For practically 17 years, the federal authorities has been after Charles Lynch for operating a medical marijuana dispensary.
Prosecutors refused to drop their legal case towards him at the same time as marijuana grew to become totally authorized in California and 23 different states. They refused to let it go when Congress forbade the Division of Justice from utilizing its funds to criminally prosecute medical marijuana actions that have been in line with state legislation.
Prosecutors have pursued Lynch’s case — which entails conflicting state and federal marijuana legal guidelines — by way of appeals and delays and criticisms that they have been spending too many sources on a case that meant so little.
“Twenty-five % of my life,” Lynch, now 61, mentioned in a Southern drawl at a listening to in downtown Los Angeles this month.
When federal authorities launched their probe in 2007, George W. Bush was within the White Home and Lynch was a revered businessman in Morro Bay with a three-bedroom ranch-style home in close by Arroyo Grande.
Lately, he struggles financially, lives in a single-wide trailer on his mother’s property in New Mexico and strains to recollect the small print of the marijuana operation that bought him in a lot bother.
“I’ve misplaced observe,” he testified on the listening to as his mom appeared on.
Lynch and his legal professionals have portrayed the case as a pointless train by the Division of Justice that has price taxpayers — who’re footing the invoice for each the prosecution and his public defenders — hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
Even the federal decide has expressed impatience, telling the prosecutor: “In some unspecified time in the future in time, this case needs to be resolved.”
Why the federal authorities continued to pursue the case so ardently stays unclear — even this week, when it took a brand new twist that caught everybody concerned without warning.
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In April 2006, Lynch opened a medical marijuana dispensary within the seaside metropolis of Morro Bay. As he would later testify in courtroom, dispensaries appeared “like a fairly frequent enterprise throughout the state” however there have been none in San Luis Obispo County.
Lynch himself used medical marijuana to assist with cluster complications.
“I figured if it may assist me alongside, I understood the way it may assist different folks additionally,” Lynch mentioned in a current interview with The Instances. “That’s one of many causes I began up the dispensary.”
The mayor, metropolis legal professional and members of the Chamber of Commerce have been on the ribbon slicing for the Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers dispensary. A photograph captured the mayor shaking Lynch’s hand as he smiled.
In April 2006, Charles Lynch opened a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay. The mayor, metropolis legal professional and members of the Chamber of Commerce have been on the ribbon slicing for the Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers dispensary.
(Charles Lynch)
Contained in the dispensary, Lynch framed his enterprise license and hung it by the entrance door. One other signal laid out the necessities to buy marijuana: a sound state ID and a health care provider’s suggestion.
Amongst Lynch’s many shoppers was Owen Beck, who’d been recognized with bone most cancers as an adolescent and had his proper leg amputated. He visited Lynch along with his dad and mom to obtain marijuana really useful by his oncologist at Stanford College.
As soon as he started the method, he famous an “fast change.” He was capable of eat and hold meals down and his angle improved.
“I at all times felt like he was an advocate in my nook,” Beck mentioned about Lynch in a current interview. . “I didn’t assume he was doing something incorrect.”
However whereas cultivating, utilizing and promoting doctor-recommended medical marijuana was allowed underneath some circumstances in California, federal legislation — which is impartial of these of the states — bans the drug altogether.
“We have been nonetheless within the Bush administration, and the federal authorities had not solely caught with blanket prohibition, however they’d persistently been expressing concern about state legal guidelines and state actors that appeared to undermine or violate these federal legislation fundamentals,” mentioned Douglas Berman, legislation professor at Ohio State College and director of its Drug Enforcement and Coverage Heart. “It appeared like in California … that there was a higher emphasis on enforcement.”
Practically a yr after Lynch opened the CCCC, the Drug Enforcement Administration served a search warrant on the dispensary and his residence. Authorities seized round 100 marijuana crops from the gross sales room.
Authorities seized round 100 marijuana crops from the Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers dispensary gross sales room.
(U.S. Lawyer’s workplace)
Months later, in July 2007, authorities arrested Lynch. He was indicted on a number of counts: conspiracy to fabricate, possess and distribute marijuana; offering marijuana to folks underneath the age of 21; marijuana possession with intent to distribute; and sustaining a drug premises.
