In Missoula, Montana, prosecutor Andrew Paul wanted to try Touray Cornell for possession of marijuana. But he couldn’t find enough people in the jury pool open to the idea of sending Cornell to jail for holding a 16th of an ounce of pot. The so-called jury revolt forced Paul to work out a plea bargain with Cornell’s attorney, in which the defendant did not have to admit his was guilty of breaking the law.

 

Paul was beside himself, calling the incident “a mutiny.” The judge presiding over the case, Dusty Deschamps, said he never saw anything like it in his 30 years as a judge and prosecutor. The mutinous potential jurors ranged in age from 20s to 60s.

 

In 2004, Montana voters approved a medical marijuana initiative, and in 2006 voters in Missoula County passed an initiative that required law enforcement to treat marijuana crimes as their lowest priority.

 

Advocates for the legalization of marijuana were delighted by the news.

 

John Masterson, head of Montana NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), told The New York Times that smoking marijuana in Missoula “is essentially a mainstream activity.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinskt

 

Missoula District Court: Jury Pool in Marijuana Case Stages ‘Mutiny’ (by Gwen Florio, Missoulian)

Montana Jurors Raise Hopes of Marijuana Advocates (by Jesse McKinley, New York Times)