Police v Filipi [2010] WSSC 173 (6 December 2010)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF SAMOA
HELD AT APIA

BETWEEN:

THE POLICE
Informant

AND:

ISALELI FILIPI
male of Sasina Savaii and Saleilua Falealili.
Defendant

Counsels: R Titi for prosecution
Defendant is unrepresented

Sentence: 06 December 2010

SENTENCE

Filipis case is a curious case. According to the summary of facts he is 28 years of age, married, has three children and is from the village of Saleilua, Falealili. On Wednesday 13 October the police received a report from an informant of claiming that the defendant was selling marijuana in front of Lynn Netzlers shop at Motootua. The police arrived at Lynns shop approached the defendant and searched his nap sack which he was carrying. Inside the bag were two plastic bags one containing marijuana branches and the other loose leaves of marijuana. In total the branches came to 13 branches and the leaves were 162 green leaves of marijuana. The defendant was brought to the Apia police station where he was body searched by the police and on him they discovered the sum of $18.80 in cash according to the summary of facts.

The defendant admitted at his police interview that he owned the marijuana. In the probation report on the defendant it states that he sells elei materials as a source of income to support his family. There is no indication anywhere in the report that he also works or owns a plantation. The defendant told the court this morning that this large quantity of marijuana was not possessed by him for the purposes of sale, but were for the purpose of treating the disease tuberculosis which he has. That the defendant has this is confirmed by a report I have found in his file dated 01 November 2010 from the medical consultant of the CDC clinic at the hospital stating that the defendant has a form of tuberculosis. The report states that he is not considered to be a public health threat, and in fact it says he can stay in a room with others as long as he covers his mouth every time he coughs. It does not say what would happen to the other people in the room if he does not cover his mouth when he coughs.

The report also indicated that he is on medication, that he was given medication for his condition and that smear tests were taken for analysis at the hospital laboratory. The report goes on to recommend that he be held in isolation until the final results of these tests become available. The file shows however not that he has been kept in any particular form of isolation but only that he has been remanded in custody since 13 October when he was arrested. Presumably since that day being held in custody with the other remand prisoners in the same prison cell. Having read that report I now believe the defendants claim that he suffers from tuberculosis and the defendant also went on to tell me this morning that the reason why he had all this marijuana in particular the green leaves was because he proposed to use it as a form of treatment for his condition.

The problem with that statement Isaleli is there is no medical evidence in fact there is no evidence that I am aware of that marijuana cures or has any effect on the disease tuberculosis. So I am skeptical about what you say but given your condition it is probably also unlikely that you would be a smoker of marijuana if you are suffering from tuberculosis. So the only clear conclusion I can come to is that you were found in possession of a very large quantity of illicit narcotics, but the evidence before me does not necessarily show it was for the purpose of sale. And because I am uncertain, for the purposes of sentencing I am not going to assume that you are therefore a seller of these illicit narcotics and that makes a difference to your penalty. But you should know that the offence of possession of narcotic carries a 14 year maximum penalty and that is because Parliament recently increased that penalty from 7 to 14 years in its effort to try and stop the emerging drug culture and drug problem in our country.

Given the large quantity of marijuana that was found on you there is no question that an imprisonment penalty must be imposed on you Isaleli irrespective of your medical condition which in any event is not life threatening. An appropriate start point is 3 years imprisonment. From that you are entitled to certain deductions which the court will now make. Firstly a one-third deduction for your guilty plea that is a sum of 12 months leaving a balance of 2 years. You have a previous conviction but it is for a separate kind of offence, this is your first drug offence so therefore you are required to be treated as a first offender. For the fact that you are the first offender I deduct a further 12 month period leaving a balance of 1 year imprisonment.

Accordingly the sentence in this matter is that you are convicted and sentenced to 12 months in prison. It is further ordered that you are to be kept in isolation until the hospital results of your tests have become available and that isolation should start today for the safety of all your fellow students/inmates and it is also to be noted that your medication is to continue because the doctor in his medical report states that you will be required to take that medication for a further period of 5 months. The balance of the community service unserved of 8 hours from your previous court appearance is revoked and substituted by a cumulative period of 1 week in prison. So that you will serve a total of 12 months and 1 week in prison. Ua e malamalama i le faaiuga o lau mataupu Isaleli? (defendant indicated he understood). You should also note that his remand in custody time is to be deducted from the sentence.

............................
JUSTICE NELSON