Free John Now! Appeal Bond Motion Filed

FREE JOHN NOW!  APPEAL BOND MOTION FILED

Motions calling for the release of John Sinclair, Rainbow People's Party Chairman serving a 9 1/2 to 10 year prison sentence for possessing two joints of marijuana, were filed Monday, July 12, with the Michigan Supreme Court in Lansing.

Some five hundred pages of briefs, petitions, and appendices were filed, carrying to the Supreme Court the appeal of John's illegal conviction and his exhaustive challenge to the constitutionality of Michigan's marijuana laws. Accompanying the appeal, prepared by people's attorney Chuck Ravitz of Detroit, was the key document in the legal arm of the campaign to Free John Now!, the motion for bond pending appeal submitted by Ravitz and National Lawyer's Guild attorney Buck Davis.

Despite the fact that the law asserts John's right to be free on bond pending the final determination of his appeal, Detroit Recorder's Court Judge Robert "Oinkmore" Colombo, the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the state Supreme Court all denied this right shortly after John's incarceration two years ago. The motion just filed is in fact a reapplication to the Supreme Court for appeal bond, and as such it gives the new, post-elections Court an opportunity to correct the scofflaw ruling of the 1969 Court.

The major points made in the bond motion are excerpted on page 15, along with portions of the Application for Leave to Appeal.

The Court is expected to rule on the bond question sometime within the next six weeks. The more public pressure is brought on Lansing through cards and letters to the governor calling for John's release, the more reluctant will be the Supreme Court to carry on the State's tradition of trampling on the law and on John's fundamental right to appeal bond.

Free John Now!

Free all marijuana prisoners!

--Dave Sinclair, RPP