Day One of John Mazula's Medical Marijuana Trial - Presecution's Case Built on Dishonesty

[ Photo: Court Support for John Mazula, El Cajon Courthouse. February 26, 2016. ]


March 1, 2016

By Terrie Best – San Diego Americans for Safe Access

San Diego, CA – Today [March 1] the prosecution began its case against John Mazula, who is charged with manufacturing medical cannabis concentrates. Our jury, seated yesterday afternoon, is mostly white men and three white women. It took all Monday morning to vet them as unbiased in favor of police. We were amazed at how many of the available jury pool had law enforcement members in their families. This fact is very important to the defendant as it becomes clear prosecutor Mathew Carberry’s law enforcement witnesses are intent on misstating facts and impeaching themselves on the stand. It would not be easy to watch the police dishonor themselves if you felt they were your own. Luckily, I have no such sense of trust to destroy and neither does the defense.

After Carberry exhaustively questioned the investigating officer in the case - San Diego Sheriff Deputy Shawn Kobs - defensive attorney Michael Cindrich impeached him for about an hour with transcripts from last year’s preliminary exam. Deputy Kobs has a terrible memory or he makes things up as he goes along. In any case, there were multiple inconsistencies in what he said from one hearing to another, and he was pretty defensive about it.

The case comes down to whether the process John used to extract cannabis concentrate made use of butane gas or not. The jury is being instructed that there is a legal and an illegal way to extract concentrates and that butane is illegal. They are also being instructed that the cannabis found on property was legal for John to possess. This makes the prosecution desperate to find sinister intent in benign items found during execution of a search warrant on John’s home and hobby shop. This is what the investigation has deteriorated into: a team of sheriff deputies gathering typical construction items, posing them together in pictures and calling it a depiction of a drug lab. It’s embarrassing and a waste of time and money but Dumanis and her asset forfeiture aspirations make medical marijuana cases very lucrative for her office.

We heard from several police witnesses that there were two co2 tanks, one butane tank and a couple of refrigerant tanks found during the search. But, what the prosecution tried to keep from the defense was when Hazmat was called to haul away the tanks they also did an atmosphere test for the presence of butane which came back negative. The test was given to the prosecution but they failed to provide this test to the defense - more dishonesty.

The defense, in cross examination of the prosecution’s witnesses, was able to demonstrate for the jury the many holes in the case, such as, if John was extracting where was all the “blasted” cannabis and for that matter, the wax. Mr. Cindrich also found issue with the underhanded way the sheriff’s came into possession of John’s phone and some keys. It was hard to pick the most egregious thing about the police and prosecution’s case against John. It might have been the glass pie plate the sheriff’s placed in every picture they took to prejudice the jury that John was a lab technician using lab-style Pyrex Or it could have been the fact that police lie so easily and skillfully on the stand.

In any case, John is being bullied and victimized by Dumanis and her gang of NTF thugs. As citizens, we must stand up. Please consider coming to court. The trial is expected to last all week in Dept. 8 of El Cajon Superior court at 250 E Main St, El Cajon, CA 92020. Please wear your green ribbons of support, come down and join San Diego ASA as we stand with John Mazula against Dumanis and her dishonesty.

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