Throughout a 2008 trial, the prosecutors — together with Asst. U.S. Atty. David Kowal — painted Lynch as a typical drug supplier who offered pot to youngsters and carried a backpack crammed with money. They mentioned he offered greater than $2 million price of marijuana in practically a yr.
Lynch’s protection attorneys careworn through the trial that he opened his dispensary with “the blessing of his group” and solely blocks from Metropolis Corridor and the police station. They argued that he was instructed by a DEA official that enforcement on such amenities would fall to native authorities — the implication being that Lynch would keep away from federal prosecution if he obeyed the native legal guidelines.
That grew to become the idea for his or her protection, generally known as entrapment by estoppel, by which a defendant primarily argues that he broke the legislation primarily based on unhealthy recommendation from a authorities official.
Prosecutors argued it wouldn’t have made sense for a DEA agent to inform Lynch that, as there was no approach for a dispensary to adjust to federal legislation.
The general public defenders confronted different challenges within the case, together with the truth that the U.S. Supreme Court docket had prohibited defendants from mounting a “medical necessity” protection. That Lynch believed he was working underneath California legislation was additionally not a permitted protection.
In August 2008, a jury convicted Lynch on 5 counts of violating federal drug legal guidelines.
“All of us felt Mr. Lynch meant nicely,” Kitty Meese, the jury forewoman, instructed reporters, together with one from The Instances. “However underneath the parameters we got for the federal legislation, we didn’t have a selection.”
She added, “It was a troublesome resolution for all of us as a result of the state legislation and the federal legislation are at odds.”
The confusion round how you can take care of Lynch additionally appeared to increase to U.S. District Choose George H. Wu. Wu a minimum of twice postponed sentencing Lynch, at one level saying he was inclined to impose a extra lenient sentence than the 5 years required by federal sentencing pointers.
In June 2009, Wu sentenced Lynch to 1 yr and in the future in jail.
Lynch’s legal professionals tried to influence Wu to spare their consumer jail time altogether.
“As empathetic as I could also be to Mr. Lynch’s state of affairs, I’ve to comply with the legislation,” Wu mentioned. “I really feel I can not get across the one yr.”
Charles Lynch’s Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers dispensary was situated alongside the 700 block of Monterey Avenue in Morro Bay.
(Google road view)
After sentencing, Lynch instructed reporters he didn’t assume he “needs to be a convicted felon for doing issues that the state of California and town of Morro Bay instructed me I may do to assist folks in our space.”
However he credited Wu for exhibiting “lots of compassion.”
“The federal government tried to make me the Pablo Escobar of medical marijuana, and the decide noticed previous that,” he mentioned.
Lynch’s case was publicized on tv and in newspapers nationwide and was finally made right into a documentary referred to as “Lynching Charlie Lynch.”
However the authorized battle was removed from over.
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In practically 17 years, Lynch has by no means spent a day in jail.
Following sentencing, he appealed his conviction to the U.S. ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals. The federal government cross-appealed, arguing for the five-year necessary minimal.
As each events awaited a choice, the panorama round marijuana continued to shift. All of the whereas, Lynch was out on bond and underneath courtroom supervision.
He watched as Congress in 2014 made a big modification to federal legislation forbidding the Justice Division from utilizing funds in a approach that hinders states “from implementing their very own state legal guidelines that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.” It was written right into a authorities spending invoice.
In a September 2018 resolution, the ninth Circuit upheld Lynch’s conviction. In response to the federal government’s cross-appeal, it discovered that Lynch was required to be sentenced to the five-year necessary minimal.
The panel additionally famous {that a} dispute existed as as to if Lynch’s actions have been authorized underneath state legislation. The case was despatched again to the district courtroom to make that dedication — touchdown it earlier than Wu as soon as extra.
In April 2006, Charles Lynch opened a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay.
(Charles Lynch)
In July 2022, one among Lynch’s new federal public defenders, Rebecca M. Abel, filed a movement to cease the federal government from spending extra money on prosecuting the case. She included three knowledgeable declarations to indicate the dispensary was in strict compliance with state legislation in impact on the time.
Though the federal government had not backed down, its priorities appeared to shift during the last yr. Kowal blew deadlines. Missed a courtroom listening to. Was nearly sanctioned.
In a September 2023 declaration to the courtroom, in response to threatened sanctions for not submitting a response to Lynch’s movement, Kowal mentioned it “was an especially gradual and tough mission” and famous that he’s “at all times been a gradual author.”
