San Diego Mayor Bob Filner ordered city officials to cease crackdowns of medical marijuana dispensaries Thursday, reiterating his support to “ensuring the people who legitimately need [medical marijuana] for relief of pain are not kept from accessing it.” The city’s police and code compliance officials had been cracking down on the dispensaries for violating city zoning rules, and Filner’s order will halt pending prosecutions against a dozen dispensaries. But about 100 others have already been shuttered by the effort, and the order will not affect those dispensaries.

Although medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996, the city of San Diego never implemented zoning rules for where dispensaries may locate. Filner told an audience from the city’s chapter of Americans for Safe Access earlier last week that he would work to pass a zoning law, and halted prosecutions pending the proposal of such an ordinance. The order does not affect federal officials’ authority to crack down on dispensaries, as they have in more than 200 cases in San Diego and the surrounding areas, in the continuing federal-state showdown over both medical and recreational marijuana.

Tactical Response CEO James Yeager

James Yeager, CEO of Tennessee-based Tactical Response, delivered a frightening rant last week on YouTube, declaring that gun owners “load your damn mags” and “get ready to fight,” because if gun violence prevention “goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.” His followup video was not any better: Yeager clarified he does not “condone anyone committing any kind of felonies, up to and including aggravated assaults and murders, unless it’s necessary. Right now, it’s not necessary.” There was no retraction.

As a result, Yeager has had his handgun permit suspended because of “material likelihood of risk of harm to the public.” Tennessee Department of Saftey and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons said, “Mr. Yeager’s comments were irresponsible, dangerous, and deserved our immediate attention. Due to our concern, as well as that of law enforcement, his handgun permit was suspended immediately.”

HT: Raw Story

Among the major contributors to the U.S. incarceration epidemic are harsh schemes for sentencing, and some of the most disproportionate sentences come about as a result of statutorily mandated minimum sentences.

Just last week, a former medical marijuana distributor who declined to plead guilty was sentenced to a ten-year minimum prison sentence by a federal judge who said, “the court’s hands are tied.”

But for some defendants, being sentenced to the mandatory minimum prison term for the crime of which they are convicted is just the tip of the iceberg. Judges may also use their discretion to add additional time up to a maximum allowable sentence. A case before the U.S. Supreme Court Monday considers the scope of that discretion when judges decide unilaterally that the defendant committed acts other than that for which they were convicted.

Allen Alleyne was convicted for robbing a convenience store owner as he drove to make a bank deposit. The jury found Alleyne guilty of both having committed the robbery, and having used or carried a firearm. They acquitted him, however, of brandishing a firearm during the crime.

Nonetheless, in sentencing Alleyne, the judge independently found that Alleyne should have known his accomplice would brandish a firearm during the robbery – a finding that added two additional years to Alleyne’s  sentence above the mandatory minimum of five years. Unlike a jury, which is tasked with finding guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the judge made this finding under the much lower standard of “preponderance of the evidence.”

It is easy to view Alleyne and his accomplice as serious criminals who may very well deserve to serve either a five or a seven-year sentence. But allowing a judge the discretion impinges on a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to a trial by jury. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that a judge cannot use this discretion to increase a defendant’s sentence above the maximum allowable sentence. And a similar rationale prompted a controversial but landscape-changing decision to limit the enforceability of federal sentencing guidelines.

Although the severity of statutory sentencing schemes has led to grossly unjust results, particularly in drug crimes, their purpose was and is to limit the variability and bias that can be introduced by any given judge in imposing a criminal sentence. Letting judges make factual determinations that are the purview of the jury undermines this goal – and allows for the sorts of even longer prison terms that have contributed to our ever-bloated prison population.

Somewhat surprisingly, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear this case on the argument that an earlier high court decision on just this issue was wrongly decided. With four new justices since the 2002 decision and Justice Stephen Breyer on the fence, the Supreme Court now has a second chance to get it right.

A new poll released Monday from The Hill shows that Americans are expecting stronger gun laws as a response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. In a survey of voters, only 19 percent said that the tragedy made them want looser gun laws. Forty seven percent said it made them want stronger laws. Of those surveyed, 11 percent said that gun laws in the US were too strict. Forty nine percent said they should be stronger. Those numbers split along party lines: Around 75 percent of Democrats believe that gun laws are too weak, but only 24 percent of Republicans agreed.

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX)

Stockman, who served one term in the mid-1990s, returned to the House of Representatives on January 3. Just 11 days later, he issued a warning that he intends to introduce articles of impeachment if necessary to obstruct any use of any executive order to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous people.

In a statement, Stockman denounced the president’s potential actions as “unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic,” saying:

I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment.

The President’s actions are an existential threat to this nation. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is what has kept this nation free and secure for over 200 years. The very purpose of the Second Amendment is to stop the government from disallowing people the means to defend themselves against tyranny. Any proposal to abuse executive power and infringe upon gun rights must be repelled with the stiffest legislative force possible.

In his first House tenure, Stockman received criticism for his office’s handling of a letter that appeared to be evidence in the Oklahoma City bombings — a note his office was slow to deliver to the FBI and also sent to the National Rifle Association. He also wrote a controversial letter to the Department of Justice objecting to raids of anti-government “citizen militia” groups.

Last week, Stockman proposed a repeal of all gun-free school zones, claiming that such laws have “placed our children in even greater danger.”

President Obama said at a Monday press conference that he is “confident that there are some steps that we can take that don’t require legislation and that are within my authority as president. And where you get a step that has the opportunity to reduce the possibility of gun violence, then I want to go ahead and take it… for example, how we are gathering data, for example, on guns that fall into the hands of criminals and how we track that more effectively.”