I Need Help, Asap!

[sho]

I'll be in Lansing tomorrow, I just found out I am being charged with OWI in the 3rd (potential prision). I need help getting any prior court cases pertaining to impaired driving and marihuana. I'm also going to try and raise a legal fund, try to get my union behind me, and make this a very, very public case if it means prision time.

 

It's time to set a precedent and challenge Michigan's driving laws. I need help from everyone I can get, I'm barely old enough to drink and looking at prison time for trying to comply with the law (was selling my car at the time of arrest). I hope the community will come behind me, I had lots of problems with prescription drugs and alcohol, before quitting the destructive chemicals, and choosing a safer alternative.

 

Thank you for your time,

 

sho

[Ashenfall]

I obviously don't know the details of your situation, but you may want to do some searching on Google for a Michigan Supreme Court decision 'People vs Feezel" from June of last year. In the case, they overturned an earlier decision and ruled that drug metabolites are not necessarily proof of impairment. That precedent may have some bearing on your case.

[sho]

Well, my old warrant got revoked and new charges have been filed. Currently there's a $5,000 bond on me. I'm going to turn myself in, in a few hours, and bond out. Had police harassing my Grandma tonight at 11:30PM.

[michiganmedclones]

Turning yourself in is the best way to handle this, trust me. I've had warrants for unpaid child support (no I'm not a deadbeat dad my son lives with me now) and other stupid charges (possession before medical was approved etc.) anyways I've ran from them for weeks, months, maybe even a year on one warrant and when I got picked up on a traffic stop they were NOT happy with the year long hunt, where as when I turn myself in youre usually in and out within 5-6 hours as long as you can post bond. They honestly respect the fact you are taking care of your business and you will definatly recieve preferred treatment as well as it will look better when you go to court. Do some case studys while youre on bond awaiting trial, if you can lawer up and get past this. You sound like your young and you do NOT want to ruin your life by running and then having the book thrown at you when you finally do get caught, they will get you, trust me. Good luck brother, stay dignified and get through this, life will go on my friend.

[lawyercaregiver]

Back in 2005 the boys were not very likely to plead down a 3rd OWI. I don't know current practice and have never had an OWI marijuana case. Give me a break- how high do you have to be to be impaired from pot? This may be one to spend the big bucks on a big time lawyer. Again back in 2005 a 3rd OWI was equal to about 6 months in jail!

 

If your conviction is based on impaired from marijuana I would fight and fight over that one. Did they take blood to determine THC levels? If not, you could easily walk on this one IMHO.

 

Good luck.

[Mememe]

.

[sho]

Do you have your card? You are charged with OWI because of marijuana or because of alcohol? You can probably plead it down to OWI 2nd which is a misdemeanor. If you don't beat the case you will have a lot of costs associated with this. The secretary of state hits you with the driver responsibility fee which is $1000 each year for 2 years. Then, even if you do get probation you'll have to pay for all of that. You really do need a lawyer. A lawyer can save you more money than it will cost to hire one in this case I bet.

 

It's for marijuana. I also got a driving without a license, that I don't argue. Sure, I broke the law. A reasonable jury would see that I was selling my car at the time of arrest to comply with state law for habitual OWI offenders. Was literally bringing it home from some dumb f--king kids test drive, less than a quarter mile from my house when the flashing lights went on. I'm hoping to throw some fundraisers and get some money built up for a defense fund, I'm emotionally prepared to fight this battle. I'm going to take a public defender when I go in for arraignment Wednesday, but will need lots of luck to land a good attorney in town.

 

 

Back in 2005 the boys were not very likely to plead down a 3rd OWI. I don't know current practice and have never had an OWI marijuana case. Give me a break- how high do you have to be to be impaired from pot? This may be one to spend the big bucks on a big time lawyer. Again back in 2005 a 3rd OWI was equal to about 6 months in jail!

 

If your conviction is based on impaired from marijuana I would fight and fight over that one. Did they take blood to determine THC levels? If not, you could easily walk on this one IMHO.

 

Good luck.

