A prosecutor has urged the High Court to impose a hefty fine or a lengthy prison sentence on a landscaper who had a “cannabis farm” in his backyard.
But the convicted man’s lawyer argued strongly against throwing the book at his client, considering that “we are now faced at the local level with the licensing of growing marijuana”.
Acting Senior State Counsel Rudolph Burnett and defence attorney Marlon Gordon were making submissions on sentencing in the case of Davion Lavere Ricardo Miller on Tuesday before Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell in the No. 4 Supreme Court.
The 40-year-old resident of Sargeants Village, Tenantry Road, Christ Church pleaded guilty to possession, having a trafficable quantity and cultivation of 58.81 kilogrammes of cannabis on April 26, 2017.
“Ma’am, I looking to change my life. Them roads that I was taking, I don’t take them roads no more. I looking to do better things with my life right now,” Miller told the court.
In his submissions, Burnett pointed to the aggravating features of Miller’s crime, saying he had 130 pounds of cannabis in his possession which was a clear indication he intended to make money illegally.
The State attorney added that about 90 per cent of the cannabis, which consisted of 305 plants of varying sizes and heights, was under cultivation in Miller’s yard.
“In other words, the now-convicted man had created a cannabis farm in his enclosed yard. Some of the cannabis was packaged and some were drying. The enclosure was galvanised about 11 feet high, therefore concealing the illegal activity,” he said.
Burnett said when caught, Miller, who has seven previous convictions, told police he was growing cannabis to get money to “build over his house” and pay the balance of his grandmother’s funeral bill.
Going in Miller’s favour, the prosecutor said, was his early guilty plea, his cooperation with police, and the assessment that he was at moderate risk of reoffending.
Taking all those factors into consideration, Burnett submitted that a starting sentence of 12 years in prison should be imposed on Miller but should be increased by three years since the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances.
The prosecutor said Miller should then be given a one-third discount for his guilty plea and the 23 days he had spent on remand, leaving him with nine years and 11 months.
Alternatively, Burnett said, the court could impose a substantial fine. He proposed $200 000 payable in six months or nine years and 11 months in prison.
However, in his submissions, Miller’s attorney Marlon Gordon said he did not think “such an excessive fine will be required to meet the justice of this case”.
“Do we throw the book at him? Do we, as we say in Barbados, ‘loss him way up at the prison’ or give him a fine that will break his back that he cannot recover from, or do we acknowledge that he has made an error . . . ?”
Noting that “we are now faced at the local level with the licensing of growing marijuana”, the defence lawyer added: “Are we going to say that a Barbadian who . . . [thought] he could have raised marijuana in his yard is the worst and most dangerous person known to the criminal system now that we are trying to regulate this business?
“Might we then [have] a little discrimination for people who can afford and have money to buy the licence? What about the small people in this society? They can’t have two laws . . . because if you are saying that [someone] can pay to grow . . . and export it and a poor man who can’t find the money to buy a licence take a chance and we throw the book at him . . . that, I would say, is a great injustice . . . .”
Gordon suggested a fine in the range of $10 000 to $15 000 and a starting sentence of three to four years from which the discount for his client’s guilty plea and time spent on remand should be deducted.
However, Justice Smith-Bovell told Gordon his suggestion was “not a realistic fine” for the amount of drugs Miller had in his possession.
A means test was done on Miller who will be sentenced on July 14.
