Today’s Stash is dedicated to two guys who I can’t prove ever toked a reefer, but my Jay-dar tells me they must have at one point in their lives. Comedian Bernie Mac and Composer Isaac Hayes both died over the weekend and I will miss them.
NORML Board Member Madeline Martinez joins us to share the latest good press on the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act. The Sunday Oregonian (Portland’s local daily newspaper) fetured her on the front page of the business section in their Five Questions interview.
Then NORML’s Deputy Director, Paul Armentano, drops by to give us the latest updates on the tragic story of Rachel Hoffman in Tallahassee, Florida.
The 15 members of the grand jury issued a scathing report, called a “presentment,” on Friday after three days of testimony from witnesses and law-enforcement officers. The grand jury also indicted Andrea Green, 25, and Deneilo Bradshaw, 23, in connection with Hoffman’s death.
The grand jurors said TPD failed to ensure Hoffman’s safety from the beginning.
“Less than 15 minutes after she drove away from the offices of TPD, she drove out of the sight of the officers who assured her they would be right on top of her watching and listening the whole time,” the grand jurors wrote. “She cried out for help as she was shot and killed, and nobody was there to hear her.”
The jurors said the TPD’s command staff was negligent in its supervision and review of the controlled drug buy. The plan that Jones and others approved did not mention a gun. The amount of drugs was listed incorrectly. It didn’t discuss the terms or location of the deal.
“There is no doubt that Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw are the ones that brutally murdered Rachel Hoffman. But through poor planning and supervision and a series of mistakes through the transaction, TPD handed Ms. Hoffman to Bradshaw and Green to rob and kill her as they saw fit,” the grand jurors wrote.
Hoffman set up drug buys and made contact with potential “targets” without officers’ knowledge. She told one target and other acquaintances she was an informant. Her inexperience, immaturity and care-free attitude made it unlikely that she could complete the buy, according to the grand jury.
“Although Ms. Hoffman had a well-established business of cannabis distribution with her friends, she had no experience with dealing in ecstasy, cocaine or firearms,” the grand jurors wrote.
The police department and DEA treated a 23-year-old pot enthusiast as if she were the Medellin cartel, dangled her as nothing more than bait for two violent thugs, and lost contact with her on a major sting involving a firearm for 36 hours. Negligence is putting it nicely.
Meggs, in the letter dated Wednesday to FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey, said, “Due to recent events, please be advised the State Attorney’s Office for the Second Judicial Circuit will no longer prosecute cases in State Court when agents from the DEA are involved. Should your agency join a task force or use federal DEA agents during your investigation you should first contact the U.S. Attorney to make certain that the U.S. Attorney will take your case.”
Meggs is seething mad that three agents from the DEA were not allowed by the agency to testify to a grand jury investigating the botched police drug war sting leading to the murder of Rachel Hoffman. So if DEA won’t cooperate in a Florida investigation, Meggs has decided Florida won’t cooperate in any DEA investigations.
It’s rare to see two drug war agencies battling each other. As the accountability for this massive drug war failure is sought, look for all these police agencies to play a mammoth game of CYA. Unfortunately, it is not one agency or cop to blame, it is the entire structure of federal prohibition of marijuana that is to blame, a system that provides incentive to law enforcement to use young innocent responsible cannabis users as bait for the larger bust.
Then Paul made contact with Liza Patty. She is the friend of Rachel Hoffman who was featured on the ABC News 20/20 segment on Rachel’s death. Liza agreed to come on to the Stash to tell us even more that wasn’t featured on the ABC story. So today you’ll hear a two-part interview with Liza instead of the continuation of yesterday’s interviews.
Then tomorrow we’ve got the big Barney Frank HR5843 press conference, so I’ll have audio from that and our regular Cannabis Science with Dr. Earleywine. Then Thursday there’s 420 Comedy with Tere Joyce & Friends and I’m hoping to have audio or an interview with Cheech & Chong (or probably just Chong) regarding their upcoming reunion tour. And Friday we’ve got CelebStoner news with Steve Bloom and my special interview with Rep. Barney Frank.
So the Chapkis/Webb/Corral interview will have to wait until next Monday. I apologize to anyone counting on those three parts to appear on consecutive days.
ABC News: Are Pot Users Criminals? The Tragic Case of Rachel Hoffman
After being caught twice with a “baggie” of marijuana, 23-year old Rachel Hoffman was reportedly told by police in Tallahassee, Florida that she would go to prison for four years unless she became an undercover informant.
Parents say police used their daughter as bait to catch drug dealers.
The young woman, a recent graduate of Florida State University, was murdered during a botched sting operation two months ago.
Grand Jury to Investigate Death of Informant A grand jury is being convened that will investigate the controversial death of a 23-year-old Florida woman who was killed while acting as a confidential police informant in a sting operation last month.
