POT CENTER FOUNDER FIGHTS CHARGES

Search excessive, lawyer argues

Trying to avoid a long prison term, the former operator of Santa Clara
County's only medical marijuana center went to court yesterday in an
effort to get his charges dismissed.

Attorneys for Peter Baez argued that San Jose police officers went
beyond the scope of their search warrants in March when they conducted
a ``wholesale seizure of records'' by removing all 265 client files
from the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center. They seek to have
evidence from that search suppressed and the charges against Baez dismissed.

Baez faces seven felony counts charging him with selling marijuana to
people lacking a doctor's recommendation, operating a drug house and
grand theft. Baez was co-founder of the San Jose cannabis center,
which opened in April 1997 and closed last May 8. It opened in
response to 1996's Proposition 215, which authorized the cultivation
and use of marijuana for medical purposes. ``To seize all the patient
files ... requires a showing that the business is pervaded with fraud
or pervaded with illegal conduct. So the fact the center had been in
operation with no legal difficulties for approximately a year at the
time the search was executed goes to this question of whether there's
any showing of pervasion of fraud,'' said defense attorney Gerald Uelmen.

The district attorney's office maintains that the search remained
within the warrant's scope, that the Fourth Amendment was not violated
and that police officers were free to inspect the center under San
Jose's regulations.

``Mr. Baez doesn't have standing to object to the search of the
center,'' Deputy District Attorney Robert Baker said before the
hearing in a Palo Alto courtroom. ``The local ordinance allowed that.''

Baker said the files were removed for the convenience of both the
police and the center because reviewing all the files at the center
``would have taken months.''

Before his legal troubles began, Baez had been lauded by city
officials for his efforts to help create a medical marijuana ordinance
in San Jose and screen out people who forge a doctor's
recommendation.

The hearing will continue December 23.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady