UPDATE: CHARLIE LYNCH SENTENCED TO ONE YEAR AND A DAY; Free pending appeal Charlie Lynch Sentencing Is Today, June 11: Will Legal Medical Marijuana Dispensary Owner Go to Jail for Helping the Sick?
Update: Reason.tv's Ted Balaker, on the scene at the Lynch sentencing, reports that Charlie Lynch has been sentenced to three one-year sentences that will run concurrently, plus one day in jaul.
Lynch is free pending appeal and his lawyers, says Balaker, seem extremely happy and relieved with the sentence and are convinced they will knock it down much lower and that Lynch will not be in prison anytime soon.
Look for video of the post-sentencing press conference at Reason.com and Reason.tv soon.
Charlie Lynch is the medical marijuana dispensary owner whose business, fully legal under California state law, was raided by federal agents in 2007.
At his federal trial last year, Lynch was not allowed to mention the legal status of medical marijuana under California state law while conducting his defense. The predictable-and outrageous-verdict? Lynch was found guilty of distributing pot and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
After several delays, Lynch's sentencing is scheduled for 10A.M. Pacific Time today, Thursday, June 11.
Tune in to Reason.com for an immediate report on the verdict.
Will justice be served? Or will an innocent man pay for the crimes of a government that is out of control? President Barack Obama has said he will stop federal raids against dispensaries in states that have made medical marijuana legal. Will that pledge make a difference in Lynch's sentencing?
This video was edited by Alexander Manning; additional footage provided by Rick Ray.
Approximately 3.20 minutes. For embed code, previous videos on the Lynch case, and audio, iPod, and HD versions, go here now.
The song "Whipping Boy" was written and performed by Chris Darrow. Courtesy of Everloving Music.
Here's a list of Reason's coverage (video and print) of the Lynch story. A snippet of that coverage:
The polite term for Lynch's predicament is Kafkaesque. He is a guiltless man who genuinely helped the sick in his community and is being punished for caring. Now he faces at least five years—and potentially much more—in one of the most sickening and barbaric displays of how the drug war is carpet-bombing huge swaths of American life. Indeed, to call Lynch's plight Kafkaesque is to hide the brutality of America's longest-running and most-destructive war behind an aesthetically comforting phrase.
Charlie Lynch's life has been destroyed by policies and priorities so idiotic and corrosive that they create or exacerbate every negative outcome they purport to address. It is the logic of bombing the village in order to save it raised to an exponential degree and all Americans who believe in the smallest doses of freedom, compassion, rule of law, personal autonomy, and federalism should bear witness to the horror of what has already happened and will likely be made still worse on [June 11].
And watch Reason.tv's original video on the Lynch case, "Raiding California: Medical marijuana and minors":
