Green Vegetable Matter

The criminal law group assisted Public Defender Mr. Michel Kennedy in the Orleans Parish Magistrate Court, pre-trial docket. Most of the cases that Mr. Kennedy handled were first time marijuana possession and paraphernalia charges. Under Louisiana Code, the maximum penalty for the charge is six months or five hundred dollars or both.

While it would be difficult to make definitive statements from our brief and limited engagement with the criminal justice system, our observations raised many questions. I don’t know what the demographics of Orleans Parish is, but as I looked around the court room I could not help but notice that it was filled with young black men. Without getting into a discussion of the drug laws in N.O.L.A., the entire process seemed to be counter productive to the needs of the city and its citizens.

None of the defendants had been charged with possession of an amount of Marijuana that would lead one to believe that they had intent to distribute. In fact, most of the defendant were caught with only enough “green vegetable matter” to roll a “Marijuana cigar” (A.K.A. a blunt). For a city that needs to see its citizenry grow and its infrastructure rebuilt, locking up the youth and or fining them out of what little money they earn, does little to improve the conditions of the city or the hope of the people.