Michael Curtis "Mike" Kelley, aka: Inmate9
Sixty-five-year-old Michael C. Kelley is an history aficionado with a penchant for unraveling the mysterious and a critical eye on accountability in terms of human rights.
Kelley candidly confesses that he is “no angel.” That from the time his terms of service with the Navy ended subsequent to Vietnam, he was involved in the drug trade and other criminal activities including gun-running and counterfeiting.
“Am I proud of myself? I am not,” Kelley asserts on page 38 of HOAX. “What I was doing was wrong. What I was doing was contributing to the social destruction of our people and our communities. What I was doing was playing into the hands of evil men. Men more evil than me – men in government.”
Kelley says he concluded all of this about twenty years ago as a result of his first hand experience and then set about to remake his life as an 'accountability whistleblower' intent on exposing the deeply corrupt elements of our country's criminal justice system.
In 1998 Kelley left behind three failed marriages and compensatory jail-time to relocate from his home state, California, to Van Buren County, Arkansas, to be with his father. The senior Kelley was at that time 91 years old and his lifetime spouse, Michael Kelley's mom, had at the tender age of 83 suddenly died in a tragic fall down a steep cliff while out walking the family dog.
Putting his energies, skills and talents to work composing music (Kelley is an accomplished pianist) and writing, Kelley's ArmchairHoodlum website delivered his political commentary and other works such as his first book on legalized corruption, “Wanted By The Sheriff,” to the world as Kelley endeavored to build a new life.
“I took care of pop, worked at the local country clubs as a dishwasher, and grew marijuana out in a patch among the pines for the next few years,” Kelley recounts on page 39 of HOAX. 'The Old Man' or 'Pop', as Kelley affectionately referred to his father, was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after Kelley moved in. “We didn't have a lot of money, so the pot brought in a few bucks and provided this old man (Kelley referred to himself) with smokes. I have always loved the sacred herb and always will.”
The senior Kelley died in 2005 and in March of 2007, Michael C. Kelley was arrested on grounds of marijuana cultivation. In September of 2008, he was sentenced to a five-year 'federal statutory minimum' which he has, since 2009, been serving in Lompoc, California, at the Federal Prison Farm.
The crux of Kelley's sentencing turned on the federal government's position that the 100+ 2-inch 'cuttings' Kelley had snipped and stuck into potting-soil-filled-dixie-cups from the 22 cannabis plants he'd grown in a cloning experiment he was conducting, had to each be counted exactly the same as if it were a fully mature, ready to harvest 'plant'.
Kelley asserts that since the initial charges against him were filed by state and county law enforcement officials in Arkansas, where state law* specifies that the amount of marijuana a person is to be prosecuted for is to be determined by authority of Arkansas code 5-64-101 17(a) which defines what is, and what is not, to be considered 'marijuana' for the purpose of criminal prosecutions and which delineates that the prosecutable 'amount' of marijuana is to be determined by the volume or weight of the marketable produce of the plant and NOT by the number of plants involved – or in Kelley's case the number of 'plant cuttings' (which, at the time of his interdiction, had yet to form a 'root ball' and were months away from producing any sort of marketable crop) -- Kelley asserts that if this standard of law had been upheld by local officials, grounds did not exist for his case to be taken over by federal prosecutors, but because of his political whistleblowing on other local civic matters, local officials solicited and encouraged unwarranted federal involvement which resulted not only in the unjust consequences of a 5 year prison sentence for his cultivation of 22 plants but also additionally constituents a violation of his civil rights.
At this writing, Kelley has 20-months left to serve on his 60-months sentence and will hopefully be transferred to a half-way house or home confimement by March of 2012. ~~~
*Arkansas Code Title 5 - Criminal Offenses Subtitle 6 - Offenses Against Public Health, Safety, Or Welfare Chapter 64 - Controlled Substances Subchapter 1 - Uniform Controlled Substances Act – Definitions § 5-64-101, which clearly states in that “Marijuana means: (i) Any part and any variety or species, or both, of the Cannabis plant that contains THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) whether growing or not; (ii)The seeds of the plant; (iii)The resin extracted from any part of the plant; and (iv) Every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the plant, its seeds, or resin.”
This legal definition of marijuana also establishes that “Marijuana does NOT (emphasis added) include: (i) The mature stalks of the plant; (ii) Fiber produced from the stalks; (iii) Oil or cake made from the seeds of the plant; (iv) Any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the mature stalks except the resin extracted from the mature stalks; (v) Fiber, oil, or cake; or (vi) The sterilized seed of the plant that is incapable of germination.”
