A young Pekin man will serve jail and demanding probation terms, but no prison, for causing an accident that killed his best friend about a week after he said he last smoked marijuana.

The judge who sentenced Brock Meerseman on Wednesday paused several times in deep thought over the case that pitted the chemical science of marijuana against how the drug is treated in the state’s DUI law.

The law has been under review since marijuana became legal for medical purposes this year. It’s also been criticized for allowing drivers in cases such as Meerseman’s to be convicted of driving under the influence when no evidence of impairment exists.

It has put state courts in a “tenuous position,” said Tazewell County Associate Judge Tim Cusack. “There will be more and more instances of this kind of case.”

Meerseman’s case stood unique on its own.

Cusack found “extenuating circumstances” to sentence the 20-year-old to six months in jail and four years’ probation, rather than an otherwise-mandatory prison term of three to 14 years for aggravated DUI causing death.

The sentence brought tears to the mother of Brandon Haley, 19, who was killed instantly in October 2013 when a power pole guy wire sheared off the roof and passenger doors of Meerseman’s airborne car.

Meerseman didn’t heed a flashing warning sign 760 feet from the end of Hickory Grove Road at its intersection with Wagonseller Road, or the stop sign where the road ended.

He was talking with Haley as they drove shortly after dawn, he said. The two were driving to Pekin after they ended a late night of fishing by sleeping in the car, Meerseman said.

Police found $4,200 in cash and a small container that smelled of marijuana residue in the car. Six days earlier Meerseman was cited with a city ordinance for possessing a marijuana pipe.

He admitted smoking the drug that day. After the accident nearly a week later, inert chemical residue of marijuana called metabolites were found in his urine. A blood sample, which might have determined whether Meerseman had more recently smoked the drug, was not taken after the crash.

Under the state DUI law, “We don’t have to prove” Meerseman was impaired by the drug at the time of the crash, Assistant State’s Attorney Kate Legge told Cusack. The mere presence of the metabolites was a violation of the driving law, she said.

“The state wants you to believe” marijuana caused Meerseman to miss the warning and stop signs, countered defense attorney Brian Addy. “But it has no evidence.” Meerseman “didn’t plead guilty to impaired driving, but to causing an accident that killed,” he said.

While Cusack accepted the DUI law as it stands in his sentence considerations, he speculated that Meerseman might have been impaired by fatigue rather than marijuana.

A prison sentence “would end this case” when Meerseman completes it, he said. “Probation doesn’t.”

Cusack ordered Meerseman to “speak publicly as often as possible” to community groups about the dangers of drugs and driving during his probation. He also will work 1,000 hours of community service, spend the first 18 months under house curfew and submit often to drug and alcohol tests.

“If there’s any amount of (those intoxicants), even trace amounts, you’re going to prison,” Cusack warned him.

Follow Michael Smothers at Twitter.com/msmotherspekin