Federal Prosecutors Withheld Evidence in Spokane Valley Grow Case
A judge will hear arguments on whether or not to admit previously unreleased reports surrounding a five-year-old cannabis raid in Washington.
The case, which has the potential to send at least one defendant to jail for life, stems from a 2012 cannabis raid in Spokane Valley. During the course of the raid, authorities confiscated over 1,000 cannabis plants and one firearm. The defense attests that 667 of the “plants” impounded were pots that either contained remnants of cannabis, or were empty altogether.
The “new” reports in question surround a “free Talk” interaction between the four defendants and one of the prosecutors. The Defense is hoping to use the report to exonerate their clients. The Prosecution argues that the reports are not new, even though they were never turned over to the Defense as part of the trials initial discovery. The Defense however, is claiming that since the reports were not part of the initial evidence, it constitutes a failure on the part of the government, and should result in a dismissal of all charges.
“The defense understands the need to protect cooperating witnesses, but not at the expense of the constitutional rights of the defendants,” Federal Defender Alison Guernsey argued in court documents. “If the government were truly concerned about balancing its obligations to cooperators and defendants alike, then it could have sought the Court’s review of the free talk materials years ago.”
The case has withered over the last five years as attorneys on both sides have battled back and forth in private and public forums. For their part, the defendants have been trying to move on with their lives, even with a potential lengthy prison sentence looming over their heads. In 2015, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals barred the federal government from using federal funds on prosecuting medical cultivation operations that complied with state law.
This May, three of the defendants were prepared to plead guilty, when their attorneys found the undisclosed “free talk” reports. Upon advice from their lawyers, the men did not plead guilty, and a Federal judge chastised the Prosecution for violating the defendant’s rights.
The U.S. Attorneys are unfazed by the potential setback. “Whether all the defendants, or some of the defendants, intended to operate a medical marijuana grow is irrelevant,” court documents state. “The defendants must show that they were in full compliance with the provisions of Washington medical marijuana law—if compliance is even possible—not the alleged purpose for which it was grown.”
The case is set to continue this month.
