The Hillsdale Daily News from Hillsdale, Michigan • Page 7

Committee Calls For Felony THE DAILY NEWS, Tuesday, November 2, 1971 7 Mich. (AP) The Senate Judiciary Committee has recommended that illegal possession of any drugs in a felony. The committee Monday night reported its recommendation with 42 amendments to a House-passed drug bill. The Senate Committee version was decidedly tougher than the House measure. Both are more lenient than current Michigan law.

Sen. Robert Richardson, R- Saginaw, chairman of the committee, said the Senate should complete debate on the bill and Appeal Caps Four-Year Battle By John Sinclair IANSING, Mich. (AP) Lawyers for a former rock roll band manager, jailed leader of a cult of avowed marijuana users, asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to overturn his conviction for having two marijuana cigarettes. The appeal caps a four-year court battle by John R. Sinclair, former manager of the Detroit-based rock band known as the and former leader of the White Panther party headquartered in Ann Arbor not far from the University of Michigan campus.

Sinclair was sentenced in July, 1969 to to 10 years in prison for the possession of two marijuana cigarettes. Earlier this year, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the sentence by Court Judge Robert J. Colombo. The Court of Appeals denied a request for a rehearing but on Aug. 31 the State Supreme Court granted Sinclair an application to appeal.

There has been a flurry of legal moves since by the Committee to Free John Sinclair. The committee mostly is composed of members of the Rainbow Party, which took over the banner of the White Panthers. However, a number of groups and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed opinions on behalf. His wife. Mrs.

Leni Sinclair, has been a leader of the crusade to free her husband. One setback for his backers came when the high court refused to free Sinclair on bond pending his appeal. Another came when the court denied a notion by Sinclair that he appear in person and argue his own case. Sinclair pleaded that the future of not only himself but of his wife and two daughters depended on his appeal. anyone should be present for these arguments, I he said in the petition written from the State Prison of Southern Michigan.

The Supreme Court further denied a motion by attorney, Justin C. Ravitz, that the usual time limits for oral arguments be set aside. Court rules specify that each side has 30 minutes. Ravtiz asked for three times the usual 30 minutes. Among the arguments posed by Sinclair were that his sentence was unconstitutional to its cruel and unusual and because marijuana has been illegally classified as a narcotic in violation of the 14th amendment to the U.

S. Constitution. Ravitz, in his written brief, also challenged the constitutionality of marijuana laws. He said no proof ever was established that the two cigarettes which led to the conviction actually contained marijuana. He also contended two previous drug convictions were prejudicial and led to an unusually harsh sentence.

Rep. Jackie Vaughn III, D-Detroit, also has interested himself in the case and has said he would ask Gov. William Milliken to pardon Sinclair. School Revenue Plan Now Too Early, Solons Report be ready to send it back to the House by end. The committee bill calls for a maximum 20-year sentence for manufacture and sale of drugs such as heroin, morphine, opium derivatives, LSD and marijuana.

The house version would impose only a 15-year penalty. Current Michigan law for sale of those drugs is a flat 20 years to life in prison. For simple possession of hallucinogens such as marijuana and LSD, the committee recommends a maximum two: year sentence and a $2,000 fine. The house bill called for a 90-day sentence and a $2,000 fine. The house bill called for a 90-day sentence and $500 fine for possession of marijuana and a six-month sentence and a $500 fine for possession of other hallucinogens.

Michigan law now provides for a minimum 10-year sentence for possession of marijuana and LSD. The senate committee also called for a maximum ten-year sentence for unlawful sale of stimulant and depressent drugs, while the house asked for a five- year term. Importantly, neither the house nor senate committee version provide for minimum penalties, thus leaving a judge free to impose probation. The committee bill also provides for no retroactivity, so persons arrested under present law would be penalized under present law. Richardson said his committee passed the amended bill unanimously, believing in general it was in line with current law enforcement thinking.

felt we were being responsive to the legitimate demands of law enforcement agencies for reasonable maximum Richardson said. He said that by not outlinging minimum penalties, left a reasonable latitude for the courts, which can always use Minimum probation for a felony is one year. TURNING IN THEIR GUNS Detroiters line up at the 15th Precinct police station to turn in or register their illegally owned handguns as a moratorium on gun charges drew to a close. Police reported about 2,000 weapons were handled by the precincts. Young Voters Get Chance Today EAST LANSING, Mich.

