A medical marijuana patient sentenced to five years in prison for medical cannabis, shares some of his thoughts with all of us. Here is an except from a recent blog, directly from prison.
By Dale Schafer | July 23, 2011
When one studies criminal law, the first thing that is studied is the traditional common law crimes.
The traditional crimes are arson, assault, battery, burglary, larceny, murder, mayhem, rape and robbery.
Most of these common law crimes were capital offenses and a guilty verdict sent you right to the gallows.
These are all specific intent crime.
There needs to be a specific intent, called the mens rhea, coupled with the criminal act, the actus reus, in order to be found guilty of the crimes.
In order to save a person’s life, creative lawyers began to attack the intent or the act to keep their clients from the hangman’s noose.
With respect to murder, for example, there were arguments that the killing was unintentional or that there was so much provocation, say when one finds their spouse in bed with another person, that the crime should be mitigated to manslaughter.
Other examples are crimes we call malum (wrong) prohibitum.
These crimes are not like the old common law crimes, that are called malum (wrong) in se (in and of themselves).
Some say they are violations of the Ten Commandments or the basic law of treating others as you would want to be treated.
Or with burglary, which required a breaking and entering of the dwelling house of another in the nighttime with the specific intent to commit a felony therein, it would be argued that the defendant walked through an open door, or that they were only going to sleep inside, or that it was in the daytime, in order to stop a hanging.
But always, you needed a criminal intent when one committed the criminal act.
All of this great history of criminal law went down the proverbial tube when the State came up with general intent crimes.
Examples of general intent crimes are exceeding the posted speed limit or growing marijuana.
It matters not what your state of mind was, all that matters is that you did the prohibited act.
When one studies criminal law, the first thing that is studied is the traditional common law crimes.
The traditional crimes are arson, assault, battery, burglary, larceny, murder, mayhem, rape and robbery.
Most of these common law crimes were capital offenses and a guilty verdict sent you right to the gallows.
These are all specific intent crime.
There needs to be a specific intent, called the mens rhea, coupled with the criminal act, the actus reus, in order to be found guilty of the crimes.
In order to save a person’s life, creative lawyers began to attack the intent or the act to keep their clients from the hangman’s noose.
With respect to murder, for example, there were arguments that the killing was unintentional or that there was so much provocation, say when one finds their spouse in bed with another person, that the crime should be mitigated to manslaughter.
Other examples are crimes we call malum (wrong) prohibitum.
These crimes are not like the old common law crimes, that are called malum (wrong) in se (in and of themselves).
Some say they are violations of the Ten Commandments or the basic law of treating others as you would want to be treated.
No, the malum prohibitum crimes are only crimes because then State says they are, not because they display a depraved heart.
At this time, several drug policy reform groups are proceeding to Federal Court to force the FDA to take action on a petition to reschedule that has languished for nine years without resolution.
It is clear that the Federal Government does not want to do the right thing here.
They would rather use scare tactics to try to keep people from using marijuana by prosecuting some of the more vocal and visible people who want marijuana to be made legal, like my wife and me (or mandate drug counseling for America’s youth).
I will write more as time goes along.
Unfortunately, I do not have access to my many books and articles about marijuana while I’m in here.
Everything I am writing is from memory, which at my age can be a little off. However, that will not stop me from expressing my opinions. Keep up the good fight.
Peace and Love,
Dale Schafer
To read this blog in full as well as other entries, please click here.
