Accused pot growers plead not guilty

SANDPOINT — A Bonner County couple spent the pot subculture holiday of April 20 pleading not guilty to trafficking marijuana.

Seth Matthan Walser and Kimberly Sue Brown entered the pleas on Monday, which is apparently widely regarded as a high holiday on cannabis users’ calendars.

If convicted, Walser and Brown face mandatory minimum sentences of three years in prison and $10,000 in fines. The couple is free on bail while their cases are pending in 1st District Court.

The couple was charged after more than 120 plants were discovered in indoor grow rooms in a shop building adjacent to their home on Rapid Lightning Road on Jan. 28. A Bonner County Sheriff’s deputy, acting on an anonymous tip about the operation, contacted the couple, who allegedly admitted to growing the pot for financial reasons.

Walser, 31,  and Brown, 27, consented to a search, which uncovered two grow rooms, one of which held 85 maturing plants. The other room contained 42 immature clones gleaned from the older plants, according to court documents.

Pretrial wrangling is picking up in both cases.

Walser’s defense attorney, Valerie Parr Thornton, has filed motions to suppress evidence and dismiss the charges. Parr Thornton contends the search was unlawful and the defendants were interrogated despite requesting counsel.

Parr Thornton also maintains the case against Walser should be dismissed because other states in the union allow for medicinal use of marijuana and the drug is incorrectly listed in the federal Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule 1 narcotic.

The list of Schedule 1 substances is populated by drugs with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical uses. Schedule I drugs include LSD, peyote and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Walser and Brown are being prosecuted separately, although Deputy Prosecutor Shane Greenbank seeks to have the cases fused together in the interest of judicial economy. Greenbank notes in his motion to consolidate the proceedings that the cases involve the same evidence and witnesses.

Brown’s counsel, Chief Public Defender Isabella Robertson, is vigorously opposing efforts to combine the cases, court records indicate. Robertson said in a motion that Parr Thornton is improperly attempting to legalize marijuana through the court system.

Robertson argues Parr Thornton’s motions will cast a prejudicial shadow on Brown’s case and dilute a planned motion to suppress in her case.