I'm trying to get a copy of the police report to see if they did a sobriety test on me. It was so stressful and I was treated like bunny muffin, it's all a big blur to me. I know the standard impairment tests, but how do they think someone with chronic pain associated with arthritis and spinal joint problems can walk a straight line heel to doe and stand on one foot while reciting the Latin alphabet? Not to mention the "9 steps forward, stop, pivot on your right foot, then return towards me 6 paces" ... Really sir? I'm expected to do all that on the side of the road at 9pm in March, black as all hell, following your flashlight for "the straight line"?

 

I know a guy in the area who got 3 years for OWI in the 3rd.

 

Mind you, this is the same county where Brenda Chase was sentenced last year for the same thing -- http://michiganmedicalmarijuana.org/topic/26588-legal-view-of-marijuana-case-driving/

 

Now from what I gather is just time to get my info together, challenging the legality of the stop and I'm requesting ALL arrest reports from the Officer that arrested me concerning any of his OWI, OWPD, OWVI, and Posession arrests. I'm curious if non-MM patients driving are getting charged with OWI or simple posession. If they are getting possessions, it sure would seem like it's discrimination on the officer's behalf.

 

 

I'm fired up. I'm ready to fight this.

[+wolfgang]

I wonder if it's not best to get a jury instead of going before a judge? google that and see what you come up with,frankly I think ppl are sick of wasting tax money on this bunny muffin,and it sounds like a weak case,did you tell them you had just smoked? RULE number one young grasshopper admit to nothing EVER,EVER,EVER!!Get your hands on that police report.

Go to copblock.com for lots of ways how to handle yourself from here on after.

[sho]

Seen 'em all, was asked when I last used my response was "A while ago". It's written on my ticket that I admitted to "use 2 hours before", yeah no. That's what the officers timeframe of "a while" is, I guess.

 

Our country is dead broke too.

 

If anyone would like to write or call, not sure what people should say -- maybe "I don't want to see country dollars being spent to prosecute and incarcerate medical marijuana users, especially those trying to comply with the law". I'll be going before Judge Glen Pearson. Here's the contact info ...

 

94th District Court

Judge Glenn Pearson

310 Ludington Street

Escanaba, MI 49829-4057

(906) 789-5106

 

I'm not sure how we can change his mind, he's a royal donkey rectum. It'll be bonded to circuit court aswell, and the judge there is Stephen Davis -- who does NOT know how to dictate child support cases, everywhere else in the U.P. it starts with 50/50 custody and child support to the lesser of the two parents. With Mr. Davis, say GOODBYE to your kids men, the junkie ex-wive's get them before you do.

[+wolfgang]

well there you go awhile ago could mean ANYTHING,that to me sounds weak,did they do a blood test?

[sho]

Yeah, I called a lawyer asking if I should consent and he said yes, since they'd just refuse my bail and hold me till they got a search warrant for blood. Then I was at the mercy of the jail nurse for the blood draw instead of the hospital, I've had bad experiences getting IV's and don't care for needles one bit.

 

Last jail nurse I met regularly gave inmates wrong prescriptions, came into work drunk on more than one of the weekends I was sitting in jail, and had a bad case of the shakes (guessing it was from the lack of booze the other weekends).

 

 

The judge here, though, thinks ANY trace of THC in your system is impairment. 29 days after using your medicine, you just "happen" to test positive, you're INTOXICATED!

[+wolfgang]

well your lawyer needs the MI supreme courts decision to move him wrong google that bunny muffin too.

[sho]

Yep, Wed is my arraignment at 10AM if anyone is near Escanaba, I want to pack the courtroom with people in pro-cannabis apparel. Gotta show this judge that the will of the voters was NOT to keep patients house ridden. I'm sure most voters didn't understand the 30 days it takes to show up "clean", and the "shall not operate a motor vehicle" was intended to mean "while impaired by". Just my interpretation...

 

10AM - Delta County Courthouse - 94th District Court - Yoopers, let's show Judge Pearson we won't tolerate criminalizing patients.

