Border Patrol checkpoints near Yuma nab hordes of pot users headed back from the beach

Truth is, Yuma County's courts would be swamped if each small-time pot case were handled as the felony that state law declares it, says Lil Wayne's Yuma attorney, James Tilson. The county, like most others in the state these days, is under a major budget crunch.

More arrestees would take felony cases to trial. Even with plea agreements, such cases take a lot more time, money, and effort to prosecute.

On both the financial and human level, "increasing the amount of work you have doesn't make sense if it's not a serious crime," Tilson says.

Unfortunately for those caught on the Arizona side of the state line, a misdemeanor still packs a punch. Besides a fine, it also requires defendants or their lawyers to appear in court, which can get expensive.

Mary, the Phoenix grandma, negotiated a deal in which her misdemeanor charge was dropped in lieu of a $1,200 drug-treatment class. She paid a lawyer $3,500 to help make the deal.

The Texas musician paid a lawyer $3,500 just to see a $738 fine dropped to $400.

Under the current system, an innocent person could easily end up with a ticket just because a pot user left a surprise in the car.

That's what happened to "Joe," a 48-year-old Peoria man who drove his wife's car through the checkpoint on his way back from a job in Yuma. Joe's not a pot smoker and says he fully supports the Border Patrol's mission.

"My daughter, who's in her 20s, forgot to take her goodies out" of the car, Joe says. After a dog gave an alert, agents found two used pot pipes in the trunk.

Rather than place the blame on his daughter, he paid $1,600 in fines, and was embarrassed recently when the arrest showed up in a background check while he was trying to rent a house. He was allowed to move in, but lamented of his new rap sheet: "It just sucks. Period."

The worst part, Joe says, is that he could be fired if his boss ever found out about the conviction.

Ryan Childers, a criminal defense attorney who worked as a prosecutor for Imperial County, California, from 2004 to 2006, was surprised to hear how many checkpoint-related drug cases Yuma County handles.

"What a waste of resources!" the El Centro lawyer says.

In California, Childers explains, possession of an ounce or less of marijuana rates only a $100 fine and is considered a minor infraction rather than a misdemeanor. And forget the rhetoric heard in Arizona that violators would be prosecuted even "if it's a seed." This state's more liberal neighbor requires a "smokable amount" to prosecute the infraction, Childers says.

The law against marijuana paraphernalia in California is so lax that Border Patrol agents in the state who find a pipe or a bong in a checkpoint search can't do anything other than confiscate it, Childers says.

There's no checkpoint along the westbound lanes of I-8 in Arizona, but three months ago, the Border Patrol opened a checkpoint on westbound I-8 just east of El Centro. The agency's El Centro Sector also operates permanent checkpoints on California highways 86 and 111.

Minuscule amounts of marijuana are mostly seen as a waste of time for law enforcement, says Lieutenant George Moreno of the Imperial County Sheriff's Office.

A sheriff's deputy or a California Highway Patrol officer is obliged to drive out to the El Centro-area checkpoint if a case is to be made. Moreno says California law disallows detentions of more than 30 minutes for infractions. So if the amount of pot is just a few grams and no deputy is near the checkpoint, the sheriff's office doesn't send anybody out.

"The Border Patrol knows that we don't have the staffing levels, so they [usually] just let the person go and they destroy the evidence," he says.

And because California's medical-marijuana law is liberal, if such marijuana users show the correct paperwork to the Border Patrol after getting stopped, their pot is seized and they're sent on their way, Moreno says.

In the Yuma Sector, low-level busts of people with marijuana are staving off boredom for Border Patrol agents.

Spokesman Schappell talks almost wistfully of the days when the sector was hopping with illegal immigrants. Now, agents don't spend much time chasing down border crossers and hauling in big loads of drugs, he admits.

On a sunny February day, Schappell cruises a sandy road on the northern side of the imposing security fence that runs from San Luis to just past the distant Tinajas Altas Mountains on the horizon. Not a footprint can be seen for miles in the soft earth.

"Anybody who says a fence doesn't work, I say, 'Come to Yuma,'" Schappell says.