Rich Paul, a noted cannabis legalization activist in New Hampshire, was convicted in 2013 of selling cannabis. He served a “county year” in jail. Now, his appeal brief has been filed, and his case will be heard by the New Hampshire Supreme Court on June 18 at 9:00 AM.
Supporters of Jury Nullification and ending cannabis prohibition will be gathering at the Supreme Court around 8:30 AM.
Supporters who enter the court are asked to be respectful and non-disruptive.
The issue at law is the question of whether the judge’s jury instructions violated the statute that makes the defense of “Jury Nullification” permissible in New Hampshire.
He was convicted out right. There was no question about his guilt. He is a drug dealer and user. This is the same thing as Ademo wire tapping retrial. No one in Keene wants a drug dealer on the streets. The good thing about a retrial would be they could put him away for even longer.
JC, who did Rich ever harm? Did he assault anyone? Did he murder anyone? Did he defraud anyone? Did he damage anyone’s property? Did he steal anyone’s property? Did he even threaten to do any of these things? If you are honest in your assessment, your answer should be “no”.
Should a man really be put in a cage if he didn’t harm anyone or their property? I don’t believe so.
As for your “no one in keene…” statement, I know for a fact that it isn’t true. Perhaps YOU don’t want him on your streets or some of your neighbors don’t want him on your streets, but there are plenty of folks who like and respect Rich because he is an honest and decent guy. To my knowledge, he has never personally harmed another human being. That’s NOT the type of person who belongs in a cage.
Why do you hate freedom so much, JC? The USA has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prison population. That’s unacceptable. 40,000 new “laws” went into effect on January 1, 2014, in the US, with nearly that many last year too. That’s not “freedom”. Putting a man in a cage for selling a plant and another substance which the cops, themselves, said wasn’t even illegal, is insane. It’s not only insane from a legal standpoint, but from an economic and moral one too.
Do you really want to pay $50,000 per year to put a peaceful man in a cage? I am certain that if it was your responsibility to pay for the majority of that, your wallet would overrule your outrage.
I really hope you will begin to think about these things I have said. You all have a chance to bring back REAL freedom there in NH. I hope that the hatred of the free state project and free keene won’t cloud the fact that those people are truly trying to make the state a more FREE and prosperous place to live.
He is a felony drug dealer. I was at the trial. The FBI had him nailed right away. He needs to be in prison for life for being a drug dealer. He knew the risks and intentionally broke the law. Now he is trying to cop the same deal Ademo did. I have no problem with my tax money puting him away. There are very few freekeeners. Most of the city of Keene wants him put away. Check your facts. I hope he gets everything thrown at him. He won’t win. The case is too cut and dry.
I think those of you who support the drug war should be the ONLY ones paying the bill for it. Nobody else should be forced to pay for putting peaceful people in cages.
You DO know that they let a heroin dealer off the hook in order to entrap Rich, right? Which do you think is more dangerous, heroin or pot? The snitch was busted for selling heroin, but they let him off so they could catch Rich and then try to get him to wear a wire into the keene activist center. This is a political prosecution (and persecution). Do you support that kind of jack booted thuggery, JC?
It’s really a shame that you hate freedom so much. Life in prison for selling pot? You’re an authoritarian and a heartless monster.
No, I am a concerned parent and citizen. We don’t need drug dealers in our community. He is the lowest of the low. He deserves a 6×10 cell. Drugs have nothing to do with freedom. They enslave anyone who uses them or sells them. Spare me the typical activist rant that makes no sense. He was busted out right. Now he will pay the price which is fine with all the residents of Keene.
JC, where do YOU get the authority to tell another human being what they can or cannot put into their body? Because I don’t have that authority. Me plus all my neighbors don’t have that authority. Me plus everyone else in the country, collectively, don’t have that authority, so where do YOU get it? Furthermore, where do the police or court system get the authority if no individual has the authority to tell another person what they can/cannot put into their body? I believe the Constitution says that authority is derived from the people. So if none of the people have it, from where does it come?
That’s another one of those questions that nobody seems to be able to answer. Perhaps you can be the first to give me a competent answer?
