by Michael Komorn for The Compassion Chronicles
1/6/2013
People v. King may turn out to become the most significant ruling for
the Michigan Medical Cannabis Community. To fully understand the impact
of this decision one must first consider what was taking place in Courts
throughout the state of Michigan regarding the Michigan Medical
Marijuana Act (MMMA) at the time the decision was reached.
Judges and prosecutors across the state had developed a theory that if a
patient or caregiver violated any aspect of the MMMA, specifically
Section 4, the accused patient or caregiver was precluded from arguing a
medical marihuana defense. Opinions and orders signed by Judges were
being issued with regularity specifically stating that no mention of a
card or medical cannabis would be allowed before the jury, nor could it
be argued that marijuana is a recognized treatment for a defendant’s
medical condition. In other words, the accused patient or caregiver
would be treated as if the MMMA did not exist. Nineteen cases that went
before the Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed this practice.
I have spent countless hours over the last 3 1/2 years reading and
analyzing the MMMA. I have spoken with all the major medical marijuana
lawyers and activists in the state as well as those who were involved
with authoring the Act, and never did this interpretation ever come out
of anyone’s mouth. Yet here we were in June 2012 and this was the law.
Worse yet, the language from the ballot initiative seemed to be in
direct conflict with this interpretation. How could such rulings be
reconciled with the ballot language 63% of the voters approved to wit:
“Permit registered and unregistered patients and primary caregivers to
assert medical reasons for using marijuana as a defense to any
prosecution involving marijuana”?
All the while, calls continued to come in to my office from patients and
caregivers seeking representation. They were being arrested for a
variety of alleged violations such as not securing the “master lock” on
the door to their grow room, or having too many plants or too much
marijuana. Dead and un-rooted plants were often used to create higher
plant counts, as well as unusable and un-dried plant matter being
weighed as “usable material”. Arrests were being made simply because
they could be, and it was done with the understanding that there would
be no defense for the patients and caregivers. I strongly believed that
in many of these cases, the evidence that led to the arrests would not
hold up in a jury trial, but my clients were repeatedly being stripped
of their right to a fair trial.
The King ruling has now set up a way to change social policy, via jury
trials. The people who voted for this law in overwhelming numbers will
now be the ones who are the deciders and not the police, the prosecutors
and the judges. The most sacred of rights outlined in the U.S and
Michigan constitutions, the right to present a defense, had been
identified as a critical component of the MMMA. To me this is what the
Act was really all about, an opportunity for a patient or caregiver to
give a presentation, based upon their own specific medical condition and
the specific way they use cannabis as medicine. King provided clarity of the
interpretation of the act, and ultimately determined that questions of
facts of medical use would be questions for the jury.
The extreme opposition by prosecutors to have cases heard by juries
reveals their well-founded fear that people on a jury will not convict
for the technical violations people were getting arrested for.
Statistics from across the country have continuously shown that people
on juries are sick of the resources wasted on prosecuting cases
involving marihuana. Now with an actual defense of medical use, juries
could hear the entire case and decide themselves whether they want to
make criminals out of people who have been arrested for silly
violations. I believe they will not, and King is the catalyst that will
allow juries to return not guilty verdicts and force prosecutors to
decide if they want to keep prosecuting cases that the juries don’t see
as crimes.
It is unfortunate that it took 3 1/2 years to get here, but I would like
to believe within another 3 1/2 years the cases that are being
prosecuted today will be looked at as the beginning of the end of the
fear that prevails today in the medical cannabis community. King is the
start of the peace of mind the community has been asking for, and the beginning
of a more rational approach to thinking of medical cannabis in Michigan.
For further discussion on this topic, and to discover forums containing conversations on all topics relating to medical marijuana, visit the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association website: