alan middlemiss

Colin Payne, Daily News

 

The outcome of the sentence appeal for the Holy Smoke trio will play a role in future sentences, according to Don Skogstad, lawyer for the three.

 

Alan Middlemiss, Paul Defelice and Kelsey Stratas were given conditional sentences of house arrest last Wednesday after a panel of three supreme court judges decided that sentences of eight to 12 months in a federal prison were too much.

 

The three were handed the lengthy prison sentences after being convicted of drug trafficking through sales of marijuana from their now-defunct downtown Nelson store, the Holy Smoke Culture Shop.

 

But the appeal judges found the sentence handed down at the Nelson Courthouse to be too great because the judge failed to take into account their promise to continue their advocacy through legal means and that he put too much weight on prior marijuana convictions the three had acquired decades ago.

 

Skogstad said their six to nine-month house arrest sentences that resulted from the appeal will be significant in future cases. Read more »

By Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

 

Civil disobedience took it on the chin in a B.C. Court of Appeal judgment Wednesday that said such behaviour undermines the rule of law.

 

In a unanimous ruling that took aim at those advocating an end to the current criminal marijuana prohibition, the court said disagreeing with the law does not permit you to break it.

 

Nevertheless, the three-justice panel gave a break to the owners and an employee of the now-defunct-but-once-renowned Holy Smoke Culture Shop in Nelson, reducing the length of their sentences for trafficking pot and sparing them jail time.

 

At sentencing hearings in Oct. 2008 and Jan. 2009, Paul Stephen De Felice, and Alan Steward Middlemiss were given one year in jail while Kelsey Windrawn Stratas received eight months. Read more »