The law makes it illegal for him to use and sell these drugs. Period. The buying and selling of illegal drugs exploits people, drug cartels, sex slavery, and the list goes on. Don’t play the activist what I can tell and not tell garbage. I am a productive member of my community. I will not pay for that moron to continue to support his unproductive habit and addiction. No one wants a drug user/dealer in there community and mine is no different. Your play on words does not help your case.
Yeah, don’t let logic get in the way of your ignorance, JC.
I didn’t figure you could answer the question either, nobody ever can. You claim to support “law”, yet you don’t understand the most basic logic behind the “law of the land”. If no individual and no group of individuals has authority, government cannot have that authority either, because the constitution says all of the government’s authority is derived from the people.
You know, everything the Nazis did to the Jews was totally “legal” under their set of laws. Instead of standing up for what’s right and demanding that individual freedoms are protected, people like you were the ones who insisted on being “law abiding citizens”…it was people like YOU who carried the Jews, Gypsies and others off to concentration camps, because you were too afraid to stand against bad laws…or worse, you supported those bad laws. Just because something is “illegal” doesn’t mean it’s unlawful or even immoral. The use of drugs isn’t immoral, that’s why this phony “war on drugs” will continue until people finally realize that it’s absurd to lock up peaceful people, just as they did during prohibition. People have no moral compunction against using a plant to make themselves happy or treat an illness. What is absolutely immoral is you claiming to have a greater right to someone else’s body than they do.
You’re on the wrong side of this issue. People who value their freedom know that other people have a right to do as they wish as long as they’re not harming others or damaging property. Rich did neither of those things. He made a voluntary and peaceful transaction between two “free” human beings. There was no victim here, so there was no crime. There was no evidence that what Rich did hurt anyone else, not one shred of evidence. The person who had his rights violated here was Rich. What he did was the way he chooses to pursue happiness, which is supposedly guaranteed to him by your constitution. So what YOU are doing here is standing AGAINST the law/constitution, AGAINST what’s right and AGAINST what’s moral.
It’s a shame that people like you want everyone to live in a police state. I want to be free. I want to be free of authoritarians like you, who would happily throw peaceful people in cages. That’s not freedom, JC.
What’s not freedom are people like me who are productive in society have to pay for that idiot ‘s health care and watch him try to sell his garbage to our children. I have answered your questions. There are no morals when it comes to using and selling drugs. You have brainwashed yourself into the ridiculous argument of no victim no crime and that is just an activist saying to try and justify the BS you have convinced yourself of believing in. He broke the law and he did create victims. Himself, his girlfriend, his friends, his community, and the state. He was found guilty a jury. Period. His BS trying to argue in front of the NH supreme court is just a ploy he won’t win.
Here is something Ian Bernard has been saying. He and RP are friends and do their activism together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnSixDLrGlw
No, the STATE created the victims, not him. He was providing for his wife and himself, before the state intervened. He wasn’t FORCING anyone to buy anything, they were VOLUNTARY and PEACEFUL transactions. He wasn’t going out and looking for people to sell drugs to, the snitch approached him. So I would definitely say that Rich wasn’t even the typical dealer.
You say you don’t want to have to pay for his healthcare, what do you think you will be doing if he gets put in prison again? You already paid for a year of his incarceration. Apparently you don’t REALLY have a problem with it, or you wouldn’t be saying that he should be locked away for life. You are contradicting yourself here.
As far as what Ian said, I don’t agree. I do believe that people should be able to make choices for themselves and they should live with those consequences, but I, personally, haven’t seen a lot of evidence that a 10-year old can make decisions like that for themselves. Perhaps Ian was mature for his age, I don’t know. But please remember that all of the liberty activists have their own stories, their own past, their own views and beliefs. There is an old joke that if you got 100 liberty activists in a room, you’d have at least 101 different opinions. I know that at 10, *I* couldn’t have made a competent decision about such things, but then I was a rather immature kid right up until age 17 when I joined the USMC. Hell, I was even immature after that, I still made some bad decisions, but I took responsibility for my decisions and lived with the consequences.
