POT TRIAL GUILTY VERDICT

Court: Jury reduces five of eight counts to misdemeanors.

WESTMINSTER - A six-man, six-woman jury found medicinal-marijuana advocate
Marvin Chavez guilty Thursday of eight of 10 counts of drug-sales and drug
transportation.

The jury, which deliberated for one day, also decided that five of the eight
guilty counts should be misdemeanors rather than felonies.

Defense attorney James Silva of Venice said an appeal would be filed based
on the fact that Prop. 215, known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, was
not allowed as a defense.

Chavez's defense was tailored around the contention that he was helping
seriously or terminally ill patients, by providing them medicinal marijuana
through the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group.

Prop. 215 was not allowed to be considered by the jury, since Chavez could
not prove that he was the primary caregiver to those seeking the relief
drug, as mandated by Prop. 215, according to three judges who heard
arguments for the measure's incorporation into the trial.

Chavez will be sentenced Jan. 8, and he could face 16 months to three years
for each of the felony counts. Prior to the trial, another judge offered
three years probation if he would plead guilty to one count.

Chavez refused.

"There's no deal on Prop. 215," he said Thursday. "I'm willing to do my
time."

During the week-long trial, defense attorneys Silva and J. David Nick made
repeated references to Chavez's activities as being in the spirit of Prop.
215. Nick, a San Francisco attorney, took the case pro bono because it was
one of several cases testing the law approved by voters statewide in 1996.

And, despite the instruction by Judge Thomas Borris to the jury to disregard
the marijuana measure, the attorneys privately expressed beliefs that there
would be a hung jury.

However, shortly before noon Thursday, Deputy District Attorney Carl
Armbrust was the person to savor the victory, while the defense attorneys
quickly left the court to map out an appeal strategy.

Following the verdict victory - coming on the day of his retirement after 26
years as a prosecutor - Armbrust made it clear that he believes Prop. 215
has a sinister goal.

"I personally feel that passage of the marijuana measure is simply a step to
legalize all drugs."

The news of the jury's ruling was a jolt to attorneys Jon Alexander of
Garden Grove and Bob Kennedy of Long Beach, who represented Chavez in his
early efforts to have Prop. 215 introduced as a defense.

"This is a perversion of the law," Kennedy said, adding that Prop. 215's
failure to provide a distribution system is victimizing people providing an
essential service.

"Chavez tried to do it by the books," Alexander said.

Checked-by: Don Beck