In August 1982, a young deputy, who would one day be sheriff, named Michael Parson, developed an informant that led him and two other officers to one of the largest cultivated marijuana patches found in the state that year. Approximately 1,000 plants ranging in size from 10 feet to 15 feet were growing like a forest on the edge of a Polk County farm. James Fullerton, the owner of the farm, was eventually convicted of cultivation and sentenced to 20 years in the penitentiary. His appeals went all the way to the Supreme Court where the conviction was upheld, stating that his expectation of privacy was not violated by officers who found his patch. This case has been referred to in many criminal cases since then where evidence was seized by the "Open Field Doctrine".