JAILTIME AVOIDED ON SENTENCE APPEAL

Middlemiss and Defelice Sentenced With House Arrest Instead of
Incarceration in Holy Smoke Case

On Wednesday, June 2, the British Columbia Court of Appeal, the
highest court in BC, decided unanimously to reduce the sentences
facing former Holy Smoke Culture Shop owners Paul DeFelice and Alan
Middlemiss and employee Kelsey Stratas.

DeFelice and Middlemiss faced a sentence of one year in jail that was
reduced to nine months house arrest. Stratas, originally given nine
months in jail, received six months house arrest. "This sentence is
far more appropriate. In fact, it's better than what they had hoped
for" said defense attorney Donald Skogstad. "When you go into an
appeal you're saying to one judge that another judge is wrong and you
have to prove pretty substantial error."

As a business, Holy Smoke has been closed down for more than a year
and the building has since been sold. DeFelice and Middlemiss made
it clear to the courts that they will not continue in that business,
nor start another one. "That was a big factor for the court, that
they were on bail for four years and no similar activity occurred and
they expressed at the trial that they didn't intend to continue
selling. They are advocates and they make no apologies for that,"
Skogstad relays. "They made the point that advocacy is perfectly
legal and that the judge must have confused advocacy with an intent
to reoffend. That was the essence of the problem."

The sentencing of house arrest sets a significant legal precedent.
"The decision is very strong affirmative support of house arrest for
everybody under every circumstance. That's what I like about it from
a legal scholarly point of view. It's a decision that will now be
used to support house arrest on every kind of case you can imagine
where it's still available," said Skogstad.

"If this case has set a precedent for anything, then it is making
house arrest more available, which is appropriate. With non-violent
offenders like this it should be the rule not the exception."

Where advocacy is concerned, DeFelice and Middlemiss have not changed
their stance on marijuana. "They will continue to be advocates, they
made that clear all along. Advocacy has gotten their cause a long
way. There's now medical marijuana because of advocates," adds Skogstad.