Teen Faces Life In Prison for Hash Brownies
KEILAR: Tonight, a Texas teen is facing serious prison time for hash brownies. Marijuana may be legal in some parts of the country, but in others, laced baked goods could land you in jail for the rest of your life. The issue is the brownies were made with hash oil, which is considered much more serious than marijuana in Texas. But does the punishment fit the crime? Pamela Brown is OUTFRONT with the story.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nineteen-year- old Jacob Lavoro is facing the same prison sentence as some rapists and murderers in the state of Texas, up to 99 years behind bars. His alleged offense? Baking brownies with hash oil.</s>JACOB LAVORO, DEFENDANT: Honestly, when I heard that I was going to get life in jail, my face turned completely white. And I had to throw up.</s>BROWN: But local Texas police say Lavoro made a business out of pot brownies, selling them for 25 bucks a pop. Court documents indicate police found several bags of marijuana and hash oil in separate containers in his house, enough to bring another felony charge against Lavoro. But because of a controversial law, it's those hash brownies that could lead to big jail time.</s>PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It really was meant to cover a situation where you were mixing a small amount of cocaine or heroin with white flour. And it was difficult to weigh it because it's all mixed up together.</s>BROWN: In this case, police weighed all the ingredients in the pot brownies, not just the hash oil. They included the sugar and butter and milk and eggs and flour and chocolate too, 661 grams total. But Lavoro's attorney says the actual drugs only made up a small fraction of that.</s>JACK HOLMES, JACOB LAVORO'S ATTORNEY: Probably about five grams of actual controlled substance, which in this case would be THC. And the rest is going to be baked goods.</s>BROWN: But police did exactly what Texas state law allows them to do, because there is no way to weigh the two separately.</s>CMDR. ALAIN BABIN, ROUND ROCK POLICE DEPT.: They're absolutely following our policies and procedures, and followed the statute, and filed the appropriate charge, yes.</s>BROWN: Legal analyst Paul Callan says the law makes no sense.</s>CALLAN: I don't think the law was ever intended to cover a situation like this where you're making a marijuana brownie. You know, if it did, the Texas legislatures must have been eating these brownies when they wrote the law.</s>BROWN: The district attorney's office tells CNN it will offer a plea bargain to Lavoro that wouldn't have any jail time. Even if Lavoro agrees to it, he has already spent a month in jail before being released on $30,000 bond.</s>LAVORO: It was pretty scary. I was in there with real criminals that laughed at me.</s>BROWN: Lavoro says he is definitely out of the pot brownie baking business.</s>LAVORO: That's a no.</s>BROWN (on camera): Lavoro's attorney says they want the wait until they get the lab results back on substances taken from the home before enter anything plea deal. Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.</s>KEILAR: And OUTFRONT tonight, editor and chief of Reason.com, Nick Gillespie and former prosecutor Wendy Murphy. Thanks to you guys for being with me so much. Appreciate it so much. Wendy, this guy is facing the same prison sentence as a rapist. In this case, does the punishment really fit the crime?</s>WENDY MURPHY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, first, let me reject that premise, because there is a recent study that says only 2 percent of rapists spend even one day behind bars.</s>KEILAR: Then, it's even worse. Let's say it might be worse. Is that fitting?</s>MURPHY: I mean -- well, here is the thing. You know, to just talk about it as if it's nothing more serious than a kid making pot brownies is wrong. You have a felony crime in Texas with only five grams of hash oil because the stuff is really dangerous. And he had 145 grams. So that's a lot less than 600 and whatever the fat brownie weighed. But it's a lot, because one or two drops of hash oil is equal to an entire marijuana joint. So, let's not say oh, this is nothing more than just a little pot brownie. It's a much more serious offense. And in states where you can make hash oil through marijuana, you know, you extract it with butane. It's an extremely dangerous habit. A lot of folks are blowing up their homes and catching fire. Colorado has had tremendous number of these fires recently.</s>KEILAR: But, Nick, you --</s>MURPHY: It's not mild.</s>KEILAR: But, Nick, you disagree with this.</s>NICK GILLESPIE, EDITOR IN CHIEF, REASON.COM: Wait, wait, wait. You can even hear Wendy saying okay, you know what? Rapists actually have it easier. This is the type of case where the drug war goes to die. It is absolutely insane. It is unjust and immoral to be putting people away for this type of crime. Under Texas state law, you can sell up to five pounds of pot. And at most, you're going to serve two years there is no way that the hash contained in those brownies plus the pound of pot that the cops allegedly found in his house should put him into any kind of category where he is going to spend up to 99 years or life in prison. It is insane, and increasingly people are recognizing that the punishment here is nuts beyond belief. It is nuttier than a walnut brownie, whether it has coke or pot or anything else in it.</s>KEILAR: Let's look at this. Nearby, Colorado, you have marijuana, it's legal. Stores can sell hash. They can sell hash oils. Do you think --</s>GILLESPIE: Absolutely.</s>KEILAR: Do you think the rest of the country should follow, I imagine?</s>GILLESPIE: Here. Let me put it this way. A majority of Americans, according to all of the recent polls that have been taken think that marijuana -- and I'm assuming that would include hash derivatives as well, all hashes is a condensed form of pot, essentially put into a resin or an oil form. Majority of people in America think that the war on pot is a failure and that pot should be legal and available. Half of the states basically half of the states allow for medical marijuana. What I'm put in mind of when I hear this type of case is what John Kerry said about the Vietnam War. Who is going to be the last man to die for this mistake? Is Jacob Lavoro, a 19-year-old going to spend the rest of his life in jail because of a policy that we already know is ridiculous?</s>KEILAR: You think this may precipitate some changes. Wendy, to you. You're making a legal argument. To the letter of the law, sure, maybe there is a case that can be made. But do you think that, you know, the law should change, or that these -- that marijuana should be legal or there should be more leniency in Texas?</s>MURPHY: We have decriminalized and made certain amount of marijuana possession in Massachusetts legal. The voters supported it. I respect it. I don't use pot. But this is not about pot. And what I worry about when we legalize marijuana is that then the line gets pushed. Now, marijuana is like, you know, Coca-Cola. OK, so now let's talk about hash. As if it's no more serious. Hash oil is much more serious.</s>GILLESPIE: No, no, no. We all know --</s>KEILAR: And I think we're going to --</s>GILLESPIE: Come on, Wendy.</s>KEILAR: And, Wendy, I hear you on this. And I think we're going to have to leave it there, right there. I appreciate --</s>GILLESPIE: You know that.</s>KEILAR: Nick and Wendy, thank you so much. Well, another day, another G.M. recall. The automaker announced today that it's recalling 218,000 Chevy Aveos due to the risk of overheating and fires. It is G.M.'s 29th this year. So, what's going on with G.M.? Poppy Harlow is OUTFRONT with the story.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eleven recall announcements in the past week as General Motors racks up 13.8 million U.S. recalls this year alone.</s>PETER VALDES-DAPENA, CNN MONEY: So this has been a banner year for G.M. in a bad way. They've had 29 separate recalls so far this year, which is a record. This is big.</s>HARLOW: G.M. has recalled more cars this year than it has sold since exiting bankruptcy in 2009, leaving just about everyone wondering what's going on with</s>G.M. MARY BARRA, CEO, GENERAL MOTORS: We have moved from a cost culture after the bankruptcy to a customer culture.</s>HARLOW: The automaker says this surge in recalls is because it's holding itself to higher safety standards, tackling problems more quickly. They also follow newly minted CEO Mary Barra's congressional testimony about why it took G.M. a decade to report an ignition switch defect that has been tied to at least 13 deaths.</s>DAVID FRIEDMAN, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, NHTSA: Employees of General Motors from engineers, investigators, all the way up through executives were briefed on information associated with this recall.</s>HARLOW: That violation alone cost G.M. the maximum $35 million civil fine, and will likely cost the company significantly more in victim compensation and potential other fines. This is all on top of a criminal probe by the Department of Justice surrounding the ignition switch defect.</s>BARRA: My sincere apologies to everyone who has been affected by this recall, especially the families and friends who lost their lives or were injured.</s>HARLOW: But Barra is not new to General Motors. She has been with the company for 33 years, formally vice president of global product development, leaving lingering questions about what she knew when about product flaws in G.M. vehicles.</s>BARRA: I was not aware that there was this issue until the recall was introduced on January 31st.</s>ANTHONY FOXX, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: Had G.M. acted differently, perhaps some of this tragedy might not -- might have been averted.</s>HARLOW: G.M. says that's exactly what it's doing now, hence the mountain of recalls. The last thing they want is to be accused of delaying another one.</s>VALDES-DAPENA: They're cleaning out their closets, going through, finding every issue they've had in the past that maybe should have been a recall and making it a recall.</s>HARLOW (on camera): So far, fixing all the recalled cars will cost G.M. $1.7 billion this year. And the stock is down 18 percent year to date. But what might be surprising is all the recalls haven't made a dent in G.M. sales, which were 7 percent higher in April than a year ago.</s>CLARENCE DITLOW, CENTER FOR AUTO SAFETY: What G.M. is doing is talking, saying that we're going to be a good corporate citizen. But they've said the same thing in the past. The proof is really in the pudding.</s>HARLOW: And, Brianna, the question is, are there more G.M. recalls ahead? I asked the company that today. They said, quote, "We are aggressively addressing issues as they come up," meaning we don't know yet. We're also waiting, anticipating the internal G.M. investigation report into whether or not there was a cover-up in that ignition switch delay that lasted a decade. Why didn't we know sooner? And we're waiting to find out what the Department of Justice has to say. They're in the middle of a criminal probe -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: A lot still to come. Thank you so much, Poppy Harlow. And ahead, "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak says global warming alarmists are unpatriotic. Tonight, Ann Coulter tells us why she agrees. And what do you do when tens of thousands of bees invade? A young man with firsthand experience comes OUTFRONT.