THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SHAUN ERIC WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant.
No. S128442
Supreme Court of California
Nov. 27, 2006
81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105
Maureen J. Shanahan, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Donald E. de Nicola, Deputy State Solicitor General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Pamela A. Ratner Sobeck, Marc J. Nolan, Ana R. Duarte and Erika Hiramatsu, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
MORENO, J.--The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 (the CUA) ensures that Californians who obtain and use marijuana for specified medical purposes upon the recommendation of a physician are not subject to certain criminal sanctions. (
While this case was pending, however, the Legislature enacted the Medical Marijuana Program (MMP), one purpose of which was to address issues not included in the CUA so as to promote the fair and orderly implementation of the CUA. (
Defendant contends that the MMP applies in this case and provides an alternative ground to affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal. We agree that the MMP applies retroactively to cases pending at the time of its enactment and, therefore, to the present case. We conclude, moreover, that, because defendant presented sufficient evidence to entitle him to an instruction on the CUA as an affirmative defense to the transportation charge, it was error for the trial court to have refused this instruction. Nonetheless, contrary to the Court of Appeal, for the reasons set forth below, we conclude further that the instructional error was harmless.
FACTS
On September 20, 2001, Huntington Beach police officers received a tip that a vehicle at a car wash smelled as if it contained marijuana and that, specifically, a backpack in the vehicle “reeked of marijuana.” Officer Mark Armando and two other officers, including Sergeant Henry Cuadras, responded to the call. Officer Armando stopped defendant near the car wash as defendant was driving away in his black Toyota pickup truck. The driver‘s side window was rolled down. As he approached the truck, Armando noticed a strong odor of marijuana coming from within the truck and observed a backpack on the seat next to defendant. Armando told defendant about the tip and asked him if there was marijuana in his truck. Defendant said no. Armando had defendant step outside the truck. Defendant got out of the truck holding the backpack. Armando again asked defendant whether there was any marijuana in the truck and defendant again said no.
Defendant was charged by information with possessing marijuana for sale (
Defendant‘s trial commenced on May 1, 2002. Both Officer Armando and Sergeant Cuadras testified that in their opinion defendant possessed the marijuana to sell, not for his personal use. They based their opinions on the quantity of marijuana in defendant‘s possession, the manner in which it was packaged and concealed in his vehicle, and the presence of the scale in his backpack.
Following Officer Armando‘s testimony, the trial court conducted a hearing pursuant to
Dr. Eidelman saw defendant again on November 30, 2001, following defendant‘s arrest. He and Dr. Eidelman discussed the fact that defendant preferred to eat marijuana, a practice that required a larger amount of marijuana than smoking it to achieve the same effect. Defendant told Dr. Eidelman that, when he ate marijuana, a pound of it usually lasted him two to three months. At defendant‘s request, Dr. Eidelman wrote a letter on his behalf approving defendant‘s use of a pound of marijuana every two to three months. At the hearing, Eidelman testified that a pound every two or three months was consistent with the manner in which defendant stated that he ingested marijuana.
Defendant also testified at the evidentiary hearing. Defendant described injuries to his leg, collarbone and shoulder and a stomach ailment that caused him severe chronic pain. His shoulder injury prevented him from sleeping through the night and had forced him to give up his employment as a carpenter. Defendant also testified that his stomach ailment caused him to suffer nausea and chronic diarrhea and had also affected his appetite.
At the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing, the trial court ruled that the CUA did not apply “in a transportation case where we have one pound, three ounces of marijuana.” The trial court also rejected defendant‘s request for a CUA instruction with regard to the possession for sale count. However, the court allowed the defense to present evidence of medical use as proof that defendant possessed the marijuana for personal medical use and not to sell.
At the resumed trial, Dr. Eidelman testified that defendant‘s use of a pound of marijuana over a two- or three-month period was reasonable. Dr. Eidelman based his approval of defendant‘s use of marijuana on defendant‘s medical records, a physical examination of defendant and conversations with defendant regarding his preference to eat marijuana.
Defendant testified that the marijuana he possessed was for his own personal medical use and not to sell. He testified that he had been smoking marijuana since 1991 to alleviate the chronic pain he experienced as a result of his various injuries. He explained that, while he smoked about an eighth of
Defendant testified further that, on the morning of his arrest, he had purchased the marijuana found by the police packaged in the manner in which they found it. He explained that he had not purchased the marijuana in a single large bag because it had different potencies and was used for different purposes, like cooking as opposed to smoking. Defendant testified that after purchasing the marijuana, he went to get the oil in his truck changed and his truck washed and was on his way home when the police stopped and arrested him. Defendant did not explain why he had a scale in his possession when he was arrested.