Kowal declined to remark for this story.
In November, Abel filed a movement to dismiss the case, noting that the federal government had nonetheless not opposed the movement to enjoin spending. She later instructed the courtroom, “I didn’t know the way else to get the federal authorities to concentrate to Mr. Lynch.”
4 days earlier than a Jan. 22 listening to — by which both sides would be capable of current proof on whether or not Lynch had complied with state legislation — Kowal requested for extra time. In a declaration to the courtroom, he mentioned he misunderstood that the evidentiary listening to would proceed as scheduled amid the movement to dismiss filed by the protection.
”…the federal government will be unable to successfully go ahead with an evidentiary listening to on the dates scheduled, given once more, that it wants further time to organize the federal government’s response,” Kowal wrote.
Wu denied the request.
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And so, on a current Monday, the listening to moved ahead within the federal courthouse downtown, lower than two miles from the LA Wonderland Marijuana Dispensary.
“You’ve modified lots,” Wu instructed Lynch.
“I’ve gotten older,” Lynch mentioned, talking from behind a blue surgical masks.
“All of us have,” the decide responded.
That morning, Kowal instructed the decide he was ready to go ahead with what was already within the courtroom file. He mentioned Lynch’s sworn deposition “will primarily win the case for us.”
Abel slammed her authorized adversary, telling Wu that “the federal government had 18 months to do actually something, and, within the final seven months, it’s achieved nothing.”
“If I had carried out like the federal government carried out, I might have way back been fired by this courtroom, by my consumer, been declared ineffective and would have been changed. I’m unsure why we’re combating towards people when that is in truth the USA authorities,” Abel mentioned. “If Mr. Kowal wanted help, he had tons of of individuals to ask for assist. I don’t perceive why the scheduling of 1 particular person impacts my consumer’s freedom.”
Round 3 p.m. that afternoon, Abel referred to as Lynch to the stand. He talked concerning the toll the case had taken on his life, together with a chapter by which he’d misplaced his residence.
“I used to be disenfranchised from working just about wherever,” Lynch mentioned. “Nobody would rent me contemplating I’ve a federal case hanging over my head.”
The listening to lasted hours. The decide took the matter underneath submission, not but ruling on whether or not Lynch had complied with state legislation.
After the listening to, a Instances reporter despatched a protracted checklist of questions concerning the case to the U.S. Lawyer’s workplace. What’s the motivation to proceed pursuing this case 16 years later? Is that this case a excessive precedence? If sure, may you clarify why Asst. U.S. Atty. David Kowal has missed deadlines, missed a courtroom listening to … and was nearly sanctioned?
Earlier than the workplace responded, one more submitting landed late Tuesday afternoon — the 569th merchandise within the docket.
The federal government had provided Lynch a plea deal. Lynch mentioned sure.
He agreed to plead responsible to misdemeanor possession of marijuana. Prosecutors would advocate a time-served sentence, which means Lynch wouldn’t spend a day in jail.
“I’m actually simply grateful to my household, buddies and legal professionals for standing by me all these years,” Lynch mentioned in a cellphone interview Tuesday night time. “I sort of felt prefer it was necessary for me to take a stand for what I believed was righteous and truthful. That’s as true as we speak because it was practically 17 years in the past.”
In a press release, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace mentioned the case dated again to a time “when there was a proliferation of unlawful marijuana shops throughout this district that induced important concern in lots of communities.”
“Since then, the panorama has modified considerably in California and throughout the nation,” the assertion learn. “Upon studying that this case was nonetheless lively, our present management decided that restricted prosecutorial sources shouldn’t be expended on conduct that as we speak wouldn’t be prosecuted by our workplace.”
Reuven Cohen, one of many authentic federal public defenders on the case, marveled at how a lot time had handed. When he first began on the case, he wasn’t married and didn’t have children. He and his spouse lately celebrated their fifteenth wedding ceremony anniversary.
His daughters, now youngsters, “haven’t any skill to know how this case can nonetheless be happening when there’s actually a marijuana dispensary on each single block in Los Angeles.”
Cohen mentioned he initially requested Kowal to permit Lynch to plead responsible to a misdemeanor — telling the prosecutor on the time that, “he was on the incorrect facet of historical past.”
“That is precisely what I requested for 17 years in the past,” Cohen mentioned.
