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DC Pot Activist Fought The Law And … Got A Mistrial

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The man behind cannabis legalization in the District of Columbia was forcibly removed from a congressional hearing in April and after a jury trial, his court battle is still ongoing.

D.C. activist Adam Eidinger was arrested April 21 after he refused to leave a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing for a resolution that will essentially veto a D.C. “non-discrimination” law.

Eidinger has been in D.C. Superior Court since last Thursday fighting charges of unlawful entry stemming from the incident.

The jury in the trial spent more than 24 hours deliberating the case before coming back “at a stand still,” according to a tweet sent by Eidinger. Six jurors found him guilty, while five say he is innocent and one is undecided.

The case will come before a judge again Dec. 1 and prosecutors will decide if they still want to pursue charges against Eidinger.

During the April hearing, Eidinger was seated near a group of other protesters from the human rights organization CODE PINK who stood up and began yelling “D.C. votes no” in an apparent protest of the lack of congressional voting rights for D.C. residents.

Police officers asked those protesters to leave, and they did so peacefully, but when they asked Eidinger and another woman to do the same, they refused. Eidinger was carried out, arrested and spent the night in jail.

Eidinger says he was sitting peacefully, not making a ruckus, and photos and accounts from witnesses seem to corroborate his story.

One high profile supporter seems to agree with Eidinger. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia delegate to Congress, who was present at the meeting came to his aid.

At the time of the incident, Norton released a statement questioning Eidinger’s removal and called the inconsistency of Capitol police “troubling.”

“In my more than 20 years as a member of Congress, I have seen officers treat demonstrators at hearings and business meetings inconsistently — with some allowed to stay, some asked to leave and some forcibly removed,” Norton wrote. “Such inconsistency is troubling if it results from unclear policies, lack of training or unregulated officer discretion.”

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