Opinion ID: 845981
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: the majority's interpretation of the statute is unconstitutional

Text: It is indisputable that due process requires that citizens be apprised of conduct which a criminal statute prohibits. People v. Turmon, 417 Mich. 638, 655, 340 N.W.2d 620 (1983). [4] The constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by a criminal statute that fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, 74 S.Ct. 808, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954). No person shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed. Id. For a criminal statute to be constitutional, it must define the criminal offense `with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.' People v. Lino, 447 Mich. 567, 575, 527 N.W2d 434 (1994), quoting Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983). Moreover, if the general class of offenses affected by a statute can be made constitutionally definite by a reasonable construction of the statute, [a court] is under a duty to give the statute that construction. Harriss, supra at 618, 74 S.Ct. 808. [5] The majority's interpretation of the statute is unconstitutional for three reasons. First, the majority's interpretation of the statute does not provide an ordinary person with notice about what conduct is prohibited. MCL 257.625(8) prohibits driving with any amount of a schedule 1 controlled substance in a person's body. However, the majority interprets the statute in such a way as to provide no guidance to an ordinary person about when he can legally drive given the scientific testimony that 11-carboxy-THC can easily be found in a person's system for weeks after marijuana was ingested. This means that long after any possible impairment from ingesting marijuana has worn off, a person still cannot drive according to the majority's version of the statute. It also means that whether a person is deemed to have any amount of 11-carboxy-THC in his system depends on whatever cutoff standard for detection is set by the laboratory doing the testing. [6] This lacks any sort of guidance to give a person fair notice of when he can legally drive a car. Further, as explained by Dr. McCoy, as tests become more sophisticated, scientists will ultimately be able to determine if a person ever actively or passively ingested marijuana. Under the majority's theory, no one could legally drive a car if he ever inhaled marijuana. The majority states that it is irrelevant that a person cannot legally drive until long after any possible impairment from ingesting marijuana has worn off, even if this is weeks, months, or years. Further, the majority deems it irrelevant that a person cannot determine without clinical drug testing when 11-carboxy-THC can no longer be detected in a person's system. The majority believes all this is constitutional, and a person is on notice that driving may be indefinitely prohibited because ingesting marijuana is a misdemeanor. MCL 333.7404. But the penalty for ingesting marijuana under MCL 333.7404(2)(d) is imprisonment for not more than 90 days or a fine of not more than $100.00, or both. The penalty for violating this misdemeanor statute is not being prohibited from possibly ever driving a car again. Thus, there is nothing in MCL 333.7404 that serves to put a person on notice that ingesting marijuana may very well mean that he cannot drive indefinitely or even permanently. The majority's interpretation now criminalizes a broad range of conduct and makes criminals out of people who have no knowledge of the conduct that they must now seek to avoid. The majority's interpretation even makes criminals out of people who have inhaled marijuana smoke merely through passive inhalation. Dr. Evans, who testified in a hearing regarding defendant Kurts and who has worked with numerous agencies, including the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, stated, You can get up to levels of five, eight, or ten nannograms [sic] per mil of carboxy THC in the blood by passive inhalation. [7] The prosecutor's expert in the Derror case, Dr. Glinn, admitted that Dr. Marilyn Huestis is one of the top experts on cannabis and its metabolites in the area of toxicology and chemistry. In an article written by Dr. Huestis, she states: Environmental exposure to cannabis smoke can occur through passive inhalation of side-stream and exhaled smoke by non-users. Several research studies have indicated that it is possible to produce detectable concentrations of cannabinoid metabolites in the urine and plasma after passive inhalation of cannabis smoke. Huestis, Cannabis (marijuana)  Effects on human behavior and performance, 14 Forensic Sci. Rev. 15, 32 (2002). There is scientific evidence that 11-carboxy-THC can indeed get into a person's body through passive inhalation. This is contrary to the majority's assertion that 11-carboxy-THC is only present in a person's body after they have done something illegal. Ante at 835. Scientific evidence of 11-carboxy-THC being present after passive inhalation means that a person who attends a concert or a gathering where someone is smoking marijuana and passively inhales this smoke will have 11-carboxy-THC in his body. With no standard in place to use as a cutoff, it does not matter what level of 11-carboxy-THC this inhalation results in because, under the majority's interpretation of the statute, it is now illegal for that person and any