Sentencing was delayed Monday for a musician convicted of drug trafficking in Madison County for marijuana he said was for his personal use and legally obtained in Oregon, where he lives.
"Judge, I'm asking for mercy for my son," said Tommy Beadle of Florida. "I wouldn't stand here before you if my son was trafficking in drugs. As a mother, I'm asking you to please don't lock him up behind bars."
Patrick Beadle, a native of Jamaica, faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison for possessing more than 1 kilogram of marijuana with intent to distribute.
Prosecutors said Patrick Beadle had 2.8 pounds of marijuana when he was stopped by a Madison County deputy in March 2017 on Interstate 55 near Canton.
Tommy Beadle said Jamaicans often use marijuana for uses other than smoking, including washing themselves in it to ease pain.
Patrick Beadle said he decided to travel through Mississippi after having visited his 8-year-old son in Ohio because of this state’s rich music heritage.
Patrick Beadle, who performs under the name BlackFire, was charged with drug trafficking, although he said the marijuana he had with him was for his personal use and was obtained legally in Oregon where medical marijuana was legalized in 1998. Oregon voters approved recreational use of marijuana in 2014.
Chapman said it would be a slippery slope for a judge to consider what marijuana laws are in other states. He also said he wasn't persuaded to lower a sentence based on personal's religious beliefs.
But Chapman said he was very impressed with Tommy Beadle's testimony.
Chapman said he can send Patrick Beadle to 40 years in prison day-for-day with parole under the trafficking law.
However, he asked "why shouldn't I send this defendant as a first-time offender for simple possession?"
The sentence would be six to 24 years in prison for possession of marijuana based on the amount of marijuana Patrick Beadle possessed. However, if he was sentenced to the minimum of six years, he would only have to serve 25 percent, less than two years, of that before being eligible for parole.
With credit for time served in jail, he could possibly be let out almost immediately.
Chapman said Monday he needed more time to study what sentence he will impose, delaying the decision for three weeks.
In July, an all-white Madison County jury took less than an hour to convict Patrick Beadle of drug trafficking, his family said.
Patrick Beadle, 46, doesn’t dispute possessing marijuana, but disputes that he was trafficking drugs.
Tommy Beadle told Chapman that she raised her children to respect the law.
Patrick Beadle is a college graduate who attended two years of medical school.
"This is not the typical defendant you see," Beadle's attorney, Cynthia Stewart, told Chapman, asking the judge to depart from the sentence of 10 to 40 years in prison for drug trafficking. "He is not a drug dealer."
Patrick Beadle said he has a medical marijuana card from Oregon to treat chronic pain in both knees where cartilage has worn down from his years of playing college basketball. Marijuana use is also common among Rastafarians.
Patrick Beadle said he was traveling March 8, 2017, southbound on I-55 after entering Madison County and at about 10 a.m., he was pulled over by the deputy for the alleged traffic violation of crossing over the fog line, the painted line on the side of a roadway. He disputes the deputy’s assertion that he crossed over the fog line. He said his dreadlocks and out-of-state auto tag made him a target for racial profiling.
Earlier this year, the ACLU of Mississippi and a New York-based law firm filed a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of black Madison County residents, accusing the Sheriff's Department of disproportionately stopping and searching black motorists.
The sheriff disputes the allegation, saying roadblocks are equally located in the southern part of the county where there is a greater white population.
The lawsuit is pending in federal court in Jackson.
In the Beadle case, then-Deputy Joseph Mangino found no large sums of money, drug paraphernalia or weight measuring scale to substantiate the trafficking charge.
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