The panel is expected to look into the case of Rachel Hoffman, whom Tallahassee city police recruited to work as a confidential informant in April after raiding her house and reportedly finding marijuana and ecstasy.
The police have said they offered Hoffman a deal: if she worked as a confidential informant, the state attorney would “decide how to balance your assistance with your crime.”
But State Attorney Willie Meggs has said his office was not informed of the deal, and it was inappropriate for police to offer such an arrangement without a prosecuting attorney involved.
Lance Block, an attorney hired by Hoffman’s father after his daughter’s death, said flatly he doesn’t believe the deal went down the way the police have described. According to friends of Hoffman’s in whom she confided, Block said, police told her she faced as much as four years in prison if she did not accept the offer.
“They told her ‘it will all go away,’ if you help us get some bad guys off the street,” Block said.
“It is my strong preference that the people who are in drug court not be around this kind of thing,” state prosecutor Owen McCaul told the Tallahassee Democrat. And a local public defender told the paper there was an “informal practice” that people in drug court don’t act as informants, “the thinking being that someone in drug court is trying to get away from drug activity and drug use.”
Hoffman was never booked into jail after the raid on her apartment. She began to work with a Tallahassee police investigator, and police have said she offered two men, Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, as possible arrest targets.
Attorney Block said Rachel had no prior relationship with the men, as he believes the police have suggested, but learned of them through an intermediary, who told her about them while she was assisting the police.
Police have confirmed they gave Hoffman $13,000 in cash and set her up to buy 1,500 hits of ecstasy, cocaine and a gun from Green and Bradshaw. A police spokesman has said he was not sure why a gun was involved.
I can tell you why there was a gun involved. These cops are trying to take down a couple of bad guys and they know that when there is a gun involved in a drug transaction, the mandatory minimums increase substantially. It’s a part of the game for them: they get a low-level pot user like Rachel, set her up with an offer she can’t refuse, and use her as the bait to catch the bigger fish. The longer those mandatory minimums, the less the defense is going to be able to plea down for a better deal.
Just how stupid could these cops be? You’re going to send a 23-year-old woman to some really bad news dealers with a history of violence on their rap sheets, and just out of the blue have her buy thirteen grand in coke and X and a handgun? Naw, that wouldn’t set off any red flags in a typical dealer’s mind.
Like many college students, she shared marijuana with her friends, and would often “go in” on larger amounts in order to save money. And that’s how she got busted.
Rachel was threatened with prison time, then promised a slap on the wrist if she agreed to wear a wire and set up a deal with her suppliers. Tallahassee police gave her $13,000 in cash and told her to purchase 1,500 ecstasy pills, 2 ounces of cocaine, and a handgun. They never informed her attorney, family, or the state prosecutor before they sent Rachel into the lions’ den that day. And nobody had the chance to tell her she was in way over her head.
After police found Rachel’s body, they held a press conference and blamed her for her own death. Among Rachel’s family and friends, sadness quickly turned into outrage and action. Last Wednesday, hundreds of students marched in protest of the role the Tallahassee Police Department played in Rachel’s death. They held signs that read “Who Killed Rachel?” and “No More Drug War” while wearing t-shirts from SSDP and other allied organizations. Please take a moment to watch this powerful video of the demonstration:
In her memory, Rachel’s parents have established the Rachel Morningstar Foundation, the goal of which is to pass a law requiring legal advice to be sought before a civilian can consent to undercover work. They will also work to decriminalize marijuana in Florida. Please make a generous donation to the foundation today, and include a personal note to Rachel’s parents if you are moved to do so.
In the meantime, Rachel’s murderers must be brought to justice. But the drug dealers who pulled the trigger clearly aren’t the only ones responsible for her death. They are the police who coerced her into being an informant and the politicians who justify waging a War on Drugs to “protect young people from drugs,” while using those very same young people as pawns in their deadly game. On Wednesday, one protester’s sign poignantly asked, “Do you feel safe?”
ABC News has now picked up on the story in Florida about Rachel Hoffman, the young woman murdered after Tallahassee police inserted her into a dangerous undercover drug sting. More details have been uncovered, such as the discovery of over five ounces of marijuana at Hoffman’s home, along with scales and baggies.
ABC News: Cops Pressed to Explain Dead Informant
In addition to the 2007 drug charge, authorities also released information about an underage drinking charge Hoffman faced in 2003, as well as multiple instances in which she was targeted by thieves — crimes he said are often related to drugs.
“They’re basically pointing the finger at Rachel,” said [defense attorney Johnny] Devine, who served as Hoffman’s attorney after the 2007 bust, in an interview with ABC News. “What does her underage drinking charge have anything to do with what happened to her?”
[Devine] wanted to know why, as her attorney, he did not know about this offer from police — something McCranie said was not uncommon.
“They’re asking her to do something that would put her in a life or death situation,” Devine said. “I have never had any time where the police department has not called me to tell me this is what’s happening.”