person who has ever ingested marijuana to drive if 11-carboxy-THC can be detected. As the trial court in the Derror case correctly noted, under the majority's theory, as long as we can identify [11-]carboxy-THC in [a person's] system, apparently they can't be on the highway and, as science progresses, that could be for years. While such an argument may at first seem far-fetched, it is the logical result of the majority's interpretation of the statute. The majority's interpretation is only limited by the scientific testing used in a particular case. If a test can detect 11-carboxy-THC from marijuana that was ingested one year ago, ten years ago, or 20 years ago, it is now a crime to drive, according to the majority. Because of the tremendous potential for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement in charging Michigan citizens with a crime under the majority's interpretation, the statute is unconstitutional for this second reason as well. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that a critical aspect of the vagueness doctrine is `the requirement that a legislature establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement.' Kolender, supra at 358, 103 S.Ct. 1855, quoting Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 574, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974). Otherwise, a criminal statute would permit enforcement on the basis of the whims of police officers and prosecutors. The majority's belief that it is a crime to operate a vehicle with any amount of 11-carboxy-THC in a person's body means that a prosecutor can choose to charge a person found to have 0.01 nanograms of 11-carboxy-THC in his system if the prosecutor chooses. In the Kurts case, the trial court also discussed the possibility that a person could be charged weeks after ingesting marijuana, stating that maybe you can test positive [for 11-carboxy-THC] three weeks later, but there isn't any evidence that you could be under the influence of it. The prosecutor responded that it was a question for the jury, but, hopefully, our office wouldn't even charge such a case. But the reality is that under the majority's interpretation of the statute, a prosecutor could charge in that case and many others because of the majority's improper interpretation of the statute, leaving Michigan citizens unsure of what conduct will be deemed criminal. [8] Third, and finally, the majority's interpretation of the statute is unconstitutional because it is not rationally related to the objective of the statute. See Harvey v. Michigan, 469 Mich. 1, 7, 664 N.W.2d 767 (2003). For a statute to be deemed unconstitutional under rational-basis review, it must be shown that the legislation is arbitrary and wholly unrelated in a rational way to the objective of the statute. Smith v. Employment Security Comm., 410 Mich. 231, 271, 301 N.W.2d 285 (1981). Simply put, the statute at issue seeks to prevent a person from operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs. But 11-carboxy-THC has no pharmacological effect on a person, and therefore cannot affect a person's driving. While 11-carboxy-THC does indicate that a person had THC in his system at some point in the past, there is no indication of when the THC was in the person's system. Dr. Glinn admitted that the levels of 11-carboxy-THC do not indicate whether the effects of the parent drug  marijuana  are still present. She stated, You can't correlate the levels with the effects very well. Further, no expert testified that a person who had ingested marijuana days and weeks ago would still be impaired. To the contrary, Dr. Glinn testified that the effects may be seen up to 24 hours.... The scientific evidence is irrefutable that 11-carboxy-THC stays in a person's system far past the point of any impairment. There is simply no rational reason to charge a person with 11-carboxy-THC in his system weeks after marijuana was originally ingested when a person can no longer be impaired from the effects of the marijuana. Plainly, there is no rational reason to charge a person who passively inhaled marijuana smoke at a rock concert a month ago and who now decides to drive to work. There is no rational reason to charge a person who inhaled marijuana two weeks ago and who now decides to drive to the store to pick up a gallon of milk. While I certainly agree with the Legislature's position that a person should be punished for driving while under the influence of a controlled substance because of the potential for tragic outcomes, the majority's interpretation of the statute is arbitrary and wholly unrelated in a rational way to the objective of the statute. To say that driving while a person's system contains any amount of a substance that has no pharmacological effect is a crime  given that under the most conservative estimates offered by the prosecution, the current scientific testing can find evidence of the substance for at least four weeksis not permissible under the Constitution. It is this Court's role to construe statutes to avoid a danger of unconstitutionality, see Harriss, supra at 618, 74 S.Ct. 808, yet today the majority has ignored this longstanding principle. A reasonable construction of the statutory language is possible  for example, finding that 11-carboxy-THC may be used as circumstantial evidence of a statutory violationyet the majority has chosen a position that is contrary to the Constitution and the rights of our citizens.