LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Closing arguments have been made in the medical marijuana trial as Nebraskans prepare to vote to adopt or reject the initiatives.
Attorneys for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, former state senator John Kuehn and the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office concluded the prosecutorial portion of the trial on Monday. The trial concluded after running past its expected end date on Friday.
The court heard testimony from two more individuals, including Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana sponsor Crista Eggers.
Both spent the majority of their testimony pleading the fifth alongside their attorneys. The state presented multiple texts, apparently showing a laissez-faire attitude by Eggers in how petitions could be notarized.
The state argued text messages showed Eggers regularly gave circulators the option to drop off their petitions pages for notarization outside the view of a notary. Currently, one notary from York faces over a dozen counts of official misconduct after being accused of notarizing petitions pages outside the presence of their circulator.
However, attorneys for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana said those text messages were shown out of context to paint Eggers in a poor light.
Following questioning, the state requested the judge give Egger’s testimony an adverse inference — meaning the court would take her pleas of the fifth as potential evidence of wrongdoing.
Judge Susan Strong previously denied the state’s request to apply an adverse inference to Egger’s deposition where she regularly pled the fifth.
She’s now waiting for briefs from both parties before taking the matter under advisement. Those briefs must be submitted by Nov. 12 by the state with a response from the defense needing to be filed by Nov. 15.
Should Judge Strong find that the state prevailed, a second phase of the trial will be ordered for the defense to present their case.
In its closing argument, the state accused Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana of purposefully breaking the state’s rules in petition circulation and notarization.
Attorneys shared state law which they hope to use to impute any alleged wrongdoing or malfeasance to further signatures collected or notarized by accused circulators and notaries.
The attorneys said that their prosecution was important in preventing future campaigns from performing wrongful acts.
The defense, however, closed by saying the fraud cannot be imputed any further than the 700 to 1,000 signatures that have been positively identified as fraudulent.
They argued that those signatures are valid and have been certified, and any wrongdoing involving whoever submitted them cannot be used to invalidate properly gathered signatures. Even if 700 to 1,000 signatures were subtracted from the total counts, both medical marijuana petitions would still have enough signatures for certification.
They also argued that the imputation could call into question many other duties that notaries handle outside of notarizing petitions.
Judge Strong ruled that the votes for medical marijuana’s initiatives will be counted regardless of the proceedings, and Nebraskans could choose to approve the measures on election day.
It’s unclear, however, how Judge Strong’s ruling later in November could impact its implementation, if at all.
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Closing arguments have been made in the medical marijuana trial as Nebraskans prepare to vote to adopt or reject the initiatives. Read More