Monthly Archives: December 2012

According to news reports, Chris Williams, a Montana medical marijuana caregiver who was charged and convicted of 8 felony counts related to his work at Montana Cannabis has reached a rare "post-conviction" agreement with the US Attorney's office Helena. According to a report on CBS affiliate KBZK, the government will drop six of the eight counts and Chris will receive a sentencing recommendation of 5 years in prison. In addition, the government will drop the forfeiture proceeding against his business, Montana [...]

Today the MTCIA had its day in court to determine if District Court Judge Reynolds will set up a new injunction under the standard required by the Supreme Court. The judge is taking the matter under advisement and has extended the Temporary Restraining Order until he issues his ruling. No matter which way he decides, this will not be an easy decision for him to make. Our attorney, Jim Goetz had a big challenge: prove that the we need an injunction [...]

For a real time updates on the progress of the hearing, visit the MTCIA Facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/mtcia

Jim Goetz has done an outstanding job defending the rights of providers and patients around the state and has, almost single-handedly, kept the program functional. For all the petitions and PR efforts to overturn SB-423, it is has only been through the legal battle that we have seen the program survive every attempt of the legislature to undermine it. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his hard work. We also owe him for his attorneys fees. Our bill [...]

In pretrial proceedings, there can be a great deal of back-and-forth that happens with the two sides are arguing.  We filed a Brief in Support of a Preliminary Injunction a few weeks ago, and you can find a summary of it and the document here.  We just received a copy of the AG's office's reply to that brief, which I summarized below.  Following the AG's document, we got the final say filed today, and I also summarized that below.  Links to [...]

Our attorney Jim Goetz contacted the MTCIA today to inform us he would like to host a meeting on the upcoming hearing this week. He will meet anyone interested at his office in Bozeman on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. The purpose of the meeting is to talk about the legal arguments, implications and the current disposition of the case. This is a great opportunity to talk with our attorney before the hearing if you have any questions! There will be a [...]

Most of you are probably already familiar with Rebecca Richman Cohen's award-winning documentary CODE OF THE WEST. You probably also know that one of the main stories in the film is about Chris Williams. Since shooting wrapped up, Chris has since gone to trial and he has been found guilty of 8 felonies. According to the mandatory minimum sentencing for his various charges, he faces at least 85 years in federal prison. Another partner, Richard Flor, recently died in custody on [...]

We have received our attorney’s brief in support of a new injunction in our case and I wanted to provide a summary of the main arguments here. This injunction seeks to block (again) the provisions of the current medical marijuana law that prohibit any form of compensation, limit providers to no more than 3 patients, and require investigations into a doctor’s medical practice when he or she makes more than 25 recommendations in a calendar year. Recall that the Supreme Court [...]