I encourage you to think about the different views within any other group in society…whether it’s a political party, a church, a charity or even a town. Different people believe different things. In fact, you probably hold different beliefs than some of your close friends. I try not to lump people in together like that because I know that not everyone in any given group believes the same things. What Ian said is what Ian believes. It’s not what I believe. As far as anyone else, I can’t say. Firstly, because I’m not in their head, secondly because I’m not authorized to speak for anyone else.
Did you watch Rich’s speech at his sentencing? He took a tremendous personal risk when he said what he did to the judge. That took a great deal of character and honesty. He said that if he thought there was any chance of a child getting ahold of the drugs that he sold, he would not sell to that person. Based upon all that he said, I tend to believe him. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, you can find it on youtube, just do a search for “Rich Paul Sentencing full” or just search for the speech he gave at his sentencing. His parents told some rather interesting stories about him too.
The reason he’s arguing in front of the supreme court is because the judge made a mistake. If the judge made a mistake in a case against you or your family member, wouldn’t you want a new trial to attempt to make sure they got a fair trial? It was a fairly egregious violation. The judge failed to tell the jurors that they ARE allowed to judge the law, not just the defendant. This is due to a new law passed in NH which allows people to use jury nullification as a defense, which changed the instructions that the Judge gives prior to jury deliberation. Of course nullification is the single most powerful act that a jury can take. In this case, if I were on a jury, I would definitely vote to nullify, because it’s clear that this was a political persecution. The FBI agent lied on the stand too, does that not matter to you? The reason they went after Rich was to coerce him into wearing a wire and entrap other activists. Whether you agree or disagree with the free keene activists, hopefully you can at least recognize that it’s wrong for the federal government to persecute them. I suspect if the same thing happened to whatever party you are affiliated with, you would be rather upset. Just because you disagree with someone’s politics, that doesn’t mean they deserve to be mistreated by the government.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of the tactics of the free keene activists, but I do understand that they are trying to make NH a more free place to live. More freedom is a goal that we should ALL be working toward, in my opinion.
Again, He needs to be in prison and he won’t get off from his conviction. It was to cut and dry.
You say, “So I would definitely say that Rich wasn’t even the typical dealer”. What is a typical dealer? He was busted for felony drug sale. It doesn’t matter who sold what. He is the typical drug dealer. Drug dealers hurt the people and communities they sell in.
You said, “Perhaps Ian was mature for his age, I don’t know. But please remember that all of the liberty activists have their own stories, their own past, their own views and beliefs. There is an old joke that if you got 100 liberty activists in a room, you’d have at least 101 different opinions. I know that at 10, *I* couldn’t have made a competent decision about such things, but then I was a rather immature kid right up until age 17”
Sorry but the law says you have to be at least 16 in some states and 18 in others. You weren’t mature enough to make a decision like that. No child is. There are countless studies that support the fact children cannot make those types of decisions. Now that idiot wants to have sex with children.
Rich Paul is a drug abuser and seller. He is not a hero. It’s the same ploy he and the other activists use. He will go before the SC and make an ass out of himself. They will not discharge his convictions. His case was so cut and dry. He is a piece of garbage. I would be willing to be my last bottom dollar he will eventually end up in prison. Just where he needs to be.
It is HIGHLY unlikely that he will do more time than he already has. It’s very rare for a judge to sentence someone to more time if the original case is thrown out, if the person has already done time for the “crime”.
So it doesn’t matter to you that they let a 6-time HEROIN dealer off the hook in order to catch a pot dealer? Heroin is clearly more dangerous than pot, that’s not even disputed. In the history of the world, nobody has ever died from a pot overdose, but heroin overdoses are actually quite common. It seems like if you were really interested in getting the worst drugs off the streets, you’d have a much larger problem with the heroin dealer than you would with a guy selling pot. Or is this just another inconsistency with your beliefs? Or is your hatred of Rich political, like the prosecutor’s and cops’?
Are you ever going to answer my question about where you believe you (or the state) gets the authority to throw someone in a cage for a peaceful, victimless activity? The Constitution seems to say that neither you, nor it has such authority. After all, George Washington himself was a renowned grower of hemp, so it’s doubtful that he would approve of drug laws. Many of the other early Presidents said that at no time should government be allowed to determine what a person may or may not put into their body and that this would be a recipe for disaster where government controlled every aspect of peoples’ lives.
