Even if Brett Kimberlin’s recent attempt as having his Speedway Bomber convictions overturned had been successful, he would still have been a convicted felon. He was convicted of perjury when he was 19, and he pleaded guilty to drug charges when he got caught during a failed smuggling attempt in the late ’70s.

Speaking of dope and Team Kimberlin …

Nine years ago today,I wrote about An Interesting Correlation that Bill Schmalfeldt (writing as Matthew Lillefielt at The Examiner) noted between opposition to the legalization of marijuana and people who voted for Mitt Romney.

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Matthew Lillefielt has a piece over at The Examiner about some of the lobbying done by law enforcement officials during the current session of the Maryland Legislature. He notes that those lobbying against loosening the state’s marijuana laws seem to be from the counties that voted for Mitt Romney, while those favoring liberalization are from … well … liberal counties that voted for Barack Obama.

Of course, correlation doesn’t prove causation, but does Lillefielt mean to say that the parts of our state where people are more likely to be clean and sober are the places that vote Republican?

NOTE—I live in one of those few red counties, but I support decriminalizing marijuana in order to make it less of a moneymaker for criminals. While I think dope should be a legal substance, I view it as a potentially destructive one similar to alcohol. I would like to know how marijuana DUI would be handled before I would be ready to change the law though.

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Here’s another interesting coincidence.

Maryland subsequently legalized possession of small amounts of dope.

After Bill Schmalfeldt violated the second peace order issued against him on my behalf, the State’s Attorney charged him with failure to obey the order. When he got his day in court, the case that was heard immediately before State v. Schmalfeldt was the first marijuana DUI trial in our county after pot legalization. The perp had previous DUI busts for alcohol, and judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail.

About four years of Kimberlin’s 50+ year sentence were for the drug bust.