Before closing arguments, the defense renewed its request to give a compassionate use defense jury instruction. The trial court again declined to give the instruction.
After the jury was instructed, but before closing arguments, the judge received several questions from individual members of the jury. Among those questions was “Is marijuana for medicinal purposes acceptable with the law?” and “Can a doctor legally prescribe marijuana?” The court declined to answer these questions, but instead told the jury to listen to closing arguments of both counsel and “if you still have questions after argument, you can submit the questions again and I‘ll go ahead and do my very best to answer your questions. But . it may very well be that the attorneys will answer these questions in their argument.”
At the outset of his closing argument, the prosecutor stated: “[I]s a medical recommendation from some sort of doctor a defense to any of these charges? No, it is not. No defense.” Toward the end of his argument, he returned to this point: “Is that a defense? Because any type of doctor recommends that he use it? No, it‘s not, not for any of those charges. So, don‘t fall for that either.”
Defense counsel argued that the marijuana found in defendant‘s vehicle was for his personal use to alleviate the pain he experienced from his various ailments, thus negating any intent to sell marijuana. “When you look at the circumstances overall, you will find that he was not intending to sell that marijuana. He had certain conditions. Whether you agree with the treatment or whether it was really necessary or not is really not the point. The point is that he felt that way. The doctor felt that way. And that‘s what he was using it for.” Defense counsel also argued further that Dr. Eidelman‘s testimony regarding the efficacy of marijuana for medical use, and the defendant‘s use of it to alleviate his various ailments, was uncontroverted by other expert
The jury was instructed, among other things, that to convict defendant of possession for sale of marijuana it must find beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the marijuana with the specific intent to sell the drug. The jury was further instructed that, if it was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the marijuana to sell, it could nonetheless convict him of the lesser included offense of simple possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor.
The jury convicted defendant of both possessing marijuana for sale and transporting marijuana.
At defendant‘s sentencing hearing, the trial court acknowledged that “we should have had a compassionate use instruction.”4 Defendant appealed. A divided panel of the Court of Appeal reversed his conviction on both the transportation and possession for sale counts based on the trial court‘s failure to give a CUA instruction.
We granted the Attorney General‘s petition for review.
DISCUSSION
I.
Adopted by the voters on November 5, 1996, the purpose of the CUA is three-fold: “(A) To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician.... [][] (B) To ensure that patients and their primary caregivers who obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes upon the recommendation of a physician are not subject to criminal prosecution or sanction. [] (C) To encourage the federal and state governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical need of marijuana.” (
Almost immediately after the CUA became effective, questions arose about whether it provided a defense to marijuana-related offenses not specified in its text, including the crime of transporting marijuana. (
Preliminarily, the court found that the CUA applied retroactively, a point the Attorney General conceded. “As the Attorney General concedes, absent contrary indicia, ‘the Legislature is presumed to have extended to defendants whose appeals are pending the benefits of intervening statutory amendments which decriminalize formerly illicit conduct [citation], or reduce the punishment for acts which remain unlawful. [Citations.] No different rule applies to an affirmative defense to the crime for which a defendant was convicted, which defense was enacted during the pendency of her appeal.’ Proposition 215 contains no savings clause and so, as the Attorney General further concedes, ‘it may operate retrospectively to defend against criminal liability, in whole or part, for some who are appealing convictions for possessing, cultivating and using marijuana.’ [[] We agree with this assessment.” (People v. Trippet, 56 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1544-1545.)
But Trippet concluded that the voters did not intend for the CUA to provide a defense to any marijuana-related offense not specifically named in the initiative, including transporting marijuana. (People v. Trippet, supra, 56 Cal.App.4th at p. 1550.) Nonetheless, the court acknowledged that “practical realities dictate that there be some leeway in applying section 11360 in cases where a Proposition 215 defense is asserted to companion charges. The results might otherwise be absurd.” (Ibid.)
