» Entries tagged with "AMMA"

Prove You’re Not Impaired

November 30th, 2015 | 3 Comments

The best thing I can say about the recent Supreme Court of Arizona opinion in Dobson v. McClennen is that it is far better than the terrible Court of Appeals opinion it vacates. The heart of the issue in the case is the Mesa City Prosecutor’s Office’s despicable desire to convict medical marijuana patients of driving under the influence when they are not under the influence. The Court of Appeals of Arizona condoned the practice. Although the Supreme Court of Arizona disagreed, it placed the burden on patients to prove their lack of impairment. It is actually a pretty simple issue if you do not have something against medical marijuana and a serious creative streak when it comes to statutory interpretation, as A.R.S. § 36-2802(D) provides that a medical marijuana patient … Read entire article »

Filed under: DUI, Medical Marijuana

The Posts at Mimesis Law Continue

November 20th, 2015 | Add a Comment

I’m still posting twice a week at Mimesis Law. Here are my most recent posts: That asshole who hit that biker really needs a lawyer. People in the system sure protect their own. Sometimes, medical marijuana gives users more power than just legalizing it. Trial is risky. Aluminum foil hats are all the rage in Las Vegas. Whatever you do, don’t twerk a stranger in DC. What’s the right sentence for a hate crime? And this one went up today: Jared from Subway isn’t anything special. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Bikers' Rights, Courts, Drugs, Government Rants, Medical Marijuana

Nothing Better To Do

September 11th, 2015 | 3 Comments

My biggest takeaway from State v. Foncette is that there must be no crime in Tempe. Officers stopped Foncette, apparently smelled marijuana, and brought a drug dog to the scene. The dog alerted, but they found nothing. They proceeded to follow him to a hotel and walked with the dog down the hallway outside of the room where he was staying. The dog alerted outside of his room, and officers knocked. When he opened the door, officers apparently smelled marijuana again. Foncette left the room when officers asked, but his companion did not. Police then detained both of them, and they subsequently got a warrant for a nighttime search of the hotel room. They found a lot of marijuana. Obviously, there were no burglaries in Tempe that night. I am sure … Read entire article »

Filed under: Arizona Cases, Drugs, Medical Marijuana

Ignoring The Will Of The People

April 15th, 2015 | Add a Comment

You would never in a million years see an opinion like State v. Hancock in anything but a criminal case. In it, the Supreme Court of Arizona spent its valuable time analyzing a provision that said a certain group authorized to do a certain thing cannot be denied “any right or privilege . . . by a court” for doing that thing. One party was a member of that group, and the other party was trying to have a court deny her the thing a court by law cannot deny her. It might seem like the Supreme Court’s conclusion is beyond obvious, and it surely should be. The problem, however, is that the party arguing the law does not mean what it says is the State of Arizona, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Drugs

Let This Be A Lesson

February 16th, 2015 | Add a Comment

If you read it carefully, the recent opinion from the Arizona Court of Appeals in State v. Woods can tell you a lot about how criminal appeals work in Arizona. In it, the trial court judge did something very unusual and suppressed evidence obtained during a lawful initial stop and subsequent search of a car because the defendant refused to allow the officer to search some boxes and the officer had no information “to suggest a basis for reasonable suspicion as to the transportation of illegal substances.” The officer had first found the boxes in question during a supposed consent search. The appellate court wrote that the trial court “acknowledged” that their “consistency and density” was “consistent with his experience with packaging of illegal substances.” The use of … Read entire article »

Filed under: Arizona Cases, Drugs

A Big Year For Marijuana DUI

January 23rd, 2015 | 2 Comments

In Arizona, a marijuana DUI used to be a pretty cut and dried thing. The law said it was a crime to be in actual control of a vehicle with marijuana “or its metabolite” in your body, and courts treated it as a strict liability offense for all metabolites, regardless of impairment. Marijuana DUIs were pretty much all charged under two subsections: (A)(1), which requires proof of impairment to the slightest degree, and (A)(3), the strict liability subsection that did not. Luckily, that changed when the Supreme Court of Arizona held last April that drivers cannot be convicted of the (A)(3) offense based merely on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite that may reflect prior usage of marijuana. As the opinion explained, THC is the primary psychoactive component … Read entire article »

Filed under: DUI

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