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Circuit Snippets

By Shari Allison

A defendant charged with growing marijuana on his farm was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense by the trial court's evidentiary rulings, the 9th Circuit held. The court denied the defendant's Rule 16 request to compel to government to disclose information about the marijuana-growing activities of Mexican drug trafficking organizations and ruled that the defendant could not bring up the issue at trial. Defendant sought to prove that a Mexican organization -- and not him -- was responsible. The district court had considered the proposed evidence to be irrelevant, but the Circuit Court disagreed, saying that evidence that a Mexican drug trafficking organization was responsible -- any such organization -- made it less likely the defendant was responsible...continue to full post

Full post as published by Tenth Circuit Blog on May 25, 2010 (boomark / email).