As the court pointed out, “the voters could not have intended that a dying cancer patient‘s ‘primary caregiver’ could be subject to criminal sanctions for
People v. Young, 92 Cal.App.4th 229, revisited the issue of whether the CUA provides an implied defense to a charge of transporting marijuana. In Young, the defendant was stopped in his car and found to be in possession of less than five ounces of marijuana. He provided the police officer who stopped him with a written recommendation from his physician authorizing his use of marijuana for arthritis. (92 Cal.App.4th at p. 232.) Nonetheless, he was charged with and convicted of transporting marijuana. On appeal, he argued that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on a mistake of fact defense, that is, that he mistakenly believed the marijuana he was transporting was medicine. The Court of Appeal “rejected[ed] this argument because defendant was under an inexcusable mistake of law that the Compassionate Use Act provided him with a defense to transportation of marijuana.” (Id. at p. 233.)
Young agreed with Trippet that the CUA did not provide a defense to a charge of transporting marijuana but noted, somewhat critically, that “[d]espite the plain language of the statute” Trippet had found a limited implied defense to that offense. (People v. Young, supra, 92 Cal.App.4th at p. 236.) The court asserted that it “need not decide whether we agree with the Trippet court that incidental transportation of marijuana from the garden to a qualifying patient may implicitly fall within the safe haven created by the Compassionate Use Act. This case [involves] the transportation of marijuana in a vehicle. That kind of transportation is not made lawful by the Compassionate Use Act.” (Id. at p. 237.)
While, ostensibly, Young found it was unnecessary for it to explicitly agree or disagree with Trippet, its categorical conclusion that transporting marijuana in a vehicle is not protected by the CUA was directly contrary to
In the case before us, the Court of Appeal concluded that Trippet, and not Young, was the better-reasoned decision.6 Applying Trippet‘s quantity, method, timing, and distance standard, the Court of Appeal concluded that defendant had introduced sufficient evidence to support a CUA instruction and that the failure of the trial court to have granted his request for the instruction was reversible error.
While the case was pending before this court, however, the Legislature stepped in and addressed this issue directly by enacting the MMP, in which it extended a CUA defense to a charge of transporting marijuana where certain conditions are met. (
II.
We begin by examining the provisions of the MMP relevant to the issue presented in this case. “Our role in construing a statute is to ascertain the intent of the Legislature so as to effectuate the purpose of the law. [Citation.] Because the statutory language is generally the most reliable indicator of that intent, we look first at the words themselves, giving them their usual and ordinary meaning.” (Alford v. Superior Court (2003) 29 Cal.4th 1033, 1040 [130 Cal.Rptr.2d 672, 63 P.3d 228].) In construing the MMP, we are also aided by the Legislature‘s extensive declaration of intent.
To achieve the goal of “facilitat[ing] the prompt identification of qualified patients and their designated primary caregivers,” the Legislature established a voluntary program for the issuance of identification cards to such qualified patients. (
The Legislature did not limit the availability of a CUA defense to these other marijuana-related offenses only to individuals who chose to participate in the card identification program. Rather, in subdivision (b) of
The MMP defines the term “qualified patient” as “a person who is entitled to the protections of Section 11362.5, but who does not have an
A person is entitled to the protections of the CUA if that person is a “seriously ill” Californian whose use of marijuana “has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the person‘s health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.” (
Thus, under the MMP, either the holder of an identification card or a “qualified patient“-someone entitled to the protections of the CUA, but who does not have an identification card-may assert the CUA as a defense to a charge of transporting marijuana. Defendant maintains that he is a “qualified patient” for purposes of the MMP and should be given the benefit of the defense it provides to a charge of transporting marijuana. To reach his claim, however, we must first determine whether the MMP applies retroactively to pending cases. We conclude that it does.
The retroactivity of the CUA itself was, as previously noted, firmly established by People v. Trippet, supra, 56 Cal.App.4th 1532. As the court there explained, the new defenses to possessing and cultivating marijuana extended by the CUA to individuals who use marijuana for medicinal purposes applied to cases pending on appeal. Trippet based its analysis on decisions from this court: “The clearest precedent on point is People v. Rossi (1976) 18 Cal.3d 295, 299-302 [134 Cal.Rptr. 64, 555 P.2d 1313]. The defendant in that case had been convicted of violating the pre-1976 version of
Recent decisions of the Court of Appeal have similarly and unanimously concluded that the MMP should be retroactively applied. In People v. Urziceanu, supra, 132 Cal.App.4th 747, the court considered whether the MMP‘s extension of a CUA defense to the charge of cultivating marijuana provided the defendant in that case with a defense to a charge of conspiracy to possess marijuana. The defendant claimed that the conspiracy count arose out of his involvement in the collective cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana. The court observed that the MMP “represents a dramatic change in the prohibitions on the use, distribution, and cultivation of marijuana for persons who are qualified patients or primary caregivers and fits the defense defendant attempted to present at trial. Its specific itemization of the marijuana sales law indicates it contemplates the formation and operation of medicinal marijuana cooperatives that would receive reimbursement for marijuana and the services provided in conjunction with the provision of that marijuana.” (132 Cal.App.4th at p. 785.)
