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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR]
#6484766 - 01/22/07 06:29 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap January 19, 2007 - swtimes.com
A woman who pleaded guilty to selling drugs from her home while apparently confined to her bed and wheelchair and dependent on a caregiver to help her dress and bathe sought unsuccessfully Wednesday to avoid a prison sentence.
Maxine Laverne Holmes, 51, of 5904 Boys Club Lane, appeared before Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh in a hearing of the state’s petition to revoke a suspended sentence she received for a 2000 drug offense.
The petition to revoke was filed in November after police reported finding large quantities of marijuana in her house and she told them she was selling it.
Robert Blatt, who represented Holmes along with co-counsel Shannon Blatt, announced at the start of the hearing that it was established that Holmes said she sold drugs and was cooperating fully with authorities, and his aim in the hearing was to seek a fair sentence for her. Holmes’ cooperation and medical condition were key aspects of the Blatts’ arguments on her behalf. Their witnesses included the police detective who arrested her, found her in a hospital-style elevating bed, and took her extensive statements in which he said she admitted to selling the drugs.
Another witness was a caregiver who said she helped Holmes dress, bathe, use the bathroom and change her diapers.
Holmes, who remained in her wheelchair while testifying for herself, said she had a stroke in February and began selling marijuana after she got out of the hospital in May. Upon repeated questioning, she swore she was through using and selling drugs. Her attorneys pleaded for a sentence other than prison, such as supervised confinement to her home, arguing that prison facilities would not be able to provide the care she needed.
But prosecuting attorney Patrick Flake, representing the state’s petition to revoke, argued that Holmes had managed to sell drugs in her current condition, only to “hide behind” that condition to avoid going to prison.
It was Flake’s argument that apparently held sway with the judge.
In stating his decision, Fitzhugh recalled Holmes’ convictions not only on the 2000 marijuana possession offense but also for drug counts in 1994 and 1996. He said Holmes had had “several bites of the apple” and she was a “scourge to society.”
Fitzhugh reinstated Holmes’ suspended sentence for the 2000 offense, six years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. He refused the Blatts’ request for a sentence in a regional correctional facility and for a daily reporting requirement, and ordered that she be taken into custody immediately.
Several minutes after the hearing ended, Holmes returned with her attorneys to plead guilty to the November 2006 charges of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. The state decided not to press for sentence enhancements based on her status as a habitual criminal. Fitzhugh sentenced her to six years in prison plus four years suspended. The sentence for that crime is to run concurrently with the 2000 sentence.
Fitzhugh consented to allow Holmes to remain at home for several days, but not an entire week as requested.
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Boom
just a tester

Registered: 06/16/04
Posts: 11,252
Loc: Cypress Creek
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: veggie]
#6484785 - 01/22/07 06:47 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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heh
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 23 days, 20 hours
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: Boom]
#6484879 - 01/22/07 07:50 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Glad our tax money is going towards keeping dangerous and violent criminals off the street and in prison. With this bedridden woman behind bars, I know I will feel safer walking out at night.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus


Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 3,222
Last seen: 14 years, 4 months
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: Seuss]
#6484907 - 01/22/07 08:07 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Ah the tyrannous government of the USA...
NO YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT PLANT! YOU GO IN A CAGE!
-------------------- Know your self. Know your substance. Know your source. The most distorted perspective possible is the perspective that yours is not distorted.
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dedjam
Electro Penguin



