Being Unbusted

When the police sent a 17-year-old girl tricked out with a hidden radio into the home of Literary Critic Leslie Fiedler, they heard enough talk about marijuana, they said, to have reason to move in and arrest half a dozen people. Two of Fiedler's sons, a daughter-in-law and two other young men pleaded guilty to possession of pot; they received fines or were placed on probation. Fiedler and his wife were convicted in 1970 of maintaining premises where marijuana was used; he got six months and she was fined $500.

A professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Fiedler subsequently wrote a scathing memoir entitled Being Busted, in which he blamed the raid largely on the fact that he had sponsored a campus group that advocated legalizing marijuana. As attitudes toward marijuana laws eased, he recalls, "I kept thinking that if I went to jail it would be grotesque, even comic." He had no lack of grounds for appeal--the girl spy repeatedly changed her story and the legality of the bugging was at least questionable--but when New York's highest court struck down the conviction last week, it offered a more basic reason: "No crime was charged or proven."

The law banning the maintenance of a premises for use of marijuana applies only to a building that the owners specifically maintain for criminal purposes, said Judge James Gibson for the 5-to-2 majority. "It was never'contemplated that the criminal taint would attach to a family home should members of the family on one occasion smoke marijuana or hashish there."

Fiedler's troubles have cost him a lectureship, credit troubles, and $20,000 in legal fees, but he has just published a book on Shakespeare and been presented with a new grandchild, so he feels philosophic. He hopes that the decision will lead "in an educational way" to a loosening of marijuana laws.

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