The prosecutor in my case is Ms. Theresa Pham, a local Deputy District Attorney that seems to be reporting to and getting her marching orders directly from Bonnie Dumanis in this case. In fact several other Deputy DA's are working for her on this case, including Romil Tohidi and a number graduate law clerks that have now been retained by th prosecution to help convict me.
A few weeks ago, at one of the many hearings I have been forced to attend in my case, a Judge determined that one of the four counts (transportation) against me was not valid as there wasn't enough evidence to charge me with it, and dismissed it. This left me with 3 felony charges for which I was to be tried starting on January 21, 2010.
The prosecution however, had something different in mind. The week before my trial, my attorney Michael McCabe and I were called in to court for a "People's Motion for Discovery". Pham was claiming that I was in violation of her request for discovery and needed to be ordered by a judge to produce more information. This was after both I and my attorney spent hours getting together and providing all information to Ms. Pham that she was entitled to.
The hearing took almost half the day and culminated in Pham’s embarrassment in front of the Superior Court Judge So, when he told her "You are asking for what is beyond the power of the court". Ms. Pham’s response to this was priceless. She said, “But, but, but your Honor”.
The judge ultimately refused to order me to provide ALL medical records related to my hospital / doctors visits from birth to the prosecution.
Talk about an attempt at invasion of privacy and patients rights; while Pham was making her arguments, it became very clear that the DA has now taken on the role of physician and is attempting to determine themselves if a patient is qualified to use cannabis.
To make things even worse, the day we walked in to court to defend against supposedly being in violation of Pham's request for discovery, Pham brought in a new 4th charge; possession of Concentrated Cannabis.
In February of 2009, when I was arrested, the NTF officer (Conrado Decastro) seized a number of items that belonged to me. The items related to medical cannabis included ~34g of cannabis and 14g of Concentrated Cannabis (Pressed Kief).
Originally I was only charged with possession with intent to distribute of the 34 grams of dried cannabis flowers. Now however, Pham has decided to add the 14g of pressed kief as a separate charge.
As a result of this new charge, my attorney and I were forced to leave the discovery hearing in front of Judge So, and go down to Department 11 where I was arraigned on the new charge. I entered a plea of NOT GUILTY, and we requested a 995 hearing for an opportunity to get this charge looked at by a judge, and possibly dismissed.
After entering a plea of Not Guilty, we went back to Department 55 to continue the People's Request for Discovery, where Judge So ended up refusing and denying all the requests from the prosecution with the exception of one, having to produce the entire un-redacted version of the member patients list form the collective.
On February 3rd, I am due back in front of Judge So, to see if we are going to be ordered by the court to produce the one entire un-redacted version of the collectives patient member list. The hearing is set for 2/3/2010 at 8:30 in Department 55.
Today (January 25, 2010) my attorney will file with the court a motion requesting the 995 hearing to have a Judge look at the new charge. The date for this hearing will be set for sometime in February.
It seems that the District Attorney’s office has stepped up their efforts to invalidate Proposition 215, now their efforts include attempt to get away with illegal requests in front of Judges as well as the continued prosecution of legitimate patients.
Please come to court and see for yourself what the prosecution is doing to our community!
STOP OPERATION GREEN RX, RESPECT STATE LAW!
Eugene Davidovich
No comments:
Post a Comment