Louisiana Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Marijuana Possession

The drug laws and penalties in our country are badly in need of reform. In a climate where scores of eminent law professors are calling for the legalization of cannabis, it is difficult to fathom that someone could actually be sentenced to life in prison simply for having two pounds of marijuana in their house — LIFE IN PRISON.

On May 5th the Times-Picayune reported that during a routine visit from his probation officer, about two pounds of marijuana were found in the in Covington Louisiana home of 35 year-old Cornell Hood II, along with  “…a student loan application with Hood’s name on it inside of a night stand.” The news reports always seem to mention the student loan application, like somehow that makes it all even more sinister.

The jury had convicted him of a lesser charge, but Assistant District Attorney Nick Noriea Jr. actually pushed for the life in prison sentence. Noriea cited Hood’s past convictions for marijuana possession to argue that he was a “career criminal worthy of a severe punishment“.

In his compelling article in Alternet, “The 5 Worst States to Get Busted with Pot“, Paul Armentano explains more details about the case, and just how brutal some of the drug laws are in Louisiana:

“…Cornell Hood II, who received a life sentence for possessing two pounds of pot. Hood received the maximum sentence under Louisiana’s habitual drug offender law because he had three prior marijuana convictions, although none of them were significant enough to result in even a single day of jail time.

Multi-decade sentences for repeat pot offenders are hardly a rare occurrence. Under Louisiana law, a second pot possession conviction is classified as a felony offense, punishable by up to five years in prison. Three-time offenders face up to 20 years in prison. According to a 2008 expose published in the New Orleans City Business online, district attorneys are not hesitant to:

‘target small-time marijuana users, sometimes caught with less than a gram of pot, and threaten them with lengthy prison sentences.’

Each year, cops make nearly 19,000 pot busts in the Bayou State – some 91 percent for simple possession…”

In addition to being incredibly unjust and arbitrary, these kind of extreme penalties are not financially feasible. Our nation’s tattered economy can not afford to spend billions of dollars incarcerating millions of people simply because they were in possession of a plant. This is stupid and wrong and must change.

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