Oklahoma seeks to revoke Will Foster’s parole
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 2:06 pm | By: Radical Russ
(San Jose Mercury News) OKLAHOMA CITY—In a case highlighted by advocates seeking to reform Oklahoma’s drug laws, the state on Wednesday sought to revoke the parole of a man sentenced to decades in prison for growing marijuana that he says was used to treat his arthritis pain.
William Joseph Foster, 51, initially was sentenced in Tulsa County to 93 years in prison after authorities uncovered a pot growing operation in the basement of his Tulsa home in 1995. A state appeals court later reduced that term to 20 years in prison, and he was released on parole in 2001.
During Wednesday’s parole revocation hearing, the Department of Corrections argued before an administrative law judge that Foster violated the terms of his parole while living in California by using and growing marijuana in that state and failing to follow his parole officer’s directions.
Foster maintains he was released from supervision by a parole officer in California overseeing his case, and he claims he refused to sign the paperwork on the advice of an attorney because it would have extended his parole by four years.
“We’re spending all this time, effort and money on one man when our prisons are already full,” said Norma Sapp, director of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “I bet we could send six kids to college on what we’ve spent to keep Will in prison.”
Let’s see if I can follow the logic here:
- Oklahoma catches Will Foster growing medical marijuana for his arthritis and sentences him to 93 years, so they can keep fellow Oklahomans safe from, uh, er, a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain.
- Oklahoma catches hell for sentencing a gardener to essentially a life sentence (meanwhile, rape a 4-year-old girl and you’re only behind bars for a year in Oklahoma) so they reduce the term to 20 years (or, twice as long as the average rapist or robber serves in Oklahoma), so we can at least protect Oklahomans from two decades of a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain.
- Oklahoma paroles the guy and allows him to leave the state and serve his parole in California, where he can legally smoke a joint to ease his pain.
- California looks at the guy and says, “This is no criminal,” and ends his parole, allowing the guy to live his life and legally smoke a joint to ease his pain.
- Oklahoma gets very upset at California, because if he’d stayed in Oklahoma, he’d still be on parole and be unable to smoke a joint to ease his pain.
- Oklahoma fights to extradite him, put him in a cell, and are now working to revoke his parole so he can serve the rest of his 20-year-sentence, so they can protect Oklahomans from a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain 1,500 miles away in a place where medical marijuana is legal.
Marijuana: the drug so deadly powerful that its private legal medical use can endanger people from two time zones away.
Still no word on who “Oklahoma” is?
I’d imagine it’s the state attorney general who would have the final say on something like this. Or someone in the department of corrections. It doesn’t matter who the actual “who” is, he (or she) represents the state of Oklahoma in the matter.