POT BUT NO PAPA HAIDL AT APPEALS COURT

The county's belligerent, moribund ogre that is the Greg Haidl rape
case awakened from its stupor Wednesday morning and dragged its sorry
self into the shiny new state Court of Appeals to leave its stain –
figuratively, I probably need to specify – on the just-laid carpet.

I'd expected a big crowd, but there were seats aplenty – pews,
actually, as the appellate justices made sure the wooden benches that
had been salvaged from an old church years ago came with them from
their old courthouse on Spurgeon. In that respect, attendance was as
sparse as 3 a.m. matins.

The players from Haidl I and/or II? Middleton? Retired. Cavallo?
Disbarred. Barnett? More than happy, I'm sure, to leave this behind.
Judge Briseno? No longer his forum. Moxley? MIA. The Haidls? Greg did
his time and Papa's still looking at his. They wanted nothing to do
with the media, such as it was Wednesday.

Greg's two co-defendants – or, more properly now, co-petitioners – did
show up with their fancy appellate lawyers. Different breed of cat,
these appellate specialists. Arguing before three jurists who live and
breathe statutes and case law, you need less street fighter, more law
professor. And the venue itself? Haidl 2.5, if that's what this was
Wednesday, was not held in the gum-under-the-seat kind of place some
corners of the county courthouse are.

The issues and discussion here deal less with facts and more with
substantive law – should a pal of the three then-boys have been
allowed to testify in the trial about his previous encounter with Jane
Doe? That perhaps the trio who assaulted her might have had a
legitimate reason to think she would have consented to what they did?

Seems to me, it still gets to down to this law: a comatose person
can't consent to sex. So unless this guy is prepared to take the stand
and say: "Jane Doe told me, "I want to pass out, be placed on a pool
table and have Greg and his buddies insert all manner of foreign
objects in me' – unless, it's that specific (and believable) – I don't
see the guy's testimony as being relevant.

In contrast to the low turnout for Haidl 2.5, the afternoon session of
the appellate court was packed with supporters (and a few detractors)
of the state's medical marijuana law, hoping to see the justices toss
out Anaheim's ban of dispensaries. One patient, a middle-aged woman in
a wheelchair, said in the hallway that if they can't buy pot legally,
they'll be forced to buy it from gangs.

"There are literally hundreds of cities waiting your answer," one
attorney told the court.

The court heard argument from five lawyers. But anyone who expects it
to rule up or down on marijuana dispensaries at this juncture is
probably going to be disappointed. Here's why:

The justices need only rule on a very narrow issue: whether a Superior
Court judge correctly ruled in favor of the city's demurrer, which
said the city had a right to make the law – essentially that it wasn't
pre-empting the state's laws. That had dismissed the case. The pro-pot
people appealed.

If the Court of Appeals says the lower court judge erred, it could
merely send the case back to him with little or no comment on the
underlying issue. At that point, both sides would go into discovery
mode, work up detailed facts on the nuts and bolts of the dispensary
issues, and then the trial judge would have a look at those. He could
then issue a summary judgment or let it go to trial.

One side will lose and probably appeal back to the same three justices
who heard the case Wednesday. Only then, at least seven or eight
months down the line, as one litigant predicted, would the Court of
Appeals weigh in on marijuana dispensaries themselves.

Even though all these cities are looking for "guidance," the appellate
court signaled that it would take this more cautionary route.

"We are not in the business of issuing advisory positions," Justice
Richard Fybel said.

It also goes without saying that with an issue of such statewide
importance and controversy, the state Supreme Court will eventually
weigh in. We're a long way from resolution.