Again, your rant has no meaning. A drug dealer is a drug dealer. He sold drugs, he got caught, and he was convicted. Period. Why don’t you prove George Washington smoked pot. You are making ridiculous excuses for a behavior that is not tolerated within communities. Most countries in the world have made marijuana illegal. Your arguments are redundant and full of nothing that will change my mind or anyone else in Keene.
I used to believe exactly as you do, that drug dealers were a scourge upon society, that if we got rid of the dealers, somehow we could stop people from using drugs. Then I sat down and started doing research. I realized that the US spends over $50 billion on drug interdiction each and every year (NOT counting state/local programs), yet there are more drugs available now than ever before. Hell, the government can’t even keep drugs out of PRISONS, so to think that this “war on drugs” is winnable is insanity. Then I thought about it on a personal level, how all these peaceful people were in prisons when they’d never hurt another person. Estimates are that up to 70% of people in prison are there for non-violent drug offenses. They don’t belong in prison.
I then looked at places where drugs ARE legal, like in Amsterdam and Portugal. What happened after they legalized drugs was pretty astonishing in both places. Crime rates dropped, murder rates dropped, ADDICTION dropped and governments had more money to spend on more important things like education and public works and public good projects because they weren’t wasting billions per year on a war they would never win.
Did you know that the USA has more people in the prison system now than the soviet union had in their gulags? Is that REALLY what “freedom” is supposed to look like? Soviet Russia was one of the most brutal and least free countries in the history of mankind, yet the USA has more people in the prison system than they did. That doesn’t sound like “freedom” to me. Most of the people who are in prison in America are there for drug-related offenses, non-violent drug-related offenses, no less, many with no victim at all.
Pot will be legalized in NH. There are many activists working tirelessly to make it happen. So you are fighting a losing war. Hell, even politicians want it to happen because they realize they’re in the middle of a budget crisis and they need to get money…making pot legal is a great way to do that. We’ve past the point of no return and I’m very happy about that. If you actually gave a damn about freedom, you would too.
You know, it’s very closed-minded to say that you will never change your mind, even when new information presents itself. That’s why we had slavery for so long and prohibition and why women and blacks went so long without rights that they were due by virtue of their humanity. Is that REALLY the type of people you want to associate yourself with? Those who are destined to always be on the WRONG side of things? Because that’s squarely where you’ve positioned yourself.
First off, In Amsterdam, they have a law that says they will not sell marijuana to Americans and other foreign visitors. The reason is the crime rate has escalated. Every time a drug dealer makes a sale. He/she is funding, crime, cartels, sex slavery, and the list goes on. Alcohol is legal but it is used quite extensively illegally. minors use it, it is responsible for violent crimes ie.. domestic violence, it is still bootlegged to dry counties and communities ie.. Indian Reservations ect.. It has significant stats for being used during homicides and other violent crimes. Including drunk driving ect.. Making illegal drugs “legal” will continue to fund and cause just as many if not more violence.
How do I know all of this, I own and operate three drug and alcohol rehab units. I have a masters in nursing with a certification in rehab medicine You will never ever convince me or the medical community that drug dealers are OK within a community. Don’t fool yourself. Excessive use of marijuana has cause significant organic changes within the brain especially when used by children. It also causes respiratory problems ie.. COPD. You have no argument that will hold water. Period. Every time a user comes through my facilities, there are multiple multiple victims. First off the user him/herself, family, friends, coworkers, loss of jobs and crime, and the list goes on. Until you have a masters in nursing or a doctorate with an emphasis on drug and alcohol addictions, you have no case. Rich Paul will more than likely end up in prison or dead from drugs. I’ve seen his type of behavior for many years. There are still more health care providers who are against the use of marijuana in medical treatments then for. My facilities receive a couple of federal grants per year to take part in drug and alcohol studies. The data that comes from those studies are used for better treatment of patients, better drug policies, and drug laws. Again, the only people wrong are you and Rich Paul not to mention anyone else who subscribes to drug dealers selling drugs to people including children. He needs to be in jail and I know that will soon happen.
