SHERIFF REJECTS JUDGES ORDER TO RETURN POT

EUREKA -- Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis is defying Superior
Court Judge Bruce Watson's order to return medical marijuana seized
about two years ago from a Garberville man. "My position is that a
state judge cannot order me to violate a federal law," Lewis said
Thursday. "And that's the basis we're proceeding on."

Watson signed an order in January stating the Sheriff's Department
must return the marijuana to Chris Robert Giaque, a medical marijuana
patient whose approximately 1-ounce stash was seized during a traffic
stop in April 1999.

When Giaque went to pick up his marijuana earlier this month, Giaque's
attorney Russ Clanton said, the Sheriff's Department refused to give
it back. Clanton then sent his investigator to the Sheriff's
Department. He was told that on orders from the sheriff, the marijuana
was not to be returned.

Now Clanton wants Lewis to be held in contempt of court.

"The sheriff's intransigence appears to be rooted in political
distaste for the type of property ordered returned, and the
legislation which compels it," Clanton stated in an "order to show
cause" filed this week.

"These are not valid reasons for refusing to obey a court order. ...
No one is above the law, and it is particularly important that those
charged with enforcing the law uphold it themselves."

Lewis noted that the issue of state versus federal marijuana law is
"currently, in fact today, before the federal Supreme Court. Hopefully
we'll get some court clarification on this."

The County Counsel's Office hired an attorney to represent the
Sheriff's Department during last year's local court battle over
whether the marijuana should be returned to Giaque.

Watson ultimately ruled federal law does not pre-empt California
voters from approving the medical use of marijuana, and that under
state Proposition 215 "some level of transportation must be
contemplated."

Cliff Mitchell, the attorney representing the county, had argued that
under federal law marijuana is not legal property. He also contended
state Proposition 215 applies only to possession of marijuana and not
transportation.

Watson's ruling specified that the very small amount Giaque was
transporting "would come within that permitted."

Giaque also is battling the Sheriff's Department over its seizure of
84 large marijuana plants he was growing near Garberville. The plants
were confiscated in August. Giaque claimed he was growing the pot for
himself and several other medical marijuana patients.

The dispute over the 84 plants has not gone to court.