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Medical Marijuana Decision Reversed


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The only medical-marijuana case to end in conviction in Long Beach Superior Court has been overturned on appeal, and prosecutors have not yet decided whether to retry the case.

 

Marie Rutledge was charged last year with possessing marijuana in her car but claimed it was medically prescribed to treat her asthma, muscle spasms and migraine headaches. Her Long Beach jury disagreed, finding her guilty of cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana and public intoxication.

 

After reviewing the case and hearing oral arguments in Los Angeles last month, the Second Appellate District Court of Appeal reversed the jury verdict based on a recent California Supreme Court decision that lowers the defendant's burden of proof in such cases.

 

The Supreme Court case, People v. Mower, states that "the defendant should be required merely to raise a reasonable doubt as to those (underlying) facts rather than to prove them by a preponderance of the evidence.'

 

The court stated that Rutledge's jurors may have returned a different verdict had they been instructed properly. For example, the fact that Rutledge introduced evidence of her maladies may have been enough to raise reasonable doubt, the court found.

 

Rutledge is one of four people charged in Long Beach with marijuana possession but who claim they are exempt from prosecution under the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Two of those cases were ultimately dismissed, and one has yet to be tried.

 

Allen Fields, who runs the Long Beach branch of the Los Angeles district attorney's office, said he hasn't yet decided whether to retry the Rutledge case or dismiss it.

 

"I haven't seen the appeal,' he said Friday. "We'll take a look at it and decide what to do.'

 

Deputy Public Defender Leslie Allenby, who represented Rutledge during her trial, said she was pleased by the decision and hoped it would end the case.

 

"It's the right result,' she said. "I do hope that they choose not to litigate it again because it's much ado about nothing.'

 

Attorney J. David Nick, who filed the appeal, also had argued that Long Beach prosecutors committed prosecutorial misconduct when they suggested that Rutledge's doctor might subject himself to prosecution if he testified on her behalf. The doctor ultimately asserted the Fifth and refused to testify.

 

The Court of Appeal rendered no opinion on that matter, however, saying such a thing was "unlikely to recur at any new trial.'

 

Source: Press-Telegram

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