On the issue of retroactivity of the MMP, the court, after citing Trippet‘s conclusion regarding the retroactivity of the CUA declared: “The same reasoning applies here.... [T]he Medical Marijuana Program Act sets forth the new affirmative defense allowing collective cultivation of marijuana, expands the defense to penal sections not identified by the Compassionate Use Act, and contains no savings clause. These facts lead us to the conclusion that this law must also be retroactively applied.” (People v. Urziceanu, supra, 132 Cal.App.4th at p. 786; accord, People v. Frazier, supra, 128 Cal.App.4th at p. 826 [“To the extent that the Medical Marijuana Program sets forth new affirmative defenses, expands the defense identified by the Compassionate Use Act, and contains no savings clause, that law must be retroactively applied“].) We agree with the analysis set forth in Trippet, Urziceanu and Frazier and conclude, therefore, that the MMP must be retroactively applied.
“That, however, does not end the inquiry. Retroactive application of a defense is only required ‘if its terms and the applicable facts permit, a defense to’ defendant.” (People v. Frazier, supra, 128 Cal.App.4th at p. 826, quoting People v. Trippet, supra, 56 Cal.App.4th at p. 1545.) Here, the preliminary question is whether there was substantial evidence that defendant is “a qualified patient” as that term is defined in
The next question is whether a defense set forth in the MMP was available to defendant. As noted, the MMP specifically provides that a qualified patient shall not be criminally liable for transporting marijuana “for his or her own personal medical use.” (
Notwithstanding the Attorney General‘s concession in Trippet that the CUA, because it extended a new affirmative defense, applied retroactively (People v. Trippet, supra, 56 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1544-1545), the Attorney General rejects retroactive application of the MMP here for three reasons: first, defendant failed to identify himself to police as a medicinal user of marijuana; second, the amount in his possession, slightly over a pound, was in excess of the eight ounces permitted to a qualified patient under
The Attorney General fails to cite any provision of the MMP that supports his assertion that a defendant must identify himself or herself as a medical user of marijuana before he or she can assert a CUA defense to a charge of transporting marijuana. To the contrary, the relevant provisions of the MMP contain no such requirement.
The Attorney General‘s claim that defendant‘s possession of a greater amount of marijuana than that specified in the MMP negates his entitlement to its defense against a transportation charge fares no better. The Attorney General relies on
Finally, the Attorney General argues that defendant is not entitled to a CUA defense to the charge of transporting marijuana because the jury “after considering all the testimony regarding [defendant‘s] medical use [found] that [defendant] possessed the marijuana with intent to sell rather than for his own personal use.” The jury‘s finding goes not to whether defendant was entitled to advance a CUA defense, or whether the MMP is retroactive, but, as we
We therefore conclude that the MMP applies retroactively to this case and that, in light of the MMP and the evidence he presented at trial, defendant was entitled to a compassionate use instruction on the transportation count. The only remaining question is whether the error was prejudicial. We now turn to that issue.
III.
Defendant contends that the trial court‘s failure to have given a CUA instruction on the transportation count violated his due process right to present a defense and the error must, therefore, be assessed under the federal standard of prejudice, which asks whether the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 87 S.Ct. 824].) He maintains that the instructional error was prejudicial under this standard.
In People v. Mower, supra, 28 Cal.4th 457, however, we “left open the question of whether an instructional error [involving a CUA defense] is of federal constitutional dimension or only of state law import [citation]” because “the error requires reversal even under the less rigorous People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818 [299 P.2d 243] standard.” (Mower, supra, at p. 484.) Under that standard, reversal is required if ” ‘it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the appealing party would have been reached in the absence of error.’ ” (Ibid., quoting Watson, supra, at p. 837.) We again need not decide which standard applies, because in this case we conclude that the instructional error was harmless under either standard.
