MENDOCINO D.A. UNDER FIRE FOR MARIJUANA MEMO

Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott says she was just
helping set work priorities for her office during a period of short
staffing when she decided not to prosecute basic marijuana cultivation
cases involving fewer than 200 plants or 20 pounds of processed marijuana.

It was a temporary guideline never intended for public dissemination
and not meant to signify a new direction or policy for the District
Attorney's Office, she said.

As part of trying to get through this period, through trying to get
the new people on board, we had to do some restrictive filing for a
time," Lintott said.

But a week after a memo containing the guidelines was leaked to a
Ukiah newspaper and made public, Lintott finds she's under fire from
some of her constituents — not to mention law enforcement types.

Some argue she's opened a county already rife with pot growers to even
more people bent on profiting from the area's most celebrated cash
crop.

Others complain she's betrayed county voters who last year signaled
their weariness with pot production by repealing a 2000 ballot measure
decriminalizing cultivation of up to 25 plants for personal use. The
2008 proposition also limited individuals to growing six mature plants
for medicinal use.

There's a lot of heat falling my way," Lintott acknowledged Thursday.

I think everybody's concerned about what's going to be happening in
the future," Ukiah Police Chief Chris Dewey said.

Law enforcement chiefs were informed confidentially of the change made
in late May, he and Lintott said.

They also were told they could bring individual cases to her attention
if they wanted to argue in favor of prosecution.

Cases involving firearms, suspects with criminal histories, the use of
paid trimmers or workers, the presence of children, clear signs of
commercial sales or other factors that make the incidents more serious
are to go forward in any case, Lintott said.

But Dewey and Fort Bragg Police Chief Mark Puthuff said the shift was
still troubling, given the potential for violence regardless of the
number of plants being grown in a particular setting.

We don't want to have a house that's converted to a commercial-grow
situation and have the neighbors on either side of that house be at
risk of a home invasion robbery," Dewey said. "We're continuing to
enforce the rules as we've always done."

Like Dewey, Puthuff said he's taken a hands-on approach to evaluating
and highlighting cases that most beg for prosecution, but said it's
discouraging for him and his officers to make arrests, seize plants
and expend resources, only to have cases rejected.

I can just tell you it's been bit frustrating. And I have tried not to
politicize the issue, but I can assure you that I and Chris Dewey,
we're doing our part to safeguard our communities and our people, and
the mission's clear for us," Puthuff said.

Neither Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman nor Willits Police Chief
Gerry Gonzalez was available for comment Thursday.

Lintott said she narrowed prosecution guidelines after she lost three
senior attorneys from an office of 16 to resignation, retirement and
termination. Two other deputies are working limited schedules, she
said.

The remaining 11 include Lintott, her assistant and her chief deputy,
who besides focusing on supervision and training also are handling
serious felony cases, she said.

She said she and her senior deputies decided in the spring to forego
cultivation cases under 200 plants and some minor misdemeanors,
determined on a case-by-case basis.

Part of the real focus was to be able to take the attorneys that we
had left, that prosecute the serious felonies, to be able to
concentrate and make sure the cases they have are good cases," she
said.

She has since sent a letter to the county sheriff and local police
chiefs asking them to reassure their staffs that her office is
"committed to prosecuting cases and working with you to enforce the
law."

Law enforcement authorities routinely seize thousands, even tens of
thousands of plants at a time from Mendocino County's illicit gardens.

But it's sometimes other factors — proximity to neighbors or
availability of weapons, for instance — that make the difference, Dewey said.

I don't want the message to be in our community that it's OK to grow
marijuana," he said.

Lintott said she hopes to back to full marijuana prosecutions soon.
One deputy position has been filled, and recruitment and interviews
are under way to fill the vacant position, hopefully by fall, she said.

In the meantime, cases that have enough evidence for prosecution but
were put on hold because of staffing problems will be re-evaluated and
still could go to court, she said.

Though unable to say how many cases were affected by the decision, "I
would suggest it's a small number of cases in our world of marijuana
cases," Lintott said.