Unlike the United States Supreme Court, our Michigan Supreme Court stays focused and working through the summer. Accordingly, yesterday it released decisions in the remaining two cases from the trio of medical marijuana cases arising here in Oakland County.

The cases involved pot manufacturing, delivery and possession charges brought against Richard Lee Hartwick and Robert Tuttle.  Both defendants asserted the immunity and affirmative defenses that are set forth in the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

Right out of the box, Justice Brian Zahra, writing for a unanimous court, noted the distinction in how the MMA came into being compared to most other laws.  As a voter-based initiative, the MMA was not drafted by legislators with the assistance of the bipartisan legislative council and its staff.  No, the pot law was drafted by the national pot lobby, without a review for, "content, meaning, readability and consistency".

Perhaps because of the manner it was drafted, the MMA has been a highly litigated piece of legislation since its passage in 2008.  There are more than a dozen published Court of Appeals decisions attempting to make sense of the Act; the Michigan Supreme Court has addressed the Act in 9 separate cases.

The Supreme Court remanded both cases back to the Oakland County Circuit Court for new evidentiary hearings to determine whether the accused in each case is entitled to the immunity from prosecution set forth in section 4 of the Act. The High Court affirmed that neither defendant was entitled to assert the affirmative defenses contained at section 8 of the Act.

Upon remand, the Supreme Court crafted a 4-part test to be used by the trial court in assessing whether an accused has complied with the Act. An accused now has the burden to demonstrate through a preponderance of evidence:

• he has a valid medical marijuana card;
• he has kept the amount of marijuana within the limits mandated in the Act [i.e. 12-plants per patient and 2 ounces for personal use];
• all plants were kept in a closed locked facility; and
• he was participating in the medical use of marijuana.

What this tells us here at the Law Blogger is that, unless these guys followed the MMA grow, housing, and storage requirements to the tee, they are doomed for conviction. For our part, we've always been concerned that the sheriff and the courts do not understand how pot is grown and what constitutes "smokable marijuana".

A fresh-cut plant, for example, contains water weight and stem wood; none of it is smokable.  Fast forward several weeks, when the plant is dried and detached from its stem, and it is smokable and weighs less.

How will the sheriff weigh the collieweed, mon?  This is the question that will likely play out at the evidentiary hearings ordered by Justice Zahra and the High Court.

www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com

Imagine one day that you wake-up, get your coffee, and check your bank account to discover that the balance has vanished.  Imagine also that, upon further investigation, you discover that the IRS has swept in during the night and seized your account, not because you have evaded taxes, but on the basis that you have "structured" some of your deposits.

Federal banking regulations require that any deposit in excess of $10,000 be accompanied with identifying paperwork supplied by your bank and submitted to the U.S. Treasury.  Making a series of deposits purposely under the $10k threshold is called "structuring" and it is illegal.

This is the realm of a little known but powerful unit within the IRS: the Criminal Investigations unit.  A federal law designed to catch major drug dealers and terrorists based on their financial activity has apparently, according to Sunday's NYT, devastated some small business owners and ordinary folks over the past 18-months.

Unlike other crimes that involve forfeiture, however, the law empowering the IRS to seize your funds does not require the IRS, or the Department of Justice, to charge you with a specific crime.  As for getting your funds returned; best of luck to you.  Be prepared to hire specialized legal counsel.

The NYT article detailed at least three examples of regular ordinary folks that, for legitimate reasons, made a series of deposits just under the $10,000 threshold, only to have their accounts seized and not returned; at all.  When some of the data was shown to CI's chief, Richard Weber, he agreed to curtail the IRS seizures by focusing only on those cases involving criminal acquisition of the deposited cash, issuing a written statement:

This policy update will ensure that C.I. continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with C.I.'s mission and key priorities.

Cases involving "exceptional circumstances" will also continue to be targeted, as before.  So, per usual, the power remains in the hands of the IRS.

We here at the Law Blogger are never comfortable with statutes designed to catch one type of criminal -in this case, folks purposely attempting to evade federal detection of their ill-gotten gains- but which sweeps up law abiding hard-working individuals in its net.  Also, laws that allow government seizures without bringing a formally charged crime to which people can assert valid defenses are always suspect due to their potential for misapplication, as in the cases detailed in the NYT.

www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com

It's still too early to tell if Michigan's new "Super Drunk" driving law is having an effect on making our roadways safer.  The law took effect last November.