In People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703 [112 Cal.Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913], disapproved on other grounds in People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 165 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 870, 960 P.2d 1094], we held that the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury sua sponte on a lesser included offense was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under circumstances in which “the factual question posed by the omitted instruction was necessarily resolved adversely to the defendant under other, properly given instructions. In such cases the issue should not be deemed to have been removed from the jury‘s consideration since it has been resolved in another context, and there can be no prejudice to the defendant since the evidence that would support a finding that only the lesser offense was committed has been rejected by the jury.” (Sedeno, supra, at p. 721.) We have applied this principle in evaluating the prejudicial effect of other instructional errors. (See, e.g., People v. Garrison (1989) 47 Cal.3d 746, 778-779 [254 Cal.Rptr. 257, 765 P.2d 419] [where, by finding true a
This analysis applies to the Attorney General‘s argument that the jury necessarily rejected the factual predicate of the omitted CUA defense-that defendant possessed and, by extension, transported marijuana for his personal medicinal use-when, under other, properly given instructions, it found that he possessed the drug with the specific intent to sell it. We agree with this contention. Under the instructions it was given, the jury had the option of convicting defendant for simple possession had it been convinced by his claim that the marijuana found in his possession was for his personal medicinal use. Instead, it found beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the drug with the specific intent to sell it. Accordingly, “the jury necessarily resolved, although in a different setting, the same factual question that would have been presented by the missing instruction” (People v. Mayberry, supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 158), in a manner adverse to defendant. We conclude, therefore, that the instructional error was harmless under any standard of prejudice.9 As this analysis applies to both of the charges of which defendant was convicted, we reverse the Court of Appeal and reinstate defendant‘s convictions for possession for sale of marijuana and transportation.10
For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
George, C. J., Kennard, J., Werdegar, J., Chin, J., and Corrigan, J., concurred.
BAXTER, J., Concurring and Dissenting. I concur in the majority‘s judgment, but I disagree sharply with certain of its intermediate conclusions. To place my views in context, I briefly review the facts and procedural background.
In 2001, defendant was arrested while transporting one pound three ounces of marijuana in his pickup truck. Officers stopped the truck on a tip and confirmed that it “reeked” of marijuana. Defendant twice denied there was marijuana in the truck. Yet a search of his backpack, which had been located on the passenger seat, revealed numerous baggies containing premeasured amounts of marijuana. The backpack also contained an electronic scale. Further searching revealed a one-pound brick of marijuana concealed in a storage compartment behind the passenger seat.1 The truck contained no paraphernalia for personal use.
Defendant was charged with transporting marijuana (
reversal. This request further underscores defendant‘s understanding that the Attorney General‘s prejudice argument potentially affected both counts. In light of our reversal of the Court of Appeal, we will remand the case to allow the court to consider defendant‘s further claims of error.
Defendant was convicted on both counts. The Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that the trial court‘s failure to instruct on the CUA defense was prejudicial error as to both convictions. We granted the People‘s petition for review. Our initial aim was to resolve the Court of Appeal conflict on the application of the CUA defense to a charge of transporting marijuana. While review was pending, however, the Legislature adopted the Medical Marijuana Program (MMP;
The majority holds that the MMP applies retroactively to defendant‘s case. It further determines that the trial court “erred” by failing to instruct on the CUA defense now authorized by the MMP, because defendant adduced evidence sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt concerning both his medical eligibility to use the quantity of marijuana with which he was arrested, and his actual intent to use it only for his personal medical purposes. However, the majority concludes, this “error” was harmless, because the jury necessarily rejected any CUA defense when, under proper instructions defining the offense of possession for sale, it convicted him of that charge.
I acknowledge that the MMP extends a limited CUA defense to the particular charges defendant faced. I also concur in the majority‘s holding that the MMP applies retroactively to defendant‘s case. I further agree that, even if the MMP technically would have warranted a CUA defense instruction on either or both the charged offenses, no retrial is necessary. As the majority indicates, defendant‘s conviction of possession for sale, upon instructions that correctly defined all the elements of that offense, proves that the absence of a CUA defense instruction did not affect the trial outcome.3
As the majority concedes, the CUA defense authorized by the MMP has three prongs, and defendant would not have been entitled to an MMP instruction on the defense unless he raised a reasonable doubt with respect to all three. Upon his failure to do so, the trial court, in the exercise of its “gatekeeping” function (see People v. Mower (2002) 28 Cal.4th 457, 475–476 [122 Cal.Rptr.2d 326, 49 P.3d 1067]; People v. Jones (2003) 112 Cal.App.4th 341, 350 [4 Cal.Rptr.3d 916] (Jones); see also People v. Lucas (1995) 12 Cal.4th 415, 466 [48 Cal.Rptr.2d 525, 907 P.2d 373]), could and should have ruled that the evidence was insufficient to allow the defense to go to the jury.
