An attorney’s opinionated rant against marijuana in a Michigan courtroom last week cost her a case, even though most seemed to agree she had won.
In her closing arguments in a case against a Michigan medical cannabis patient accused of growing more than he was allowed, Alger County prosecutor Karen Bahrman went off on a tear on the state’s medical marijuana laws, the Alger Hemp Coalition, a local cannabis advocacy group, and patients in general. She said their vision was to live in a “country where everybody can walk around stoned.”
Basically, she wants medical cannabis patients to sit down, shut up and don’t make any waves – even if things don’t seem right.
“They do nothing to support the government services they want, and have nothing but criticism for the government services they don’t want,” Bahrman ranted. “We’re trespassers and tramplers of their rights right up until they need us to protect them from the violence that they attract to the community.”
Paul Heminger, the man on trial for growing more than he was allowed, was sentenced to six months in jail at the time but has since been issued a new trial by the court, who agreed on a 3-0 vote that Bahrman went too far with her “unfounded, irrelevant and inflammatory statements.”
“The prosecutor embarks on a political commentary, and a personal diatribe discrediting the (law) as a whole,” the court ruled. “She calls the act ‘meaningless,’ and suggests that those suffering from chronic pain are simply cheating the system.”
And of course, the scumbag attorney defended her comments. When contacted by the Detroit Free Press, she said that she was shocked by the reversal and said she was going to maybe ask the state Supreme Court to review the decision.