Some following the law have noted that due to plea deals, many convicted of this law are going to rehab rather than jail.  One of the provisions of the law was to double the jail term from 90 to 180 days for convicted super drunk drivers.

According to Eaton County district judge Harvey Hoffman, an early proponent of the new law, more folks are jumping into sobriety courts, or extended rehabilitation programs.   Judge Hoffman cites chronic jail overcrowding as a chief factor in sentencing super drunks to rehabilitation over a six-month jail bit.

Of course, here in Oakland County, there is no such thing as a plea bargain and the prosecutor no longer participates in district sobriety courts.  If you are charged under the Super Drunk law, you will not get an offer to reduce the charge to impaired driving, even if it is your first offense.  Your fate will be in the hands of your sentencing judge.

By comparison, the Eaton County prosecutor has a new policy in super drunk cases of approving a plea reduction to impaired in exchange for the accused's assent to enter into a sobriety court program, forcing the offender to come to terms with their drinking problem. 

The 0.17 blood alcohol level which triggers the new law is not an outrageously high BAC.  On average, the BAC of an arrested driver is 0.16; very close to the super drunk threshold.

So the best thing to do is simply stay off the roads when you've had too much to drink; that way, we're all safer.  If you cannot do that, go on ebay and purchase a "Big Blue Book" as a compulsory 12-step program may be in your future.

http://www.clarkstonlegal.com/

info@clarkstonlegal.com

Since 2009, I have served as a roster attorney for the Michigan Appellate Assigned Counsel System (MAACS). While a MAACS roster attorney hones his knowledge of the many facets of criminal law in the appeal context, most assignments involve assessment of yet another guilty plea appeal. No glory in that, to be sure.

Many of the guilty-plea appeals involve the Sixth Amendment issue of ineffective assistance of counsel. Often, youthful offenders claim they are forced by trial counsel to "take a deal" that they later regret. Rarely do these claims have merit. In almost every case, the Michigan Court of Appeals is not persuaded that the accused youth tendered anything but a knowing and voluntary guilty plea.

The mantra of the trial court taking the plea comes to mind: "Are you pleading guilty here today because you are guilty of this offense?"  The accused, sheepishly, states in the affirmative.

Last year, however, the SCOTUS decided Padilla v Kentucky. The case reversed the conviction of a legal immigrant on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel where the accused was not properly and fully advised of the immigration consequences of his guilty plea.  Padilla was told not to worry about deportation because he had been in the country so long.

The Padilla case has drawn much attention among scholars of the criminal law; not for its immigration component, but for how it has expanded the scope of a lawyers duty to advise their clients of all the myriad consequences associated with their plea.

These consequences go far beyond the mere risk of incarceration and fines.  The potential "collateral" consequences could an individual's right to obtain a loan, obtain insurance benefits, bear arms, to vote, serve on a jury, serve as a foster parent, to participate in particular professions, terminate pension benefits, determine where a person can live, result in the loss of child custody, and in the case of sex crimes, doom the individual to a near lifetime of onerous registration requirements.  This is but a partial listing of the potential consequences.

Difficulties certainly arise for the lawyer facing her client's guilty plea.  The collateral consequences associated with the plea are often scattered across the Michigan Penal Code, and the federal statutes.

Defense counsel is often oblivious to this trap-laden universe.  The courts are wholly unconcerned with consequences to a plea that they do not impose.  For their part, prosecutors are not troubled with matters outside their direct control.

Add to this the fact that Michigan's court-appointed defense counsel advises the accused on nearly a pro-bono basis, and you have the makings for a constitutional catastrophe; or at least an imminent collision with the Padilla holding.

In the Internet-Age, as the number of people with criminal records have increased, so has the ability of employers, educators, lenders, and landlords to gain direct access to those records.  This makes obtaining legal advise as to the collateral consequences of a guilty plea all the more compelling.

Lawyers will have to be sharper than ever as they ambulate across the minefield of the criminal case.  Keep your eyes wide open has always been a trait of the best criminal defense attorneys.

