't deserve to be punished for international drug
trafficking. As one of our most productive narc moles, not
only is his name on the Hitzig appeal that resurrected the
possession offence but he also funded the fight to fix the
exemption before or when Parker got the law declared dead.

He's a hero to our Prohibitionist cause who helped Alan
Young's team of pro-marijuana shysters not only keep the law
alive but also keep anyone from knowing about Your Honour's
personal list of bogus convictions. Because of this man, no
one knows about the average hundred or so convictions you
presided over while law was dead. Considering how Mr. Renda
has helped the Government keep the law alive in the hearts,
if not brains, of Canadians, and covered your ass over all
those bogus convictions over 2 years, I'd suggest you let
him plead guilty to mischief instead of trafficking
marijuana all around the world."

JCT: Right, Judas Goat getting a golden parachute after
leading the sheople of the cannabis culture to the
prohibitionist slaughterhouse.


--
Abolitionist Debt Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer"
Turmel for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution
C6 to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel USENET blog: alt.fan.john-turmel