Further, Devine said, Hoffman did not have any previous experience with firearms, but authorities knew from the terms of the deal that she would be confronted by a pair of men — one of whom had a violent criminal past — who were carrying at least one gun.
“She had never worked as an undercover agent,” he said. “She had no experience or training in this matter.”
Finally, Hoffman challenged police reluctance to at least share with her family members some details from the murder scene to allow them to grieve.
“They are left to speculate and guess about the cause of her death,” he said. “Was she tortured? Was she beaten?”
While the police continue to defend the decisions that drew Hoffman into her role as an informant, even William “Willie” Meggs, the state’s attorney in Tallahassee who will ultimately prosecute Green and Bradshaw, said that his office should have known about the April raid at Hoffman’s apartment and her subsequent deal with authorities.
“We would have liked to have known and we did not,” Meggs told ABC News, stressing that as a participant in the drug court, Hoffman already had a relationship with a case worker in the program and should not have any kind of drug interaction involving police without his office knowing.
The police continue to play “blame the victim”, saying that what killed Hoffman was two murderers and her “drug lifestyle”. But Hoffman was only involved in small amounts of marijuana and was never involved with guns, so to send her on a drug buy for 1500 ecstasy pills, two ounces of coke, and a handgun was completely out of her character. This is not the kind of nuance that is lost on hard-core drug dealers, especially when you have been recently released from police custody and you ask to meet them in a public place.
Rachel Morningstar Hoffman, 23, a 2007 Florida State University graduate, was found dead in rural Taylor County early Friday after two men suspected in her kidnapping and robbery led investigators to her body. Murder charges are pending, according to the Tallahassee Police Department.
Hoffman was last seen Wednesday night near Forestmeadows Park while attempting to assist TPD vice investigators by buying drugs and a gun from two men.
When Hoffman agreed to help police, she was facing multiple felony charges and was in a diversion program after being caught with more than 20 grams of marijuana, Chief Dennis Jones said in a news conference Friday.
Hoffman was facing charges of possession of ecstasy with intent to sell, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, maintaining a drug house and possession of drug paraphernalia, Jones said.
She agreed to buy 1,500 pills of ecstasy, 2 ounces of cocaine or crack cocaine and a gun from two men, Andrea J. Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, Jones said.
TPD spokesman David McCranie would not say whether Hoffman was wearing a wire, but another of Hoffman’s friends, Shaina Hale, recalls Hoffman saying that police wanted her to do so. Police did not say why Hoffman was doing the bust, but McCranie said she was not coerced and helped willingly.
Hale and other friends said they think police scared Hoffman into thinking she was going to spend years in prison for the felony charges if she didn’t become an informant.
Here at NORML we have a saying that marijuana is not fatal, but its prohibition can be. Paramilitary SWAT raids terrorize and sometimes kill cannabis users, and sometimes non-users when officers accidentally get the wrong address on a warrant. Or, as in this case, a cannabis user is “flipped” into becoming an informant in order to avoid lengthy prison time.
In this case, we have a young woman who was caught twice with less than one ounce of cannabis and some ecstasy pills. Police then press her to give the names of these two dealers and to go make a deal, trying to parlay the “little fish” pot dealer into a “bigger fish” coke dealer. Now, do you think these guys might figure something is up when a small-time marijuana and club-drug user suddenly wants to get a gun, some coke and dealer-amounts of pills? And to meet in a public park?
The most shameful thing is the Tallahassee police trying to pin the blame of her death on her shoulders because she left the park, not because they put a naive young woman into a high-stakes drug sting and then lost her when she left with the two coke dealers:
Join NORML In Berkeley For Our 2008 National Conference Register Today To Take Advantage Of Discounted Rates; Congress Fails To Adopt Appropriations Bill - No Opportunity to Vote on Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment; California: Medical Pot Statute Does Not Conflict With Federal Anti-Drug Laws; San Diego Supervisors To Appeal Ruling; interview with SSDP's Kris Krane
Members Of Congress Demand An End To Federal Pot Possession Arrests; National MS Society Makes Recommendations Regarding Therapeutic Use Of Cannabis; The Tragic Death Of Rachel Hoffman -- And The Tragedy That Is Pot Prohibition; Interview with Rep. Barney Frank.
Pot Compound Enhances Efficacy Of Anti-Cancer Agents, Study Says; California: Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act Qualifies For November Ballot; New Orleans: District Attorney Charging Minor Pot Offenders With Felonies; Kelly Maddy on Joplin MO Decrim Effort.
John Wesley Hall, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, describes the case precendent in roadside traffic stops and search and seizure.
Seattle, Washington attorney Doug Hiatt explains the latest medical use issues in Washington State, including denial of transplant organs for medmj patients.
A grand jury is being convened that will investigate the controversial death of a 23-year-old Florida woman who was killed while acting as a confidential police informant in a sting operation last month.