Thus, to justify a CUA defense instruction under the MMP, defendant must have adduced creditable evidence, first, that he was a “qualified patient,” in that a licensed physician had recommended or approved his personal use of marijuana to treat a condition specified in the CUA (see
I am persuaded defendant did not satisfy this minimal burden as to any of the prongs of the defense. Defendant‘s proffered evidence that he was a qualified medical marijuana patient at the time of his arrest was extremely weak. At the
Under proper circumstances, bare testimonial assertions of a physician‘s approval may be sufficient evidence of the defendant‘s status as a qualified
Even more deficient was defendant‘s evidence that he had medical approval to possess quantities in excess of eight dried ounces. Both defendant and Dr. Eidelman testified that the first of Dr. Eidelman‘s two written approvals, issued prior to defendant‘s arrest, was for an unspecified “self-regulating dosage.” In my view, such a vague and open-ended authorization fails, as a matter of law, to constitute the specific determination the MMP requires-i.e., “a doctor‘s recommendation that [eight dried ounces] does not meet the qualified patient‘s medical needs.” (
As defendant and Dr. Eidelman further testified, it was only after the arrest that defendant obtained Dr. Eidelman‘s second approval, which conveniently endorsed the specific amount of marijuana that already had been found in defendant‘s backpack and truck. But, for obvious reasons, absent ” ‘exigent circumstances’ ” not present here, the CUA defense cannot apply to a physician‘s postarrest ratification of self-medication on marijuana. (People v. Rigo (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 409, 412 [81 Cal.Rptr.2d 624]; see also People v. Trippet (1997) 56 Cal.App.4th 1532, 1548, fn. 13 [66 Cal.Rptr.2d 559].)
Finally, I conclude, the overwhelming evidence that defendant possessed the marijuana with the intent of selling it precluded a reasonable doubt as to its personal medical purpose. This evidence prominently included the electronic scale, the presence of which defendant never explained.
Moreover, as Justice Sills aptly observed in his dissent below, the marijuana at issue here was not found in “one large bag ... as one would expect ... if it was for a single individual‘s personal use. [On the contrary], it was found in nine different portions: Two very large baggies, each containing 30.6 grams of marijuana, seven small baggies in approximately equal amounts[,] and a large ‘brick’ of [marijuana] wrapped in a shirt which weighed about a pound. Six of the small baggies were located in a black bag along with [the] electronic scale. The brick was found [secreted under] the truck‘s back seat; the large baggies were found in [defendant‘s] backpack but not in the same section with the scales and the small baggies of marijuana. It is particularly noteworthy that [defendant] was carrying a single small baggie of marijuana in his pocket, separate from all the other parcels, as if that were his personal property as distinct from the large supply available for distribution.”
The MMP recognizes the possibility that, with specific medical approval, qualified patients may be entitled to handle significant amounts of dried marijuana for their personal medical use. (See
Accordingly, I conclude, an instruction on the CUA defense was not warranted under the MMP, and the trial court‘s ruling to that effect would have been correct. On this basis alone, I would reverse the Court of Appeal‘s judgment and reinstate defendant‘s convictions.
One additional point warrants comment. The majority consistently applies the term “error” to the trial court‘s instructional rulings, even though the majority relies solely on statutory law that was not in effect when the trial court acted. Of course, we do not expect clairvoyance from our courts. Indeed, a judicial ruling that departed from then-current law would itself be error. Thus, even assuming a CUA instruction was warranted, nunc pro tunc, by virtue of the later-enacted MMP, I would not imply criticism of a diligent and hard-pressed trial court by labeling its failure to anticipate this statute as “error.”
Instead, it is sufficient to determine, in hindsight, whether the MMP, as retroactively applied, justified a CUA instruction in defendant‘s case, and, if so, whether the absence of the instruction influenced the outcome, thus rendering the trial unfair by current standards. If the answer is “yes,” we can and should simply remand for a new trial, without citing trial court “error” as the reason.
On December 20, 2006, the opinion was modified to read as printed above.