by TChris

A clash between federal supremacy and states' rights is heating up in Colorado. Attorneys for federal agents who refuse to follow a state court order to return confiscated marijuana to a medical patient have asked a judge to dismiss a motion seeking to hold the agents in contempt. TalkLeft has written about the case here and here.

Don Nord was entitled under Colorado law to possess the marijuana as medicine. When no charges were filed after the marijuana and other items were seized during the execution of a search warrant, Routt County Judge James Garrecht ordered everything returned to Nord, including two ounces of marijuana. Federal officers returned everything but the two ounces of pot, citing the status of marijuana as contraband under federal law.

In response to a motion asking that the agents be held in contempt for failing to return the marijuana, Justice Department lawyers have asked for the contempt proceedings to be dismissed. They wrote:

"It is not the intent of officers or agents of the U.S. to violate state law in the performance of their duties or to ignore orders of state court judges. In this instant, regrettably, such violation was mandated by federal law, a circumstance that is unfortunate and rare."

The government lawyers wrote that the agents were required to follow federal law in the performance of their job duties, and that they might be subject to discipline, including termination, if they obeyed the court order.

Nord's attorney, Kristopher Hammond, is not persuaded by the government's response.

"If they didn't like the judge's order to return the marijuana, they should have appealed that order. They didn't and I believe that every court has the right to enforce its orders.

"We all have to obey court orders even if we don't like them. Sounds to me like they're being a bunch of crybabies."

Hammond makes a good point. In a society based on the rule of law, the proper response to a court order the government considers to be flawed is to appeal the order, not to disobey it.