The judge claims she ordered that Mr. Magbie serve his sentence in jail rather than prison, where he would have more attention paid to him, and that the wires got crossed. Additionally, apparently, Magbie refused to state that he would discontinue using marijuana, so she did not want to give him probation. Finally, she claims that she didn’t know about the necessity of a night ventilator.
Whatever you think of punishing someone for possession of marijuana, you can understand where she’s coming from in not wanting to grant probation to someone who refuses to even state that he won’t do it again tomorrow. Her duty is to enforce the (stupid) law. So if the wires did indeed get crossed as to the specifics of her order, I get that.
But not sufficiently inquiring into his medical needs is a tragic failure both on her part and the part of his lawyer. Where was his lawyer in all of this?
There’s a difference in the US. Generally speaking, jail is where you’re kept before conviction (or if you’re serving a short sentence), and a prison is where you serve a longer sentence. The former is always run by the government, whereas the latter can be private.
A sentence in a jail is a bit different from a prison, especially in some jurisdictions.
And I’d like to know just how a man this disabled managed to smoke pot. Does he cruise out to some very accommodating dealer on his motorized wheelchair? Does the dealer not only sell him the weed, but rolls the joints, sticks one in his mouth, and lights him up? What about smoking at home? I think that someone, somewhere, was enabling him to smoke, and that the judge should maybe have looked into that.
If this was a misdemeanor possession of marijuana, it’s possible that he didn’t have an attorney. It’s not unusual for a defendant to represent himself in a misdemeanor case, especially if the expected sentence is probation. However, the judge is supposed to (and in my jurisdiction, does) strongly discourage a person from proceeding without an attorney.
Absolutely nothing in this story makes sense. The guy was convicted of possession but can’t even raise his hand to swear an oath? He only needs a machine to breathe at night? The court knew this, but he was still sent to prison without it? At no point did he raise a fuss and say something?
Something’s not being reported correctly, methinks.
He was able to effectively communicate that he would not stop smoking THC, which is why he received the sentence that he did. He probably had over a month between being arrested and being tried; plenty of time to prepare a statement listing his medical issues/needs. Prior to his sentencing, the court officials were asking jail officials about their ability to handle a disabled prisoner (although they clearly didn’t have the full story). He was able to communicate at the jail that he used a vent at night, which is why the nurse started the ball rolling to get him to the hospital. His mother brought in the vent the day after he got back from the hospital, so presumably she is involved in and aware of his medical care. At what point did he or his caretakers not have the opportunity to communicate that he needed certain medical attention?
As someone married to a disabled individual who has significant breathing problems (and who is involved in the fight to make medical marijuana available country-wide), I am sympathetic to this man’s plight. BUT if you’re going to go out of your way to break the (stupid, misguided, ridiculous) law, you damn sure better be prepared to be an advocate for your medical needs when you get caught, or have the person who is assisting you in breaking the law prepared to step up and be an advocate for you.
He did have an attorney who was present at the bench conference where the prosecutor said they were offering Magbie a guilty plea to a misdemeanor, partly because that the jail wasn’t set up to accomidate Magbie’s medical needs.
Then his attorney dropped the ball by not contacting the jail himelf ahead of time so he could tell the judge “You can’t send him to jail because they’re unable to provide for his medical needs”. It’s not the law clerks’ place to make that determination, the attorney should have come to court armed with that information.
Well, if the intake of the ventilator is taking in smoke from burning pot or an air/vapor mixture from vaporized pot the THC would be breathed in via the ventilator. Also it is possible to ingest pot via various foods/drinks.
He did drop the ball, but considering that the prosecutor told the judge, “You can’t send him to jail because they’re unable to provide for his medical needs”, I think the judge bears some responsibility.
I think it’s not so much the technical how, since there are a variety of ways he could have been taking it in (one of my most vivid memories while working in a hospice is watching folks with trach tubes smoking cigarettes through them), but rather how does someone who requires such significant medical aid obtain, process, and imbibe such a substance.
As Lynn pointed out, the man can’t raise a hand to make the oath, so one can assume he probably doesn’t have a grow lab in a back bedroom that he maintains by himself, and I can’t envision him tooling down to the local drug corner and politely asking the dealer to exchange whatever money is in his pocket for the appropriate amount of THC. He obviously couldn’t cook/feed himself, and there’s no way he could have rolled, lit, or held a joint, so there had to be someone helping him out. Since he was so adamant about not stopping, he knew this person would be willing to continue to help him… in that case, I hold that person at least partially responsible, since it’s not like the guy could have done much if that mystery person said “Y’know, this is a bad idea- how about we don’t do it anymore, and focus on changing the law instead?”
Also (sorry for speaking ill of the dead), anyone who thinks they can get away with admitting they’re going to keep breaking the law and not get punished for it is a bit of an idiot.
I am sympathetic to his desire to consume pot. If anybody ever needed a relatively harmless way to soften life’s rough edges, he certainly did. My main beef with pot is that it’s generally smoked, and thus other people around the smoker get it in their system whether they want it or not. But I do think that the helper is at least partially at fault, legally.
[nitpick] You cannot buy THC any more than you can go out and buy cholesterol. THC is the active ingredient in pot, but you buy the pot, not the THC. Just like you can go out and buy a carton of eggs, but you cannot go out and buy a carton of cholesterol. [/nitpick]
[nitpick squared]You can however purchase dronabinol/marinol either with a prescription or ( rarely, I hear ) on the street, which is essentially synthetic THC.[/nitpick squared]
