DEBATE OVER SEARCH WARRANT DELAYS MEDICAL POT TRIAL

Jurors who were scheduled to hear opening statements today at the medical
marijuana trial of Steven and Michele Kubby have been told to wait until
next Wednesday to report for duty.

A dispute erupted Wednesday over a recent California Supreme Court decision
that, if applied to the Kubby case by Judge John L. Cosgrove, could result
in dismissal.

The defense asked Judge Cosgrove to re-examine the constitutionality of the
search that led to the Kubbys' arrest in light of the Supreme Court's
"Camacho" decision, and the judge, over the prosecution's objections,
agreed to do so.

The Kubbys claim their right to privacy was violated by police, who
gathered on a hill in a forest at the rear of their Squaw Valley home and
peered in the windows to obtain information used to obtain a search warrant.

Cosgrove ordered an evidentiary hearing on the matter and listened
Wednesday to testimony from the deputy sheriff who obtained the Kubby
search warrant.

The hearing will continue this morning.

At issue is the contention that the police had no legal right to be where
they were when they looked through the Kubbys' windows.

The "Camacho" ruling, issued July 22, reversed the conviction of a man
arrested by police who "looked through a window and observed defendant
packaging cocaine in his home."

Because they were trespassing in the man's side yard, "a place they had no
legal right to be," their observations and subsequent actions violated
Camacho's Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and
seizures, the high court ruled.

"Although the line we draw today lets an unquestionably guilty man go
free," the justices wrote, "constitutional lines have to be drawn Š (and)
constitutional lines are the price of constitutional government."

In the Kubby case, Placer County authorities obtained a search warrant
based on nighttime observations made by officers peering through a rear
window of the Kubby home from their vantage point on adjoining property.

An affidavit filed by sheriff's Deputy Michael Lyke, a member of the North
Lake Tahoe Narcotics Task Force, declared that officers "believed" the
property next to the Kubbys' was U.S. Forest Service land.

On Wednesday Lyke testified that the basis for that belief was something an
area firefighter told him.

But it turns out that the parcel is private property owned by the Poulsen
Foundation and administered by Plumas County District Attorney James
Reichle, defense attorney J. David Nick informed the judge.

According to Nick, detectives could have and should have ascertained the
property's ownership at the same time they verified the residency of the
Kubbys through records in the assessor's office.

By spying on the Kubbys in the middle of the night after trespassing on
private property next door, the police violated Steve and Michele Kubby's
right to the expectation of privacy, Nick said. "This kind of intrusion is
unlawful," he said.

Deputy District Attorney Christopher M. Cattran argued that the officer's
"belief" that he and the other investigators were on Forest Service land
did not constitute a "purposeful misleading of the magistrate."

Steve Kubby, 53, a former Libertarian candidate for governor, was a leader
in the campaign that led to passage of Proposition 215, the initiative
legalizing the medical use of marijuana by ill Californians.

He and his wife, Michele, 34, face trial on two counts of conspiracy,
possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation, and possession of various
other controlled substances and ingestion devices.

Both had marijuana use recommendations from doctors at the time of their
arrest on Jan. 19, 1999.