Pubdate: Mon, 23 May 2011 Source: Grand Rapids Press (MI) Copyright: 2011 Grand Rapids Press Contact: http://www.mlive.com/grand-rapids/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/171 Author: Barton Deiters, The Grand Rapids Press OTTAWA COUNTY AGREES TO TURN OVER DOCUMENTS TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW RESEARCHER GRAND HAVEN - After telling a Traverse City-based researcher of Michigan's voter-approved medical marijuana law that he could not have its records, the Ottawa County Prosecutor's Office has turned over some 700 pages of materials. Eric VanDussen sent Michigan Freedom of Information Act requests to all 83 of the state's county prosecutors asking for information regarding marijuana prohibition law violations where the accused was using the medical marijuana law as a defense. While some of the prosecutors asked for stiff fees related to compiling the information -- Livingston County sent a bill for $94,000 - - only Ottawa and Kalkaska counties flat out turned VanDussen down, he said today. VanDussen, 36, sees the record release as a positive step for his efforts to show that the medical marijuana law is not equally enforced, but Doug Van Essen, trial council for Ottawa County, said the problem was the request was too broad and asked for some materials not subject to public disclosure. "When (Ottawa County) said they didn't have anything to give me, they were obviously mistaken," VanDussen said. VanDussen made his request on Sept. 9 and a day later, the county replied in an e-mail that "The prosecutor's files are not public, there fore we are not able to provide you with the information." On Oct. 1, attorney Gregory Rappleye, corporate counsel for Ottawa County, sent VanDussen a letter saying that the materials were "exempt from disclosure under the Attorney Work-Product privilege." Rappleye cited a case filed in Lansing and heard by the State Supreme Court regarding the calculation of legal fees in a civil suit from 1999. On March 1, VanDussen filed a lawsuit against the Ottawa County Prosecutor in Traverse County where he claimed that the county violated the State FOIA. The suit asked a judge to find that the county "arbitrarily and capriciously" violated the law, that the information should be provided and that it pay $500 in punitive damages. Instead, VanDussen said Ottawa County provided the information he sought for free. Van Essen said the problem was that VanDussen seemed to be seeking the files of the prosecutor which may contain internal notes about a case. Instead, the two sides were able to define that what VanDussen wanted was police reports and court filings and it was a fairly simple action to get the information to the Traverse City man. "FOIA is a technical act and we had a technical denial," said VanDussen. VanDussen said he is still struggling with requests from other counties and may have to resend FOIA requests that are more specific. Kalkaska County has agreed to turn over records. VanDussen has covered Northern Michigan court cases as a freelance reporter and sued Benzie County for violating the Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Acts - which he won. VanDussen said he wants to see how different counties are dealing with the charging of people who possess marijuana caregiver registrations cards with marijuana law violations and said there appears to be a wide disparity to how the counties react depending on the willingness of the county prosecutor to adhere to the voter-approved law passed by 63 percent of the voters in 2008. Van Essen said that he is not sure what the point is of showing thee discrepancy since county prosecutors handle cases in different ways from their cohorts across the state on many laws, medical marijuana - -related or not. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.