Attorneys in Montana Unable to Find Unbiased Jurors for Drug Case

The Billings Gazette is reporting that potential jurors staged a revolt, of sorts, last week in a Missoula County District Courthouse. It all happened over the case of Touray Cornell’s drug charges stemming from a April 23rd arrest. The small amount of marijuana that was part of his case became a problem for jurors. Mr. Cornell was also facing a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs, but it was the 16th of an ounce of marijuana that became the focus of potential juror’s questions.

The potential jurors of Mr. Cornell’s case, one by one, made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of marijuana buds. One juror wondered why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, according to Deputy Missoula County Attorney, Andrew Paul. The District Judge then took a quick poll as to who might agree with that statement, and five out of the 27 potential jurors raised their hands. A couple more excused themselves because of philosophical objections.  The Judge then wondered if they could even seat a jury in the case and called a recess.

Turns out, he didn’t need to. During the recess, Deputy Attorney Paul and the defense attorney worked out a plea agreement. On Friday, the plea memorandum filed by his attorney read, “Public opinion, as revealed by the reaction of a substantial portion of the members of the jury called to try the charges on Dec. 16, 2010, is not supportive of the state’s marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances,” In his more than 30 years as a prosecutor and a judge, the presiding judge in the case said he’s never seen anything like it, even the defense attorney called it “Bizarre”.

The judge in the case, District Judge Dusty Deschamps noted that it might become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, particularly when it is a small amount of marijuana. The attorneys in the case noted Missoula’s County’s approval in 2006 of initiative 2 to make marijuana crimes the lowest priority, and Deschamps even offered the observations that the juror pool in this case is kind of a reflection of society as a whole on the issue. Is it fair, he wonders, if attorneys can insist upon impaneling a jury of hardliners who object to all drug use, including marijuana. He said that it poses a real challenge in proceeding, are we really seating a jury of their peers if we just leave people on who are militant on the subject?