[Zerocool]

sho get a hold of richard clark or john bergman or james viau them are the best for delta county as attorneys go,if you get one from the court plz post who you got and pm me to if you can

[Zerocool]

i dont know if this will help or not but it might be some thing to bring up

 

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/michigan/Judge-rules-against-blood-alcohol-tests

[LongHairBri]

if they drew blood, dude your F U C * E D, have cash and you walk (sorta).

[sho]

if they drew blood, dude your F U C * E D, have cash and you walk (sorta).

We'll see about that.

 

Troy, will be sure to get in touch with you. Or come down to the court Wed, bring your MMMA shirt or I can get you one that morning I believe.

[Zerocool]

A recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling makes it more difficult to prove drugged-driving cases involving marijuana.

 

The high court overturned a 2006 ruling that 11-carboxy-THC — a long-lasting byproduct of metabolism created when the body breaks down the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana — is a schedule 1 controlled substance, a drug classification that includes heroin.

 

Now, prosecutors will have to prove drivers had the actual narcotic or its active ingredient in their systems at the time they are alleged to have been driving while drugged.

 

Previously, people could have been charged with a driving offense involving drugs long after they had ingested or inhaled marijuana because the metabolite remains in the body for a month after use.

 

Defense lawyer Jerry Engle said this means people who were convicted since 2006 of drugged-driving based on a finding of the metabolite should be talking to a lawyer. Their convictions could be set aside, he said.

 

In Jackson County, there might have been 100 such cases, he said.

 

Jerrold Schrotenboer, Jackson County’s chief appellate attorney, is not so sure. “I am not particularly concerned about a flood of overturned convictions or motions,” he said.

 

Operating with the presence of a controlled substance in the body is a misdemeanor and people only have six months to challenge a misdemeanor, he said.

 

The two lawyers argued the topic of 11-carboxy-THC before the Supreme Court in January 2006, after which the court made the ruling it recently overturned.

 

At issue were cases from Jackson and Grand Traverse counties. The local case involved the prosecution of Dennis Kurts for driving with marijuana in his system.

 

Blackman Township police in February 2004 cited Kurts, 44, of Michigan Center after he was stopped for driving erratically. He admitted smoking pot, but a blood test did not detect the narcotic THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is in marijuana. It did show the presence of carboxy THC.

 

The most recent Supreme Court ruling stemmed from a 2005 Washtenaw County case. George Evan Feezel was traveling on Packard Road in Ypsilanti Township when his vehicle struck and killed pedestrian Kevin Bass.

 

Feezel was legally drunk and had 11-carboxy-THC in his blood. He was charged with several offenses, including drugged driving causing death.

 

Based on its ruling about the metabolite, the high court vacated the drugged-driving conviction and remanded case to the Washtenaw County Circuit Court.

 

This could be considered a victory for those who use marijuana for medical reasons, which Michigan voters legalized in 2008.

 

“(The Supreme Court) had to change the law, or everyone who takes medical marijuana could not drive a car,” Engle said.

 

Before, legal marijuana users would have to worry about being caught with the metabolite in their bodies well beyond the time they could feel the drug’s effects.

 

“The threat of a sick person not being able to drive because of a health decision was beyond the scope of reason,” Joe Cain, chief operating officer for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association, wrote in an e-mail. He said the law was being used as a “weapon against the innocent.”

 

Schrotenboer pointed out, however, the existence of the metabolite still can be used as circumstantial evidence of drug use. Calling 11-carboxy-THC a controlled substance makes prosecution “really, really easy,” he said.

 

“Otherwise, it is a little bit harder.”

 

Under the drugged-driving statute, only the presence of a drug has to be proven, not a quantity, as is required with drunken driving.

 

“Hopefully prosecutors will not look for another exploit of our law, but will try to only prosecute those who are truly impaired,” Cain wrote.

[Zerocool]

Traverse City, MI: The presence of cannabis' primary metabolite, THC-COOH, is insufficient evidence of impairment to warrant a conviction under the state's "zero tolerance" per se drugged driving law, according to a recent ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The decision upholds a trial court ruling that found the "prosecution must prove that the presence of a controlled substance in a defendant's body is proximate cause of an accident resulting in death or serious injury" in order for the defendant to be guilty of violating the state's two-year-old drugged driving statute.

