State trial courts in Michigan can no longer ban marijuana use as a condition of probation, under a unanimous opinion released by the Michigan Supreme Court on Monday, July 6.
In People v. Hess, the court’s seven justices found that lower courts erroneously cited federal marijuana laws when deciding if it was legal to ban marijuana use while on probation. Recreational marijuana has been legal in Michigan for those 21 and older since 2018. The state also allows medical marijuana for qualifying patients.
In a unanimous opinion for the court, Justice Elizabeth Welch cited the 2014 case Ter Beek v. City of Wyoming, when the high court ruled the state’s medical marijuana laws at the time preempted a federal ban on marijuana use. (In that case Wyoming, a suburb of Grand Rapids, had argued John Ter Beek, a resident, shouldn’t have been able to grow marijuana plants for medical use on his property in the city because federal law banned marijuana use. When the case made its way to the Michigan Supreme Court, justices ruled the state’s medical marijuana law pre-empted the federal Controlled Substances Act, and the city could not cite it as a reason to ban Ter Beek from growing the plants.)
Because the Supreme Court already ruled Michigan’s medical marijuana law preempted a federal ban on marijuana, that preemption should apply to the state’s recreational marijuana law as well, Welch stated.
“The (Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act) provides that MRTMA-compliant use of marijuana shall not be grounds for arrest, prosecution, penalty, search, or the denial of any right or privilege. And when the MRTMA conflicts with state laws — including the probation act — the MRTMA controls,” Welch wrote.
“Rather than looking to state law, the Court of Appeals incorrectly deferred to the federal bar on marijuana use. In so doing, the panel failed to apply the preemption principles we elucidated in Ter Beek. Those principles make clear that federal law barring recreational marijuana use does not preempt the MRTMA.”
The ruling doesn’t apply to probation sentences handed down in federal courts, Welch wrote.
In August 2021, Danielle Heaven-Leah Hess pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree retail fraud, and was sentenced to one year of probation. The probation order prohibited Hess from using or possessing marijuana, and required that she submit to marijuana drug screenings. On two occasions in 2022, she tested positive for marijuana, resulting in two violations of her probation.
Hess pleaded guilty to the first probation violation but following the second violation, she asked the district court to amend the terms of her probation to allow the use and possession of marijuana, to remove her first violation and to dismiss her second violation, arguing that the condition of prohibiting marijuana use during probation violated state law.
The district court upheld its ruling, which was subsequently upheld by a Court of Appeals panel. But the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the decision and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals with a direction to amend Hess’ probation terms, vacate the first probation violation and dismiss the second violation.
Montcalm County Prosecutor Thomas Ginster, who argued the case on the state’s behalf, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.
Free Press staff writer Adrienne Roberts contributed with prior reporting.
You can reach Arpan Lobo at alobo@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan Supreme Court: Weed use can’t be banned as probation condition
Reporting by Arpan Lobo, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Arpan Lobo, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
