I came across a September 1976 piece in High Times headlined "Missouri — 12 Years for 11 Grams."
Jerry Mitchell, a 19-year-old from West Plains, Missouri, had sold about a third of an ounce of marijuana to an undercover Highway Patrol agent for five dollars.
Circuit Judge Winston Buford gave him twelve years. "I hope that the sentence fits the crime and will serve as a warning to others who are thinking of becoming a pusher," Buford told him. Mitchell sobbed in court and begged for parole — both of his parents were blind and depended on him for care. NORML director Keith Stroup called the sentence "an outrage."
I wondered what happened to the kid in the photo. The trial judge revisited the case a few months later and reduced the sentence to seven years. Mitchell served about fourteen months at the Algoa Reformatory near Jefferson City, was paroled back to his parents in West Plains at age 23, and reportedly considered college to study political science. The Missouri Supreme Court rejected NORML's constitutional challenge in 1978. After that, the public trail goes cold.
Three years after sentencing Mitchell, the Missouri Supreme Court disciplined Buford for judicial misconduct — including abuse of authority in custody and criminal matters — and suspended him for 30 days without pay. The disciplinary commission had wanted him removed from the bench; the court declined. Buford then sued the officials and a Springfield newspaper involved in his discipline case and lost — the Eighth Circuit called the suit frivolous. He kept his job until retiring in 1989 and died in 2018 at 89.
Tom Forçade — an underground-press veteran and pot smuggler — launched the High Times in 1974 as a deadpan parody of Playboy, with marijuana buds where the centerfolds went. It became the unofficial trade journal of the legalization movement.
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