Lansing medical marijuana cases drag on as law evolves

LANSING – One law and the case against three men have been in limbo for years as the justice system tries to determine what’s legal and what’s not when it comes to medical marijuana.

The case against the men — Zebediah Dewey, Daniel Corbin and Michael Lewis Jr. — is an example of how the poorly drafted medical marijuana law that didn’t set up a clear legal mechanism for patients to buy the drug is still evolving in Michigan’s courts.

After the 2008 law took effect, dispensaries like the Hydroworld locations in Lansing, where the three men worked, began to spring up until they were declared illegal.

They now operate in a legal gray area until a law enforcement agency chooses to shut them down or arrest people who work there — as Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office did with Dewey, Corbin and Lewis in 2012.

The case has been already dismissed by one Lansing judge, a decision that was appealed by the Attorney General’s Office. The dismissal was upheld in 2013 by another Lansing judge, who at the time said the law’s ambiguity had to be interpreted in favor of the defendants.

“To suggest one can assist in using or administering marihuana in accordance with the MMMA and that this would not include obtaining marihuana would be an absurd conclusion,” 54A District Court Judge Hugh Clarke said in his order to dismiss the case in 2012.

But that was before the third Supreme Court opinion on the law, which was applied retroactively, said that patient-to-patient sales — like the kind in the Dewey, Corbin and Lewis case — were illegal.

Just last week the law’s landscape shifted again — for the eighth and ninth time — when the Supreme Court issued its opinions on People v. Hartwick and People v. Tuttle. Those opinions resulted in the attorneys altering or refining the legal strategies before a hearing next month.

Those maneuvers are nothing new for the three men, who have been stuck in a legal system that may finally determine in 2015 whether their actions in 2011 broke a law that’s been clarified nine times.

Nick Bostic, Lewis’ attorney, said he was glad they were able to once again push back the trial, this time to November.

“We felt that this was coming,” he said. “And now when we do our motions and Judge (Rosemarie) Aquilina issues her rulings, we’ve reduced the risk that we will go up and come back again.”

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment, citing policy not to comment on pending litigation.

Before he became attorney general in 2011, Schuette was a Court of Appeals judge and served as chairman of Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Kids, a group that opposed the 2008 voter initiative that created the state’s Medical Marihuana Act. The ballot proposal passed with 63% of the vote.

A month before that vote, Schuette told the Associated Press that the law was “so deeply flawed and carelessly and loosely written that as a judge I would say the problem here is the law of unintended consequences that provides deep pitfalls for Michigan voters in November.”

He added that he was sensitive to the issues facing people with severe pain problems, but also felt the bill would make it easier for children and teens to obtain marijuana for recreational use.

Lansing Police Chief Mike Yankowski said his department handles the city’s dispensaries on a case-by-case basis, in conjunction with prosecutors. He added that most law enforcement agencies would like much of the law to be clarified.

The undercover operation that kicked off the case focused on two Hydroworld medical marijuana dispensaries in south Lansing.

Undercover officers from Michigan State Police and the Lansing Police Department bought marijuana from the dispensaries about 10 times between May and September 2011, posing as patients in the process of applying for their medical marijuana licenses.

The officers were able to buy 1/8 of an ounce of marijuana without their medical marijuana licenses, according to testimony.

The law allows patients to have up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana. If they have not specified a caregiver they can also have up to 12 marijuana plants kept in an enclosed, locked facility. Caregivers are allowed to cultivate and sell marijuana to their designated patients.

But patients aren’t required to have a designated caregiver, which creates problems because the law doesn’t otherwise address how a patient can legally get marijuana.

The defendants sold officers marijuana after seeing their application for the state license, helping them fill out an application or remembering them from a previous instance when they had their application, the officers testified.

The defendants are all charged with several counts of delivering/manufacturing marijuana. Corbin, of Lansing, is facing seven counts. Lewis, of Lansing, is facing six counts. Dewey, of Six Lakes, is facing two counts. A fourth defendant, Rick Gouin, was charged but failed to appear during a hearing in District Court, so his case is pending in District Court. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest.

Each charge has a seven-year maximum sentence.

The Attorney General’s Office filed a motion June 19 to prevent the men from using the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act in their defense.

Attorneys for the three men charged in Circuit Court said their clients are frustrated with the process.

Lewis’ attorney, Nick Bostic, said his client started working at Hydroworld “to help people take advantage of the new law.” He added that Lewis no longer works at the dispensary.

“It is very frustrating to have expectations changed when the lower courts rule in your favor but you still have to be put through a prosecution months later,” Bostic said in an email.

Danny Trevino, Hydroworld’s owner, didn’t return a message left seeking comment.

Corbin, the only one of the three still working at the dispensary, had been a construction worker and was looking for a job when he was offered a position at the dispensary, his attorney Vince Green said in a recent interview.

Green said a criminal charge and a prolonged court case has created anxiety for his client. It wasn’t as if Corbin did something that in his mind was obviously wrong or criminal, Green said.

“He felt what he was doing was within the bounds of law. And he still continues to feel that way today,” Green said. “He’s really mystified, I guess you could say confused, about why he’s being prosecuted when he, as a lay person, thought he was within the bounds of the law.”

In the opinions for Tuttle and Hartwick, Justice Brian Zahra said the process that led to the law being passed contributed to its poor drafting. The voters who passed that law didn’t have the responsibility to write and edit the law “for content, meaning, readability, or consistency,” he said.

“The many inconsistencies in the law have caused confusion for medical marijuana caregivers and patients, law enforcement, attorneys, and judges, and have consumed valuable public and private resources to interpret and apply it,” he said.

Zahra’s comments echo those by Clarke and Ingham County Circuirt Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina more than two years ago when they dismissed the cases against Dewey, Corbin and Lewis.

“This court believes that the MMMA screams for legislative clarification in numerous areas, however, absent that clarification, this court concludes that the transactions that took place here were undertaken in accordance with the MMMA,” Clarke said in 2012 in his order to dismiss the charges.

Clarke said that according to testimony the transactions in this case involved a review of the appropriate documents and the defendants believed they were assisting people get marijuana that they had a medical need for.

The Attorney General’s Office appealed Clarke’s ruling to dismiss the charges. The appeal was handled by Aquilina, who upheld the decision. She added that the law was “poorly drafted” and had “conflicting provisions.”

But the case was bound over to Ingham County Circuit Court after the Supreme Court ruled that patient-to-patient sales were illegal.

Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.

By the numbers

173,495

active registered medical marijuana patients in Michigan as of last week.

33,004

registered medical marijuana caregivers statewide.

9

number of Michigan Supreme Court rulings on the Medical Marihuana Act passed by state voters in 2008.

63%

of voters who favored the statue making marijuana available for medical uses such as pain control.

23

number of states that allow medical marijuana

4

number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana

Sources: Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulation, Michigan Supreme Court, governing.com website