The charges came down on election day, as Oregonians were busy legalizing recreational pot.
Cops say a homeless man named Kevin Rodriguez was smoking a joint near the train station.
A 26-year-old Portlander named Charles Ellertson was allegedly talking on the phone while driving. A cop ticketed him for that and the small amount of pot he possessed.
Thomas Elisondo, 36, was allegedly spotted smoking a bowl downtown. When an officer approached him, he obligingly dumped “about three ‘buds'” into a puddle, according to a police report. Fine: $650.
If what police say in each of these cases (and dozens like them) is true, Rodriguez, Ellertson, and Elisondo were all breaking Oregon law when cops ticketed them in late October. But bizarrely, the hefty fines they face would already have gone up in smoke if they’d been committing more serious crimes at the same time. Instead, they await a court hearing.
As we reported in this week’s paper, this is the weird contradiction that’s emerged in the wake of Measure 91.
Multnomah County prosecutors have stopped filing charges for offenses that will become legal under the measure next July—charges like possessing less than an ounce of marijuana, which each of the men detailed above face. But prosecutors only have so much leverage. They don’t deal with with minor violations unless those violations also have a criminal charge attached. Cases like Rodriguez’s—a homeless guy smoking a joint—never even reach a DA’s desk.
Advocates cheered when District Attorney Rod Underhill announced he’d dropped charges in 50 cases on November 10. And just today, Measure 91’s backers issued an open letter to all Oregon’s DAs, imploring them to follow Underhill’s example (read it after the jump). Meanwhile, scads of people facing pot violations are still making their way through the system for the some of the same infractions. According to figures provided yesterday by Trial Court Administrator Doug Bray, there are 74 open cases for pot violations in Multnomah County.
Many of those cases revolve around activity that will still be illegal under Measure 91—you can’t smoke in public, even in the era of legal weed—but not all. Andrew Gomez, a homeless man, didn’t even really have any marijuana on him when he was ticketed in Waterfront Park. A cop said he was holding a prescription bottle that contained “marijuana residue.”
No matter the circumstance, though, there is an imbalance in how the county handles pot right now. The dozens of open violations Bray detailed would have been tossed already if they’d been handled by prosecutors. Instead, they might result in hundreds of dollars in fines.
The numbers also clash with the contentions of the Portland Police Bureau that handing out pot violations is a rarity. More than half of the 74 violations were filed since October 1. (It’s probable there were more than that, since our data only lists cases that are still open.) Some of the violations begin with car stops, but many more are issued by a small cadre of officers who patrol downtown Portland. Often, the officers are alerted to public pot use by employees of a private security company, and swoop in to hand out tickets.
Court officials say they’re trying to clear up these contradictions, but it’s still unclear how that’s going to happen. Chief Multnomah County Criminal Judge Julie Frantz tells the Mercury she’s looking into the situation, and public defenders have offered to step up on these cases, since the presence of a defense attorney would give DAs leverage to toss pot infractions.
For now, though, the system grinds on.
On November 5—as Oregonians were trying to get their heads around legal pot and Underhill’s office was making preparations—a man named Ramon Douglas pleaded guilty to possessing a little more than a gram of marijuana in Peninsula Park. He agreed to pay a $400 fine to have the matter dismissed.
Here’s that letter from Measure 91 backers:
Although Oregon voters passed Measure 91 with a 12-point margin, implementation of this better, smarter approach to marijuana policy will not be complete until the first half of 2016. We don’t have to wait until then to start to mitigate the damage done by decades of criminalization, wasted law enforcement time and squandered taxpayer money.
Prosecutors in Oregon’s largest county have already decided to dismiss, and stop prosecuting, marijuana-related offenses that would no longer exist under Measure 91. Other county prosecutors should follow Multnomah County’s lead.
A strong majority of Oregon voters have directed the state to stop treating marijuana as a crime and to better prioritize our limited law enforcement resources. With so many lives and so much money at stake, waiting would be unreasonable and clearly damaging to Oregon’s communities. We should work quickly to limit the damage already caused by a feckless war against marijuana.
We urge you to cease enforcement of marijuana laws that will no longer exist when provisions of Measure 91 take effect in July.
Respectfully,
Anthony Johnson, Director, New Approach Oregon, Chief Petitioner of Measure 91David Fidanque, Executive Director, ACLU of Oregon
Becky Straus, Legislative Director, ACLU of Oregon
Kris Olson, former US Attorney for the District of Oregon
Darian Stanford, former Drug Unit Prosecutor
Paul Steigleder, former Lieutenant Sheriff
Pete Tutmark, former Deputy Sheriff
Inge Fryklund, former Assistant State’s Attorney
I will give a free joint to the first drug warrior to make a stupid, uninformed, or passive-aggressive comment on this article.