Word: misdemeanor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...could be written off to the kids last year when the city council of Ann Arbor, Mich., voted to make marijuana use a misdemeanor subject to a maximum fine of $5, payable by mail. And this spring the radicals were apparently responsible as 60% of Berkeley, Calif., voters passed the "marijuana initiative," which ordered police to give marijuana laws "their lowest priority" and required authorization of the city council for any "arrest for possession, use or cultivation" of the weed. Both cities' policies were later knocked out. But last month in Washington, D.C., a still more revolutionary idea came...
Popular Drug. With the A.B.A. behind decriminalization of pot, can the rest of the nation be far behind? Perhaps not. Since 1971 state legislatures across the nation, with the notable exception of Rhode Island, have reduced possession of small amounts of grass from a felony to a misdemeanor. Supporting the trend are prestigious organizations like the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (lawyers, judges, law professors and state officials who draft model legislation). The American Medical Association favors the misdemeanor penalty for possession in "insignificant" amounts, though it advocates more research on the drug. A National Commission...
...possession. Thirteen were in for life, and Lee Otis Johnson, a black activist arrested in 1968, was sentenced to 30 years for having passed a marijuana joint to an undercover agent. Last May the Texas legislature voted to make possession of two ounces or less of marijuana a misdemeanor punishable with a maximum six-month jail sentence and $1,000 fine...
...smoking hippies were a key target of Atlanta police. Virtually all of Georgia drug-law enforcement resources were directed against pot. Then last year the state legislature reduced first-offense possession of one ounce or less to a misdemeanor. Today only 20% of the state's anti-drug campaign is aimed at marijuana...
Patrick was charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment, each a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail. The charges grew out of an episode on Manhattan's Upper West Side last winter, when Dan Voll, a former Yale undergraduate just 13 days short of his 21st birthday, was suddenly seized and muscled into a waiting car (TIME, March 12). The abductors were Voll's father Eugene, his mother Marie, and Ted Patrick. Summoned by Voll's frantic cries for help, police stopped the car before it had gone two blocks and freed...