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August 24, 2009
Makeda Marley appeared in Gavin's courtroom .
The daughter of legendary reggae musician Bob Marley is asking a Common Pleas Court judge to keep several marijuana plants seized by police from her Caln home from being used at trial on drug possession charges.
Makeda Jahnesta Marley, the youngest of the star's 13 acknowledged children, contends through her attorney that police had no probable cause to enter and search the basement of her home during an argument she was having with a tenant who shared the property.
Caln police say they took 11 marijuana plants plus a variety of instruments used to grow the illegal drug — which Marley's father, a habitual marijuana user who popularized the drug as "Kaya" or "ganja," championed — after they caught Marley trying to sneak the plants out of the basement of the home she was renting.
In a hearing before Judge Thomas Gavin Tuesday, Marley's attorney, Assistant Public Defender David Miller, indicated that his client may have felt pressured into giving police permission to search the house because of alleged threats to put her in prison or take custody of her 3½-year-old son if she did not. Two Caln police officers testified that they had not made either of those supposed threats.
Makeda Marley, 28, is a graduate of Coatesville Area Senior High School and West Chester University. She was born in Miami on May 31, 1981, less than three weeks after her famous father died of cancer in that same city. Her mother, Yvette Crichton, is the last of several women with whom Bob Marley is officially recognized as fathering a child with in addition to his widow, Rita Marley.
According to some published reports, Makeda Marley was a regular at Rita Marley's house in Jamaica and later became a beneficiary of the Marley estate. However, court records indicate that she gave no emergency contact names when she was arraigned on the drug possession charges in September.
Her father was an enormously popular and influential musician and helped promote not only reggae music, with songs such as "I Shot the Sheriff," "Stir It Up," "No Woman, No Cry," and "One Love," but also brought attention to the Rastafarian movement, whose followers worship the late Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie and use marijuana as an aid to spiritual enlightenment. Followers were known by their wild dreadlocks and large marijuana "spliffs."
Makeda Marley appeared in Gavin's courtroom Tuesday dressed in a conservative pants suit, with her hair neatly drawn in twin braids. Her pocketbook was emblazoned with a distinctive number "1," its strap the colors of the Ethiopian flag — red, yellow and green. She did not speak in the case, although Miller, her attorney, said he plans to call her as a witness when the hearing resumes next month.
According to a police complaint in her case, officers were called to the home where Marley had lived for about 18 months for a call concerning a domestic dispute.
When they arrived, according to Caln Sgt. Barry Beach in testimony Tuesday, they found Marley arguing with a man named Howard Stinson, who sublet a room from Marley at the house. She was demanding that he leave, and he wanted to get his belongings, including a washer and dryer he said was in the basement.
According to the testimony of Beach and Officer Joseph Carboni, when they asked Marley if Stinson could get into the basement to retrieve his property, she said that the door to the basement was locked and she did not have the key, which she claimed was in California with a friend.
When the officers suggested that the matter was civil in nature and that they would not interfere, Stinson allegedly blurted out that Marley was growing marijuana in the basement.
"We're the police, so we're interested in marijuana growing," said Beach, a 30-year veteran of the police force.
Under questioning from Miller, the officers acknowledged that they told Marley they would allow Stinson to break down the door to the basement to get his washer and dryer if he decided to. With that, she suggested that she might be able to get a key from her friends' parents in Sadsburyville.
While she left with her son, the officers waited and spoke with their supervisor and a member of the district attorney's office about ways they could legally search the property for evidence of marijuana cultivation. At some point, however, Stinson went to the back of the house and then came back to tell the police that Marley was in the rear of the house, getting rid of the marijuana plants.
When they investigated, Beach and Carboni told Gavin they saw her in the backyard with a marijuana plant at her side.
"She said she was trying to get the plants out of the house before we searched the basement," Carboni said.
Marley was taken into custody and later signed a consent form allowing the officers to search the home. In a motion filed asking Gavin to suppress the seized plants, Miller indicated that the consent had not been voluntarily given.
Assistant District Attorney Carlos Barraza, who is prosecuting the case, questioned the officers abut whether Marley had signed the consent form after they explained it to her. Although neither man could say they remembered the specifics of the conversation, they told Barraza that they would have done so, since she signed the form.
The hearing is scheduled to resume next month.