M- Live
LANSING, MI — A Michigan Supreme Court decision has reignited calls to smooth out the state’s vastly different punishments for similar marijuana crimes, currently ranging from a misdemeanor up to lengthy prison stints.
The state Court of Appeals in 2023 ruled that growing any number of marijuana plants — even the 1,000-plus seized from an illegal Tuscola County grow in 2020 — was a misdemeanor crime regulated under the 2018 voter-passed Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act.
However, the same court in October said prosecutors may alternately charge suspects under a 1978 Public Health Act law that includes a felony punishment of up to 15 years in prison for anyone possessing with intent to deliver more than 99 pounds of harvested marijuana or 200 plants.
The Supreme Court was asked to review the October ruling but declined in a 6-1 order issued July 11.
Justice Kyra H. Bolden, who cast the dissenting vote, believes the court should have heard arguments.
In her dissent, Bolden wrote the two separate outcomes illustrate “how Michigan’s dual statutory framework … creates confusion that may yield harsh criminal consequences for nonviolent conduct that falls” within Michigan’s 2018 legalization law.
In the absence of a Supreme Court review, Bolden urged the Legislature to “modernize Michigan’s marijuana laws to bring clarity, coherence, and fairness to an area of law that remains plagued by contradiction.”
THE BUST
In coordination with the truck driver and Michigan State Police, the shipment proceeded to its intended recipient in Niles, where Julia K. Soto was inside.
Berrien County prosecutors charged Soto under the 1978 law with operating a drug house and possession with intent to deliver between 5 and 45 kilograms of marijuana, punishable by up to seven years in prison
‘RATHER INCONSISTENT’
In that case, the Court of Appeals said the crimes fell under the purview of cultivation limits established by the 2018 law and Kejbou couldn’t be charged with the harsher felony laws imposed nearly 50 years ago.
Soto’s attorney, Daniel Grow, felt the same logic should apply to his client, although she wasn’t accused of illegal cultivation.
Grow appealed and lost. The Court of Appeals said the 2018 law addresses cultivation, not possession with intent to deliver. For that reason, it wasn’t inappropriate for Berrien County to issue the felony charge.
“To the extent that possession with intent to deliver remains a felony in Michigan, but cultivating any amount is not, seems rather inconsistent,” Grow said. “That someone would grow 1,000 marijuana plants without the intent to distribute them” is unlikely
Grow believes it was the voters’ intent for people like Soto to be punished under the 2018 law, not those created during marijuana prohibition.
