GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A lawsuit filed by Kent County Prosecutor Bill Forsyth claims that a voter-approved city charter amendment makes "an end run around state law" by prohibiting Grand Rapids cops from doing their duty.

In the suit, Forsyth objects primarily to clauses in the charter amendment that prohibit city police and the city attorney from bringing marijuana offenses to his attention. He posits several examples of marijuana offenses where “the person who violated state law would not be committing a criminal violation of city law – but the officer who arrested the person for violating state law would be.”

“Police officers are sworn to uphold the law,” the suit states. “Officers who are sworn to uphold the law cannot be told that they will be breaking the law by upholding the law.

"The Grand Rapids charter amendment prohibits police officers from doing what state law permits them to do. To that extent, it cannot stand."



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Forsyth was not available for comment. Tyler Nickerson, a spokesman for the citizen initiative that put Proposal 2 on the ballot, said DecriminalizeGR will evaluate a legal response.

Grand Rapids voters on Nov. 6 passed Proposal 2 with 58-percent support. The proposal triggers a city charter amendment that changes marijuana possession and use from a misdemeanor crime to a civil infraction, like a parking ticket.

City Attorney Catherine Mish said Grand Rapids will postpone decriminalization of marijuana pending the suit filed Nov. 30 in Kent County Circuit Court. The city charter amendment was set to take effect Thursday, Dec. 6, but now a court hearing is set for Jan. 9, she said.

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The suit cites a recent court ruling regarding medical marijuana in Wyoming as evidence of a “general rule that a city cannot enact an ordinance that conflicts with state law.” It contends that a city like Grand Rapids does not have the authority to create a civil infraction “for an act (like marijuana possession or use) where a civil infraction is clearly forbidden” by state law.

DecriminalizeGR modeled the Grand Rapids charter amendment after a longstanding rule in Ann Arbor. Forsyth’s suit claims that a 1994 state law – which might not apply in Ann Arbor’s case - restricts Grand Rapids’ ability to make marijuana use a civil infraction.

“The Ann Arbor provision is arguably valid under the ‘grandfather’ theory,” the suit suggests. “But that intellectually interesting question will have to be addressed, if it ever is, by the Washtenaw Circuit Court”