Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-06-30

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Last day of June and onto the three-day Fourth of July Weekend!  Hooray!

Today we get to visit with Jed Riffe, who directed the documentary “Waiting to Inhale”, which chronicles the emergence of medical marijuana since the passage of California’s Prop 215.

Then we interview Loretta Nall with Alabamians for Compassionate Care, with the shockingly un-reported story of special treatment for the son of a prominent tough-on-drugs judge, who faces multiple felony trafficking and possession charges for being caught dealing pot, meth, and coke near the children’s playground at a public park.

Try to beat the heat and load up an ice-bong, it’s time for your NORML Daily Audio Stash.

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This reporting courtesy of Loretta Nall with Alabamians for Compassionate Care.  You can follow this story ate her blog, NallForGovernor.blogspot.com.

On March 3, 2008 John Alexander Rochester, son of 40th Circuit Court Judge John Rochester, was arrested at the Ashland City Park in Ashland, AL for possession of meth, first degree possession of marijuana, trafficking cocaine, possession of paraphernalia, distribution of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance.

Judge Rochester is legendary for harshly sentencing drug offenders who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in his courtroom.  And Judge Rochester always drug tests defendants before the trial. Lines them up like cattle and demands their bodily fluids in hopes of bypassing that pesky thing known as a trial by jury.

Judge Rochester doesn’t believe in drug treatment before prison. In fact, one of his favorite sayings is, “There’s a SAP program in prison” whenever a lawyer asks that their client be allowed to attend treatment. SAP stands for substance abuse program.

John Alexander Rochester spent 20 days in the Ashland jail and was then bonded out by his mother for a total of $20,000 and whisked away to treatment in Mississippi to await the next convening of the grand jury in Clay County.

The judge who set the bonds is Judge George C. Simpson, the district court Judge in Clay County, which means he is subordinate to Judge Rochester and good friends with him to boot. …In at least two cases John Alexander Rochester’s bond was half (or less) what other people charged with the same crime had to pay.

Additionally, John Alexander Rochester should have enhancements added to his sentence because he was selling drugs at the city park… The only catch is that the prosecutor has to ask that these additional penalties be imposed.

And the reason I have to post edited portions of an email sent to me by Loretta, rather than linking and pasting from an Alabama media story on John Alexander Rochester, is because the media in Alabama have all but been silent on the story of a prominent judge’s son being busted near children in a park on multiple felony charges involving trafficking and three different drugs.

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