The Compassionate Coalition

Bad search leads to pot case dismissal
By Jess Sullivan

FAIRFIELD - It was a victory, albeit an indirect victory, for Solano County medical marijuana advocates.

John Benjaminsen and Leona Mae Benjamin became a cause de jour in recent months for a small cadre of folks who regularly protested along streets nearby whenever the couple attended hearings at the Solano County courthouse.

The couple faced felony charges for having lots of marijuana at their Bird's Landing home. Earlier this week, prosecutors dumped their long-standing case against the couple after the couple's lawyer, Anthony Finkas, successfully got a search of the couple's property declared unreasonable and unconstitutional.

The ruling on the faulty search by Judge Dwight Ely capped two days of testimony from some of the eight Solano County deputies who showed up near the couple's residence in the middle of the night back in October 2005.

The deputies had gone to the rural hamlet responding to a phone call from a resident reporting a burglar at a neighbor's home. Deputies looked around the homes and fields near the main intersection of Bird's Landing but they never found a burglar - not even close. The home they were looking for was several blocks away, something they wouldn't figure out until after 10 to 15 minutes of confusion.

Amid the deputies' confusion and with no one taking the lead in figuring out who and where the worried neighbor was trying to get help, a deputy found some hearty marijuana plants growing in a yard. The plants prompted a more extensive search which led to the discovery of 52 pounds of marijuana and some methamphetamine at the Benjaminsen and Benjamin home.

It took five court hearings during the course of several weeks and extensive legal wrangling by Finkas to convince Ely the deputies should have been able to make their way to a home where a burglary might have been happening instead of poking around homes nearly a half-mile away. While the deputies were finding the marijuana, the worried neighbor was on the phone with police dispatchers describing the burglary suspect walking around her neighbor's home. The neighbor eventually flashed her house lights on and off repeatedly until deputies figured out where they should have been.

One deputy testified Wednesday he might have been able to pinpoint the correct address if he knew how to use the computer in his patrol car. Another deputy testified he also might have been able to get the correct location but he was unwilling to let his partner in the patrol car use his computer while he was driving to Bird's Landing.

Ely had taken the unusual step of visiting the small community to see the differences between the shed and a recreational vehicle that was the focus of the deputies' attention instead of two mobile homes and a nearby Victorian home the neighbor had described to the dispatcher.

Prosecutors have said they may refile charges in the case.

Reach Jess Sullivan at 427-6919 or JessSullivan_CA@Yahoo.com.