Looks like you might get your wish, JC. A teenager is facing life in prison for baking some pot brownies.
Do you really think the kid deserves LIFE in prison with murderers and rapists for making brownies?
http://fox43.com/2014/05/16/teen-faces-life-in-prison-for-pot-brownies
Awww … poor baby. Toilet-trained too early in life or not hugged enough as a child. It must really suck to be you.
Our society has laws. If you violate those laws and are found guilty, you pay fines and/or go to jail. Those laws can be modified if the majority wish it to be so, but I guess that’s not good enough for you; you have decided that you alone know better than the rest of us which laws are good and which ones should be ignored.
We – the majority – are more than happy to oblige half-wits like yourself who insist on breaking the law to keep putting you in “cages”. It’s really no problem at all.
You mad, bro? You sound kinda mad that someone would question your beloved system. 😉
Get used to it, it’s all going to come crashing down. That which is mathematically impossible to continue will not continue. All the printing, taxing, borrowing and violence won’t save your precious government.
Hell, the government’s own bean counters said that the government would come to an end by 2022 if drastic spending cuts weren’t enacted and your corrupt politicians don’t have the courage to do what needs to be done.
“What needs to be done” in your opinion; others have different opinions. Like I stated: We’re more than happy to keep putting people like you who refuse to abide by our society and its laws in jail … it’s no trouble at all.
I wonder what would happen today, if some group of a couple thousand folks wrote a letter to the President and Congress, which said, “We’re not going to pay your taxes anymore. We’re not going to obey your laws, anymore. We do not acknowledge your right to rule us, ever again and when you send your thugs to enforce your will on us, WE WILL RESIST!”
Some folks did that about 240-ish years ago. Men with names like Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, and Adams. Men who most people celebrate on July 4th, “Independence Day”.
So what would happen? I’ll tell you what would happen. Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, NBC and all the other government-controlled alphabet channels would simultaneously call them traitors and demand that they are thrown in cages. Then there would be a horrendous uproar from “patriots” who want to see these people tortured and murdered for daring to speak out against the US Government. They would be labeled “terrorists” by the government. Then when the government decided to go after them, people would cheer as they are gunned down by police who were “just following orders”. The founders *WOULD NOT STAND A CHANCE* today.
Yep, that’s precisely what would have happened to the founders of America if they were around today. People who claim to be a patriot and who swear that they love freedom would cheer as the founders were gunned down, one by one. Then the so-called patriots would pat themselves on the backs for being so free.
There may have been an idea called freedom once in America, but it’s long gone. It’s been replaced by people who believe that obeying the law is more important than freedom. By people who believe that security is more important than freedom…or worse, that obeying arbitrary “laws” IS freedom. By those who believe that complying with the TSA and allowing their children to be groped, is “freedom”. By people who believe that anything a politician writes down on a piece of paper is “law”. By people who believe that war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
I think the name of the holiday on the 4th of July should be changed. I suggest that we call it “dependence day”, because that’s what people are REALLY celebrating…their dependence on government for everything. People believe that the government provides them safety, that it “educates” their children, that it murders innocent people in other countries “to protect freedom at home”, and they believe that all the “laws” make them “more free”. The largest prison population on Earth is in their country and they believe this is “freedom”. The men you celebrate in about a month would disagree very strongly with what you’ve allowed your country to become. So when you are putting up your flag, eating barbecue or watching fireworks, just remember that you’re celebrating a bunch of men who YOU would probably consider “terrorists”.
The founders would at least recognize my beliefs, would they recognize yours? No, I think they’d call you Benedict Arnold.
LoL … the majority of the people have agreed to that authority through their elected representatives; it’s a real shame you disagree with the majority, but that’s the way our system works.
I have a simple solution for you: go find another country to live in.
