(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/06/2023) A large-scale, illegal marijuana grower in Tuscola County can not be charged with a felony because the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act (MRTMA) limits prosecutors to only misdemeanor charges, the Court of Appeals ruled Friday.
The panel concluded Thursday in a published opinion that the MRTMA was “enacted to prevent situations” like Shaaln M. Kejbou’s case “in which the prosecution seeks a felony conviction for an unlicensed marijuana grow operation.”
Appeals Judge James Robert Redford concurred, but wrote separately to say he is “not persuaded that the electorate intended this outcome, considering the express purpose and intent of the MRTMA and the specific facts of this case.”
Redford suggested the Legislature consider amending the MRTMA so that “when an individual engages in the unregulated commercial manufacture of hundreds of marijuana plants, they could be subject to more severe penalties than allowed” in the act, MCL 333.27965, which is a $500 civil infraction.
Kejbou was charged in Tuscola Circuit Court with manufacturing 200 or more marijuana plants and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony after local police received a tip about a large, potentially unlicensed marijuana grow operation.
A subsequent investigation revealed Kejbou had a number of outbuildings, hydroponic equipment, chemicals and other material related to cultivating and harvesting marijuana plants.
In all, officers found 1,156 individual marijuana plants and a loaded 12-gauge shotgun.
Kejbou admitted that he did not have a commercial license to grow marijuana.
After a preliminary examination, Kejbou was bound over to circuit court for trial.
Kejbou argued the citizen-enacted MRTMA limited his charges to misdemeanors while the prosecution argued Article 7 of the Public Health Code – which provides criminal penalties for the manufacture, delivery, possession and use of controlled substances – ruled.
The trial court sided with Kejbou, prompting the prosecution’s appeal.
The appeals panel noted that the MRTMA “broadly decriminalizes” the cultivation of marijuana while the Public Health Code criminalizes the same behavior.
The panel held, however, that the “language and intent of the MRTMA” as it relates to commercial grow operations like Kejbou’s “has been effectively repealed, moderated, or otherwise supplanted by the MRTMA.”
