{"id":45957,"date":"2019-06-12T19:05:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T19:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/"},"modified":"2019-06-12T19:05:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T19:05:33","slug":"in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/","title":{"rendered":"In Landmark Ruling, Cali Court Says It’s Legal for Prisoners to Possess Cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A California appeals court overturned five men’s convictions for possessing cannabis in prison<\/u><\/a>, ruling that the Golden State’s adult-use law applies to all adults equally, even if they are behind bars.<\/p>\n

The case involves five defendants who were convicted of possessing weed in prison, a felony punishable by an additional two to four years of imprisonment. The defendants filed a petition to have these convictions dismissed, arguing that possession of an ounce or less of cannabis is now legal in California. The petition was denied by the Sacramento State Court, but the defendants contested to the California Court of Appeals for the Third Appellate District.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the appeals court reversed the former court’s decision, overturning the convictions for all five defendants. \u201cAccording to the plain language of Health and Safety Code section 11362.1, enacted as part of Proposition 64, possession of less than an ounce of cannabis in prison is no longer a felony,\u201d Presiding Justice Vance W. Raye said in his ruling<\/u><\/a>. Smoking or otherwise ingesting cannabis in prison does remain a felony, however. In other words, this doesn’t mean that inmates can get high in slammer. And in federal prisons, possesion is still prohibited. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe plain language of Proposition 64 is clear,\u201d Raye continued<\/u><\/a>, adding that the precedent established in similar cases leads \u201cto the inescapable conclusion that possession of less than one ounce of cannabis in prison or a similar penal institution is not a felony.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Attorney General argued that the plain meaning of the adult-use law is more complicated than it seems, using an obscure statutory rule called \u201cthe Nearest-Reasonable-Referent Canon\u201d to argue that Prop. 64 does not apply to inmates of penal institutions. In response, Raye wrote<\/u><\/a> that \u201cthe Attorney General uses arcane rules of statutory construction, twists the meaning of the words of the statute, urges us to disapprove of cases directly on point, and makes a host of policy arguments why we should not apply the plain language of the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Attorney General’s \u201cargument flies in the face of the plain language of the statute and common sense,\u201d the ruling reads<\/u><\/a>. \u201cWe cannot ignore binding precedent and the plain language of a statute based on the intensity of the Attorney General\u2019s passion to criminalize an act the electorate has decided no longer merits treatment as a felony.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling requires that the five defendants \u2014 Goldy Raybon, Anthony Cooper, Dwain Davis, Scott Haynes and James Potter \u2014 be granted petitions for relief from their convictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An appeals court has ruled that Proposition 64 applies to all adults in the Golden State, even if they are incarcerated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3036],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIn Landmark Ruling, Cali Court Says It's Legal for Prisoners to Possess Cannabis - Merry Jane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Landmark Ruling, Cali Court Says It's Legal for Prisoners to Possess Cannabis - Merry Jane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An appeals court has ruled that Proposition 64 applies to all adults in the Golden State, even if they are incarcerated.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Merry Jane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-12T19:05:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/1560367282496_a1jailsqusqu.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1118\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"MJ Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"MJ Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"MJ Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b90d5b22bd5e702cf8cbd8e406675f7b\"},\"headline\":\"In Landmark Ruling, Cali Court Says It’s Legal for Prisoners to Possess Cannabis\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-12T19:05:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-12T19:05:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/\"},\"wordCount\":424,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/1560367282496_a1jailsqusqu.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"NEWS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/in-landmark-ruling-cali-court-says-its-legal-for-prisoners-to-possess-cannabis\/\",\"name\":\"In Landmark Ruling, Cali Court Says It's Legal for Prisoners to Possess Cannabis - 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