Related story in Sunday NYT:  No sooner was this post uploaded when the Times published a story on the problem with monitoring people that once had the right to carry a weapon, but lost that right due to a felony conviction.

www.clarkstonlegal.com

info@clarkstonlegal.com

University of Michigan Law Quad

As a young attorney back in the early-1990s, I worked for a Detroit law firm and moonlighted as an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy. The adjunct instructor gig was made possible by my willingness to teach federally mandated law courses to female prisoners at the Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth, MI.  One of their chief complaints: sexual assaults by the guards.

The abuse was so common at Scott Correctional, the inmates initiated a lawsuit back in 1996 that eventually resulted in a $15 million jury verdict in the Washtenaw County Circuit Court.  It took until 2008 for the inmates to get their verdict and their vindication.

Earlier this week, UM Law graduate David Mills, a Cleveland, Ohio solo practitioner who's office is his kitchen table and who's mother is his paralegal, had a jury verdict reinstated by the SCOTUS in a prison guard assault case.  Mills filed a suit in federal court on behalf of Michelle Ortiz alleging that she was sexually assaulted during her one-year sentence in an Ohio penitentiary.  Ortiz alleged that she promptly reported the assault and was rewarded with a second assault the very next evening, followed by a stint in solitary confinement.

Mills' suit was a "section 1983" civil rights case which alleged that a state actor, the prison's case manager, failed to take steps sufficient to protect Ortiz's safety.  The jury awarded Ortiz $625,000, but that verdict was reversed on appeal by a panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ortiz was granted certiorari by SCOTUS to determine the procedural issue of whether a defendant that loses a motion for summary judgment, brought early in the case, can appeal a trial court's dispositive decision after a jury verdict on the merits of the case.  Luckily for Attorney Mills, the federal circuit courts of appeal are divided on this issue.

SCOTUS has now ruled that a litigant cannot wait until after a trial to appeal such a dispositive decision; the appeal must be taken interlocatory (in the middle of the case) in order for the issue to be properly preserved.

From time to time, this blog takes note of some of the problems and peculiarities arising from keeping millions of citizens incarcerated.  Obviously, in our free society, you are not free to break the law.  If you do, a stint in prison can be the result.  In the prison business, however, there are cases of clear-cut abuse.  Paying your debt to society should not equate to torture at the hands of the state.

In Ortiz, the prison guard eventually became the prisoner.  Just as Michiganders did in the Scott Correctional case, Ohioans can pick-up the tab for the incarcerated, and for the abuser's wrongful deeds.

www.clarkstonlegal.com

info@clarkstonlegal.com

Did you know that at any given moment, up to 2.3 million citizens are confined in our prisons in the United States?  Unfortunately, we lead the world in the incarceration industry.

This week, the Supreme Court will hear extended oral argument (80-minutes) in the case of Schwarzenegger v Plata.  You may recall that the governor of our largest state, Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared in 2006 that acute prison overcrowding had reached a crisis stage, "that gets worse with each passing day."

In California, there are approximately 160,000 men and women behind bars.  The prisons in that state are operating at 195% capacity meaning that two inmates occupy a space designed for one.

If petitioners are successful, a favorable ruling from the SCOTUS could release up to 40,000 inmates in California alone.

So far, the Prison Law Offices in Berkley, a non-profit organization specializing in prisoners' rights cases, sucessfully petitioned for convening a special three-judge District Court panel to assess the prisoners' claim under the Prisoner Litigation Relief Act.  Once convened, the prisoners' lawyers next convinced that panel to find that all conditions for a prisoner release order had been met.

The three-judge panel (not an appellate court, mind you) then ruled that the prison population must be reduced (significantly) over a two-year period.  This order, along with some complex jurisdictional issues, will be argued at SCOTUS this week.

One of the core issues is whether the admittedly overcrowded conditions in the California prisons affect the inmates' constitutional rights.  This approach is distinct from your basic habeas corpus petition and could result in a landmark prisoners' rights case.   

Among several other arguments, California asserts that it is simply not equipped to cut loose tens of thousands of convicted felons into its collapsing economy.  It does appear there is no good solution to this knotty problem.

Our laws become meaningless unless enforced.  Violent offenders must be punished to deter other violent crimes.  At what point, however, do we become a nation behind bars?