(AP) Young voters got one of their first chances to swing a municipal election today when East I.ansing voters balloted for three positions on the five-member city council. Michigan State University students held the balance of power in the balloting among six Kalish Elected DETROIT (AP) Martin Kalish, president of the union which represents 1,200 Detroit school principals and supervisors, has been elected to a two year term as president of the National Council of Urban School Administrators. candidates. Two have sought student endorsement, but are not student candidates. Their ages are 33 to 42.

Two others in their early 20s and with student oreintation are seeking election on a write-in basis. A record 7,500 of 14,000 registered voters turned out in the August primary, when few students were on the rolls. A campaign drive on the massive campus since the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave the vote to 18-year-olds has swelled the total registry to more than 22,000. The is estimated at about half the registered total.

There have been no vs. issues to polarize the candidates, and observers do not predict a council takeover by student-oriented interests. Seeking re-election are Mayor Gordon Thomas, 56, a communications professor at Michigan State; and Wilbur Brookover, 60, associate director of the MSU Center for Urban Affairs. Also on the ballot are businessmen Duane Bone, 42, and Charles Max Phillips, 50; and the two who have been pitching for student analyst George Colburn, 33, schoolteacher George Griffiths, 42. The write-in candidates are Charles Will, 24, who is backed along with Colburn and Griffiths by a student-oriented campaign known as Project City Hall; and Mickey, the former Marshall Steven Davis, who dropped out of MSU.

A dozen candidates were on the primary ballot. Thomas led with 3,663, followed by Bone, 3,497, Phillips, 3,297, Brookover, 2,267, Colburn, 1,803, and Griffiths, 1,794. Will received 1,352 and Mickey 270. Only the top six qualified for the November ballot. The other two of the fouryear city council seats will come for election in 1973.

Chew! Long-hokJing FASTEETH Powder. iA. ft takes the worry i out of wearing dentures. LANSING, Mich. (AP) Writing a school revenue plan into the Michigan Constitution before a workable distribution plan is developed simply compound the current concludes a preliminary report of the Senate Special Committee on School Aid Distribution.

The report, scheduled for publication Wednesday, also says tax increases proposed by Gov. William Milliken would fall $74 million short of equalizing education in Michigan by 1979. The report critizes plan for a statewide petition to abolish the property tax and! replace it with income tax for financing schools. process of replacing property tax revenue with income tax revenue will, in itself, do absolutely nothing to school the report says. Progress eliminating inequities will have to be made in a distribution plan that has not as yet been the report continues.

Milliken said last April he would have a distribution formula prepared late However, the Office said Monday it was not known when the formula would be finished. The committee, chaired by Sen. Gilbert E. Bursley, R-Ann Arbor, was created to devise a system of distributing state aid with a shift from property taxes to income taxes and from the local to the state level. The purpose of the preliminary report, compiled by Gene Caesar, Senate educational consultant, is to the nature of the in the present system of school financing.

The report recommends per pupil expenditures throughout the since a proposal to supply equal program offerings from teachers of relatively equal experience and qualification require state control of both curriculum and teacher proposal calls for replacing lost local property tax revenues with state funds derived from higher personal income taxes and a value added tax. The report notes that if the lowest funded school district in per pupil expenditures were brought up to the highest of about $1,500, instead of the recommended two per cent value added tax and the 2.3 per cent increase in the personal income tax, a 4.6 per cent value jdded tax and a 5.3 per cent personal income tax would be needed. other the report says, state personal income tax rate would have to be immediately hiked to about 9.2 per The report also suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold the August decision of the California Supreme Court ruling the state property tax unconstitutional for school support, school financing system could conceivably be abolished before any real progress has been made toward creating another workable system to replace Caesar said the preliminary report has been distributed to senators give them some alternatives to think about before doing anything He said the committee proba- bably have a final report until late 1972. Lake Michigan Bill OK'd SPRINGFIELD, 111.