 

Michigan is one of ten states that have enacted so-called "zero tolerance" drugged driving laws. Under Michigan's law, it is a criminal offense for an individual to operate a motor vehicle with any detectable level of a Schedule I substance present in his or her bodily fluids. (In six states - Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Utah - individuals may be criminally prosecuted if they operate a vehicle with any level of a Schedule I drug or drug metabolite in their system. Three additional states - Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Virginia - have enacted per se drugged driving standards, prohibiting individuals from operating a motor vehicle if they have levels of Schedule I drugs present in their body above a specific threshold.)

 

In the case before the court, the defendant tested positive for the presence of the THC metabolite THC-COOH (a non-psychoactive compound produced during the body's biological process of converting THC into a water soluble form), but maintained that she was unimpaired at the time of her accident. The prosecution argued that it was not required under Michigan's "zero tolerance" drugged driving law to establish that the defendant's impairment caused the accident, only that she had an illegal substance present in her body. The appellate court upheld the trail court's ruling, affirming that marijuana's metabolite is neither psychoactive nor classified as an illegal substance, and that the prosecution had failed to prove a causal relationship between the presence of a controlled substance in the defendant's body and the accident.

 

Michigan's Supreme Court had previously held that the legislature did not "intend to impose strict liability on an individual" involved in a driving-related accident, the appellate court determined. Rather, the legislature's intent is to criminally punish only individuals whose impaired driving causes another person's injury.

 

"The defendant's purposeful operation of [a] vehicle while under the influence must have been a substantial cause of the victim's death," the court of appeals determined. It further found that the "legislature did not intend to include [the cannabis metabolite] as a Schedule I controlled substance because it has no pharmacological effect on the human body ... and its levels in the blood correlates poorly, if at all, to an individual's level of THC-related impairment."

 

As a result, the appellate court ruled, "Imposing a penalty on a driver when the ... accident would have occurred regardless of that intoxication would ... fail to serve the purpose of the statute."

 

Prosecutors have not announced whether they intend to appeal the court's decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.

 

For more information, please contact either Paul Armentano or Keith Stroup of NORML at (202) 483-5500. A comprehensive breakdown of state drugged driving laws appears in NORML's report, "You Are Going Directly to Jail: DUID Legislation: What It Means, Who's Behind It, and Strategies to Prevent It," available online at:

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6492

 

updated: Jul 28, 2005

[Ionic7]

What are your other OWI for, cause regardless people are just gonna see those and judge you by them, I dont agree with oui for MMJ but if they are for alchol you kinda had it coming to get to that point.

[sho]

They were for alcohol but long story short, my P.O. knew I was selling my car at the time and actually said I was one of the probationers who was "doing right" by the court. I had done everything they wanted -- job, paying my fines, completed my jail time, was in "treatment". In essence, I was a model probationer.

[Ionic7]

They were for alcohol but long story short, my P.O. knew I was selling my car at the time and actually said I was one of the probationers who was "doing right" by the court. I had done everything they wanted -- job, paying my fines, completed my jail time, was in "treatment". In essence, I was a model probationer.

 

 

Good luck then man

[Guest Mr Pepper]

Did your PO know you were driving around without a license?

 

They were for alcohol but long story short, my P.O. knew I was selling my car at the time and actually said I was one of the probationers who was "doing right" by the court. I had done everything they wanted -- job, paying my fines, completed my jail time, was in "treatment". In essence, I was a model probationer.

[sho]

Case is moving forward and is going to Circuit Court. Will find an address and phone number if anyone would like to call or write, I'd appreciate all the support I can get.

[lawyercaregiver]

My prediction is they will offer you a plea to OWI Second.

 

However, if they don't want to play softball you really, really need to fight this one. Take out a second mortgage on the house, borrow from Granny, this is the main event my friend...You need an expert witness to talk about cannabis and driving and a lawyer who knows OUI and MMMA law.

 

And as far as judge or jury, this one goes to the judge for motion after motion- and to a 12 member jury if they want a trial.