Michigan Connection:  Attorney General Mike Cox has joined several other states in filing an amicus brief in favor of rescinding the prisoner release order.

info@clarkstonlegal.com

http://www.clarkstonlegal.com/

Last March, we posted on the ACLU's constitutional challenge to Michigan's court-appointed attorney system. Duncan v Michigan was then heading for oral argument before the Michigan Supreme Court and it looked like the challenge was going to acquire some legs.  Here is an update.

After hearing arguments in the case in April, the Supreme Court at first affirmed the 2-1 decision of the Michigan Court of Appeals, sending the matter back to the Ingham County Circuit Court (the trial court) for further trial proceedings to determine whether our court-appointed criminal defense system supplied criminal defendants their constitutional right to legal counsel. The Supreme court held that it was too early to dismiss the case below and the Ingham Circuit Judge did so prematurely.

The Supreme Court reversed course in July, granting the Attorney General's motion for reconsideration, vacating its previous order, and expressly adopting Judge William C. Whitbeck's 35-page dissent in favor of dumping the case at the summary disposition level.

What changed? What happened?

The high court was divided 4 justices to 3 on this reversal, with Justices Corrigan and Young joining Justice Markman's statement of concurrence. The majority simply pronounced that their prior order was wrong.  Four justices held that allowing the case to proceed further would amount to having the judiciary inappropriately determine Michigan's system of local funding and control of legal services to indigent people.

Justices Cavanagh and Hathaway joined Justice Marilyn Kelly's dissent, claiming that the certified class of litigants did have a "justiciable" action; that nothing new had been raised on reconsideration to justify reversing the high court's prior order; and that, "[t]oday's order slams the courthouse door in plaintiffs' face for no good reason."

Among others, we here at the Law Blogger eagerly anticipated seeing how the proofs would have developed regarding the delivery of legal services to the poor people of neighboring Genesee County. For the moment, however, and probably forever, the appellate courts have passed on deciding the issue.

www.clarkstonlegal.com

info@clarkstonlegal.com

National Public Radio recently ran a segment on its "All Things Considered" program which was highly critical of the way lawyers are appointed by county circuit courts to defend the indigent accused here in Michigan.  Click here to link to the full story.

The piece attracted dozens of comments.  NPR focused on one of the "bad apples"; Attorney Bob Slamenka from Detroit.  Slamenka just never seems to have sufficient time, energy or resources to pull-off competent representation of his court-appointed felony clients. 

In addition to a series of grievances, Slamenka is now notorious for his appellate representation of wrongfully-convicted sex offender, Eddie Lloyd.  Attorney Slamenk's appeal failed, as do the overwhelming majority of all appeals from criminal convictions in Michigan.  This is nothing new.  The problem arose, however, when Lloyd filed a grievance against Slamenka prompting the following response from the attorney:

"This is a sick individual who raped, kidnapped and strangled a young woman on her way to school. His claim of my wrongdoing is frivolous, just as is his existence. Both should be terminated."

Ultimately, Lloyd was proved innocent by DNA evidence but died just two years after his release from 17-years in prison.  Consequently, Slamenka's ill-worded grievance rejoinder is now "exhibit a" for  what is wrong with the court-appointed criminal defense system.

All attorneys represent criminal clients they suspect are guilty.  When the client loses his case, the attorney is often the first to blame.  The criminal defense attorney functions as a "constitutional warrior", forcing the government to prove its case, even when the odds are against success (for the accused).  If the criminal appellate attorney does his/her job properly, a convicted felon benefits from a well-researched and well-reasoned brief from which his conviction can be tested in the appellate courts.  This principle is fundamental to our system of criminal justice and separation of powers:  everyone gets the opportunity to appeal a conviction.

Unfortunately, Michigan does rank near the bottom of all states in the category of public resources devoted to indigent criminal defense.  In this era of fiscal short-falls, this will not change soon.  Roster attorneys with the Michigan Assigned Appellate Counsel System receive as many as one assignment each week from the Wayne Circuit Court.  These attorneys are paid about twenty five cents on the dollar for what their services are worth in the world of privately retained-counsel.  This type of public legal service is essential if our constitutional principles are to be sustained into the 21st Century.

It sure would be nice if cutting edge defense tools, such as DNA analysis, and the use of court-appointed experts, were available to exonerate the truly innocent.  Yet, unless the court-appointed attorney is focused on his game, all the funding in the world won't save the client.

If you, a family member or friend are in need of quality criminal representation, contact our law firm to discuss your options:
www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com