(AP) The Illinois House has given overwhelming support to a bill designed to preserve the ecological, aesthetic and commercial value of Lake Michigan. The proposed Lake Michigan and Adjoining Land Resources Management and Preservation Act, sponsored in the House Monday by Rep. Robert Mann, D- Chicago, now goes to the Senate. It passed the house 122-7. The measure would give the state authority to control and Pond Owner Gets Apology LAPEER, Mich.

(AP) Frank James, a 79-year-old retired tool designer, received a public apology from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Monday, and a promise that his private fish pond near here would be completely restocked as soon as possible. James lost every fish in his well-stocked private pond in early October when the DNR accidentally sprayed his seven- acre pond with a fish-killing chemical. The DNR says it was attempting to remove carp from the Flint River using a chemical which kills all other fish in the treated water, as well as carp. The DNR says some of the chemical drifted with the wind into pond. The DNR plans to begin restocking hundreds of thousands of bass, pike and bluegills in the river system sometime this week.

uses on the lake and declares that the highest possible use of the abutting land is recreational and open space. House Majority Leader Henry Hyde, R-Chicago, said the bill should be viewed an important commitment by the state that Michigan is well and living on the shores of and should remain that way. Mann predicted that Lake Michigan has 10 to 20 years of ecological life left unless strict controls of pollution sources are soon adopted. Thus, the bill provides that the necessary machinery be set up to insure that pollutant shall be deposited, discharged or allowed Secrecy Covers Investigation ESCANABA, Mich. (AP) Prosecutor John Beauchamp has thrown a veil of secrecy over an investigation into the death of a 50-year-old man whose body was found along the Little Bay de Noc shore Sunday between Escanaba and Gladstone.

The man was Henry A. Hallfrisch of the nearby Upper Peninsula community of Danforth. Authorities at St. Francis Hospital said he died of drowning, but that his face was cut and bruised and he appeared to have been dead less than 48 hours. State Police Detective John Seppanen said Monday police are investigating the possibility of homicide in death, but Prosecutor Beauchamp refused to say more than that the death is under investigation.

to rim off into Lake Michigan or any other waterbody within the state of Illinois from sources originating within the land adjoining Lake Michigan. Within a year after the effective date of the bill, the Illinois Institute for Environmental Quality, working with a newly created Lake Michigan and adjoining Land Study Commission would prepare a program for controling pollution on the lake. This plan would be submitted to the Illinois Pollution Control Board which would hold hearings in counties bordering Lake Michigan and eventually adopt this or a modified version of a plan to control pollution sources. The Mann measure further gives the State Department of Conservation a mandate to begin purchasing easements on private property along the shoreline which would permit public access to the lake. Students Plan Demonstration SARNIA, Ont.

(AP) Canadian college students plan a demonstration Wednesday to protest the planned U.S. atomic test explosion in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. The demonstration is scheduled at the Canadian end of the Blue water Bridge, which links Sarnia with Port Huron. Jim Gough, student leader at Lampton College, said 1,1200 to 1,300 students are expected for the protest. Bridge manager Howard Young said he will close the Canadian exit during the hour- long demonstration.

He just now saw your car. 3 seconds. 2 seconds. 1... But how soon did you see him? In time to slam on your brakes? And stop? His life depends on your reaction time.

Your reaction time depends partly on your skill as a driver. But mostly on whether a driver who is always alert, anticipating the unexpected. Our streets are filled with surprises. And each one is an accident in the making. In fact, all accidents are surprises.

Unexpected. But the driver who expects the unexpected every minute behind the wheel -gains precious seconds. The seconds needed to avoid an accident Our business is automobiles. Our concern is people- both in and out of cars. And we know what can happen when a driver fails to give driving his full attention.

For your sake, as well as others, give yourself time to react. If you always expect the unexpected, it may never happen. Dealers who display this seal subscribe to the NADA Code of Business'Practices Address your correspondence to Consumer Relations Service 2000 Street Washington, 20006 National Automobile Dealers Association Official organization of America franchised new car and dealers Washington One in a series presented by A D.A., this newspaper, and the new car dealers of our community..