Pubdate: Thu, 08 May 2014
Source: Voice, The (New Baltimore, MI)
Copyright: 2014 Journal Register Company
Contact:  http://www.voicenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5146
Author: Katelyn Larese, Associate Editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

CHESTERFIELD TO APPEAL MEDICAL MARIJUANA COURT RULING

Chesterfield Township officials have decided to appeal a recent 
district court ruling involving the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act 
and a possession charge that originated in the township.

By a 6-1 vote on May 5, Board members authorized the township 
attorney to appeal Judge William Hackel's recent court ruling, a 
decision that will likely result in a jury trial to determine whether 
the defendant was in violation of the Medical Marijuana Act when he 
was found in possession of marijuana with an expired medical card.

Township Attorney Robert Seibert said the defendant, Michael Inagro, 
argued in court that he was immune from prosecution under section 8 
of the state's Medical Marijuana Act.

"In its most general sense, what (section 8) says is if you don't 
have a card, but you are treating with a physician and there is a 
bona fide physician-patient relationship  the patient is receiving 
therapeutic benefit from the use of the marijuana to alleviate a 
serious and debilitating medical condition and a professional has 
done a full, complete assessment of the patient's medical 
history  you're allowed to possess the marijuana," Seibert told the 
board. "In this particular case, the judge ruled that simply seeing 
the physician and getting a script for medical marijuana is, in and 
of itself, sufficient immunity from prosecution."

If the case proceeds to a jury trial, the jury will have to determine 
whether the defendant was allowed to be in possession of marijuana 
through the bona fide patient-physician relationship defense.

Seibert said that in district court, "the judge said, 'I'm not going 
to make that call, I'm going to let the jury decide when the jury 
hears the doctor testify and the patient testify, they can decide 
whether it's an ongoing relationship or not.'"

"To get that far, we're going to be sitting in a court room for two 
days arguing that to a jury and I'm simply saying from a dollars and 
cents standpoint it makes more sense to me to go to circuit court and 
try to get the judge to reverse it," Seibert added.

Prior to the vote, the township attorney said that if Chesterfield 
did not appeal the ruling, it could negatively impact hundreds of the 
township's marijuana cases.

"If we don't appeal it, the result is going to be that we're going to 
be taking a lot of these cases to jury trial, which is going to cost 
you substantially more," he said.

The lone dissenting vote against the appeal came from Chesterfield 
Township Trustee David Joseph. He said he's concerned about cases in 
which a patient receives a prescription for medical marijuana from an 
"online doctor" or while not having a longstanding patient-physician 
relationship.

"They can secure a doctor online and call that treating," Joseph 
said. "The difficulty I have is that there are a number of 
pro-marijuana advocacy groups that can't wait to lock onto some test 
case to make their argument on a more statewide or even a larger 
platform ... What concerns me is what happens when there is a real 
effort made to make Chesterfield's case a landmark decision and we're 
in there battling on possession of marijuana charges. This is a 
loser, I think, for the township."

Seibert responded: "The problem you're going to have is you're going 
to be seeing on your bills, on your police department prosecutions, 
all these jury trials, or at least a significantly larger number of 
jury trials on these medical marijuana cases because the judge has 
already ruled now and all our cases are tried before this one judge.

"He has already said, 'In my court, when this argument is raised, I'm 
not going to make that call; it's going to a jury.' So now all of 
these medical marijuana cases are going to get tried. I don't have 
any problem trying them  we have the staff to do that  I'm trying to 
save you some money."

The township attorney said the appeal would likely involve about 10 
to 15 hours of legal work. Jury trials usually take a day or two.

The application of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act is evolving in 
the courts almost monthly, Seibert noted. Township Trustee Hank 
Anderson said he sees the appeal as a way of clarifying the law.

"I look at moving forward as a way of clarifying it and getting an 
answer one way or the other instead of just letting it ride," Anderson said.

Seibert expects a decision to be issued within the next couple of months.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom