Seattle Cannabis Tickets Dismissed Due to Officers ‘Political Motivation’

A Seattle Municipal Court judge has dismissed 100 tickets for public use of cannabis after it was discovered that a single police officer issued the vast majority of the citations as part of a political stance against cannabis. Officer Randy Jokela, local Seattle bicycle cop, issued nearly eighty percent of tickets for public cannabis use (at 27$ a pop) during the first half of the year. Apparently Officer Jokela was trying to send a message to legalization proponents.
On many of the tickets Officer Jokela added a notation referring to “Petey Holmes,” who openly supported Initiative 502, which legalized cannabis use in 2012 but barred its public use.

On Wednesday Judge Fred Bonner signed the dismissal orders at the request of the City Attorney’s Office, which filed for 22 motions to dismiss for those who had paid the $27 fine and 78 for those who had defaulted. According to Gary Ireland, the court’s public information officer, any of the defaulted citations referred to collections will be recalled and those who paid their citations will receive a refund from the court within 20 business days. City Attorney Pete Holmes said that educating people about the law is more important than collecting fines. “The goal all along has been not to issue tickets as much as to change behavior,” he said.

Jokela disagrees with the legalization of cannabis and has apparently been taking it out on the people of Seattle. In one incident, Jokela wrote that he found two people using cannabis and made them flip a coin to determine who would be given the citation. The ticket read, “(Suspect) lost the coin flip so he got the ticket while the other person walked. (Suspect) was allowed to keep his pipe.” According to Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole, on another ticket Jokela even referred to Washington’s cannabis law reform as “silly.” Clearly the officer is letting his opinion of cannabis override what Washington voters saw fit to enact in law.

Jokela’s frequent citations came to the attention of the police department while staff reviewed data collected for the departments first semiannual report on cannabis law enforcement (which found that Blacks are disproportionately given citations for public cannabis). Deputy Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said it would be “irresponsible and unethical” to enforce the tickets issued by Jokela because the citations were given by an officer with “political motivation.”

Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole, was reportedly considering a three day suspension for Jokela with no pay, but the department’s Office of Professional Accountability “conferred and ultimately decided that there was nothing that precludes this employee from returning to his normal duties.”

Assistant Chief Nick Metz indicated that it is not the intention of the department to issue a lot of citations and said officers should first issue a verbal warning to cannabis users caught in public, only giving out citations to repeat offenders. “This is all new. I think some officers may have been a bit apprehensive about exactly how to enforce this,” says Metz. “It’s our job to make sure they clearly understand what is expected of them and what they are authorized to do.”

City Attorney Pete Holmes announced on Monday that he plans to seek the dismissals of all citations issued during the first seven months of the year, even those not issued by Officer Jokela. Holmes told the council this is the “cleanest and most efficient thing to do” to fix the situation. Holmes did express express sympathy for those concerned that the public use of cannabis has become widespread. “It does bother me, people have the right not to be subject to secondhand smoke,” says Holmes.