Registered: 12/14/05
Posts: 2,139
Loc: Moralton, Statesota
Last seen: 12 years, 9 months
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#6484952 - 01/22/07 08:21 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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I want out of this country.
I had two friends busted over the weekend with mushrooms. Both had personal amounts on them in their home. A cop came to the door and busted in saying he smelt "drugs". Now these 2 friends are looking at long term sentences because they each had a bag of shrooms---2 bags = a charge for trafficing too.
Now the good part about this story. Those two live out in the middle of nowhere with their grandparents. They are adults, but they live at home because they both have terminal diseases and dont have much time left to live. They find joy in mushrooms, something I find amazing becuase it would be incredibly hard for me to find joy in anything knowing I was young and gonna die.
So now my 2 friends are looking at spending the rest of their lives in jail because some loser cop decided they didnt have any rights and busted into their home based on "the smell of drugs"
Its good to know our law enforcement has their priorities inline. Funny thing is there are about 4 ongoing, unsolved murder cases in my city (thats alot for my area) and 3 huge arson fires that I KNOW OF that arent being investigated. If you go down to our local PD and say you were raped, they will take a report and get back to you. If you go down there and say you know of some kids smooking weed, half the PD will be busing down doors looking for the "criminal" drug user.
Its fucked. And for the first time I have made up my mind that my wife and I will be leaving America as soon as she finishes up law school. She can do international law. I am ashamed to be an America, and my heart brakes for all those who gave their lives so we could be free...just to have our freedoms siezed in the name of safety. We say we are spreading freedom to the world, but we are only taking it away. I'm sick, I'm sad, I need to go....
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oppression
potsmokeshroompopngunnut


Registered: 01/18/07
Posts: 100
Loc: south of the mason dixion...
Last seen: 10 years, 2 months
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: dedjam]
#6485207 - 01/22/07 10:02 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
gopenguins said:
Its good to know our law enforcement has their priorities inline. Funny thing is there are about 4 ongoing, unsolved murder cases in my city (thats alot for my area) and 3 huge arson fires that I KNOW OF that arent being investigated. If you go down to our local PD and say you were raped, they will take a report and get back to you. If you go down there and say you know of some kids smooking weed, half the PD will be busing down doors looking for the "criminal" drug user.
Its fucked. And for the first time I have made up my mind that my wife and I will be leaving America as soon as she finishes up law school. She can do international law. I am ashamed to be an America, and my heart brakes for all those who gave their lives so we could be free...just to have our freedoms siezed in the name of safety. We say we are spreading freedom to the world, but we are only taking it away. I'm sick, I'm sad, I need to go....
+1 Drug busts are easy and dont take allot of work as in investigation time vs. results, were as investigating a rape case stolen property murder arson take a ton of police work with minimal results drugs, are the pigs bread and butter with out them they would have to do real work like the rest of us, and wouldn't get the ol good job son and standard handjob that come with a lazy drug bust. Pretty sad capitalist corporate america at its finest, do what gets the most results for the least amount of work no matter who it hurts so they can get paid.
-------------------- ‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.’"
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dedjam
Electro Penguin



Registered: 12/14/05
Posts: 2,139
Loc: Moralton, Statesota
Last seen: 12 years, 9 months
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: oppression]
#6485349 - 01/22/07 10:41 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
oppression said: +1 Drug busts are easy and dont take allot of work as in investigation time vs. results, were as investigating a rape case stolen property murder arson take a ton of police work with minimal results drugs, are the pigs bread and butter with out them they would have to do real work like the rest of us, and wouldn't get the ol good job son and standard handjob that come with a lazy drug bust. Pretty sad capitalist corporate america at its finest, do what gets the most results for the least amount of work no matter who it hurts so they can get paid.
Yup, just looked at our local court docket for the week. About 95% of the trials are for possession of MJ. What a waste of court time. There are people in the system for major crimes that won't go on trial for years because the system is so clogged with these petty drug crimes. Of course, if you think the courts are clogged with petty drug charges, you should see our jail. Nothing like over filling our jails with drug users, and then having no place to hold the real criminals so they get cheap bonds just because there is no room. We could just let the drug users out, but its easier to keep the dangerous criminals out there instead of going through the paper work to release a drug offender.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 23 days, 20 hours
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Re: Bedridden Woman Sentenced On Pot Rap [AR] [Re: dedjam]
#6488760 - 01/23/07 07:19 AM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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> I want out of this country.
Then move to another country. I did, five years ago. I just went back to the US for the first time last week. Seeing how wack (over-zealous religious evangelical nutcases) people are, at least in the mid-west, I couldn't wait to get back home.
US: I can get arrested for having a six pack minus one beer (open container) in the car even if I haven't had a drop to drink.
Non-US (home): I can drive with a bottle of beer in one hand. As long as I don't wreck or cause problems, nobody is going to bother me.
The land of the free? Yeah right... more like the land of the intolerant witch burning, gay bashing, self-righteous, sin free bigots.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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