From: [d--ks--e] at [bronze.lcs.mit.edu] (Arian Wolverton)
Newsgroups: alt.hemp,alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Montana Marijuana Tax Case
Date: 5 Oct 1994 13:30:24 -0400

Here is a (sort of) old article. It was in the Boston Herald from Tuesday,
June 7, 1994, page 3. Thought some might find it interesting.

"Court Nixes Drug Tax In Montana Pot Bust"

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled yesterday states cannot exact a tax
on illegal drugs from someone convicted of drug possession. The high
court, in a 5-4 decision, struck down Montana's $100-an-ounce tax on the
possession of marijuana on the grounds it violates constitutional
protection against double jeopardy. The decision has far-reaching
applications as at least 22 other states have imposed similar marijuana
taxes. The court's decision also freed a family from having to pay
$181,000 in dangerous-drug taxes for growing marijuana on the Choteau
County, Mont., ranch and farm it used to own. Richard and Judith Kurth
pleaded guilty after police and federal agents raided their farm in 1987
and found 2,155 marijuana plants and more than 100 lbs. of harvested
marijuana. Kurth was Montana's Conservation Rancher of the Year in 1971,
but by the mid-1980's the ranch was $2 million in debt. Trying to save it,
the Kurths began growing and selling marijuana. Justice John Paul Stevens,
writing for the majority, said the tax appears to be motivated more for
punishment than for the usual revenue-raising purposes. "In addition, it
purports to be a property tax, yet it is levied on goods - here the
destroyed marijuana plants - that the taxpayer neither owns nor posseses,"
he said. States simply could increase the criminal fine at the time of
conviction, he wrote, adding the tax "is a second punishment that must be
imposed durign the first prosecution or not at all." Justices Harry Blackmun,
Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the
decision. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day
O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Rehnquist said the
decision "drastically alters existing law. We have never previously
subjected a tax statute to double jeopardy analysis." The high court also
unanimously said prison officials may be held liable for acting with
deliberate indifference to an inmate's health or safety only if there was
knowledge of serious risk or harm and they still failed to take reasonable
steps to prevent it. The court ordered more hearings in the case of Dee
Farmer, a transsexual inmate who sued prison officials after being raped
in 1989 by another inmate at a federal prison in Indiana.

-Herald Wire Services

-end of article-

				Arian 

	
						
			

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Arian Wolverton | [d--ks--e] at [bronze.lcs.mit.edu] | "Hemp For Victory!" - U.S.D.A
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