For the record, JC, I don’t do drugs. I don’t even drink alcohol. I think that drugs can seriously screw up a person’s life and that they can do tremendous damage to a person’s health as well. However, I don’t claim the right over another person’s body to say that they cannot put into it whatever they wish. I don’t have the authority, neither do you. I hope you understand where this leads, when people make it acceptable for a politician in a far-off city to make decisions on what YOU can put into your body. Remember the ban on large sodas in NYC? What if they banned your favorite food tomorrow, are you going to stop eating it because it’s “illegal”? I invite you to look up the words “illegal” and “unlawful”, because they mean two very different things. What Rich did was definitely “illegal”, but by no means was it “unlawful”. People should only be thrown in a cage for things which are unlawful.
Whenever you say to another human being “you cannot put that into your body”, you are, essentially, making that person your slave. You have told them what they may do with their OWN body. I suspect that you wouldn’t like it if someone told you what to do with your own body, would you? Yet you seem to have no moral compunction about doing the same thing to others.
What about states which have legalized marijuana? Should the feds go in and arrest everyone who voted to legalize it? Should the feds go in AGAINST THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE and arrest employees at dispensaries? Should those employees get life in prison too? After all, they’re “selling drugs”, just like Rich did. If you are intellectually consistent, you must also agree that everyone who works at a dispensary should get life in prison too. So which is it?
There is nothing moral about banning pot, or not using pot, for that matter. It’s a banned substance because it was politically expedient to ban it at the time. Now that there’s a budget crunch, states are going to start legalizing it for the tax money…again, because it’s politically expedient. It has nothing to do with right and wrong, what’s good or bad for someone or any morality, whatsoever. They did the same thing with the smoking bans, the politicians realized that they could generate revenue if they made it illegal to smoke in public, so they did. Now, if this was done because it was a danger to the public, they surely wouldn’t have ALSO made it illegal to smoke e-cigarettes in public, would they? Of course not, because the only thing exhaled when someone smokes an e-cigarette is water vapor, which doesn’t harm anyone. It’s about the revenue, JC, nothing more, nothing less. You’re being played and you don’t even realize it. I hate to see people taken advantage of by the State. It’s wrong.
Good ideas don’t require force.
You mean your a concerned parent of a boy your ex-wife was smart enough to take from you right? Keep it real Paul. Fucking moron….
It’s really a shame that you don’t have a clue what you’re whining about. What part of “violating the law” do you not understand? You people seem to like the law when it can work for you, i.e., that hypocritical douche Garret filing a police report about being “assaulted”; the irony was almost too much for the police officer to bear.
Just because something is legal does not make it right, just as something which is illegal isn’t necessarily wrong. I’m sure you can think of examples of this if you think about it for a moment or two, but be careful, it might open you up to using logic and that could be bad for your statist beliefs.
It’s pretty simple, if there is no victim, no crime has been committed. There was no victim in Rich Paul’s case, therefore there was no crime.
As far as what Garret did, I believe he, and/or other members of FK were assaulted by that same individual at least four other times. Assault IS a crime, there IS a victim.
“If there is no victim, no crime has been committed.”
Wrong. If you’d like, I can point you to any American Civics textbook for further elaboration.
The above poster, or poser, is Paul Wayne Bowman formally from Keene NH. His last known town of residence was Winter Haven FL where he runs an outfit called No Excuses Ladies Boot camp. He has been a troll over 15 years going by the names JC, Jason Free123, Slappy, runningwolfkenpo and Jake C to name a few. Fucking moron……..
The above poster, or poser, is Paul Wayne Bowman formally from Keene NH. His last known town of residence was Winter Haven FL where he runs an outfit called No Excuses Ladies Boot camp. He has been a troll over 15 years going by the names JC, Jason Free123, Slappy, runningwolfkenpo and Jake C to name a few. Fucking moron….
You are truly hilarious. Prove my name is Paul Bowman. Have you ever contacted Paul Bowman by phone to confirm it’s him? I guess not. You are too much of a coward.
Boil it down to the basics and this is what happened: this man did something he knew was illegal – and was aware of the potential consequences. He made a personal choice to forge ahead regardless. He was caught and those consequences played out. Not smart. Period. End of story. And no, he is not like Rosa Parks – for those of you who steep yourselves in FK speak.