People v. Hughes

202 Cal. App. 4th 1473, 136 Cal. Rptr. 3d 538, 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 78
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 27, 2012
DocketNo. E051741
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 202 Cal. App. 4th 1473 (People v. Hughes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Hughes, 202 Cal. App. 4th 1473, 136 Cal. Rptr. 3d 538, 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 78 (Cal. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

Opinion

McKINSTER, J.

This is an appeal by Steven Ebbert Hughes, appellant and defendant (defendant), from the judgment entered after a jury found him guilty of cultivating marijuana in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11358 (count 1); possession of marijuana for sale in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11359 (count 2); and transportation of less than 28.5 grams of marijuana in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11360, subdivision (b), a lesser included offense to the charged violation of subdivision (a) of Health and Safety Code section 11360 (count 3). The trial court granted probation to defendant a condition of which prohibited defendant from using medical marijuana.

Defendant raises three claims of error in this appeal, the first two of which involve jury instructions, and the third of which challenges the validity of the probation term prohibiting his use of medical marijuana. We conclude defendant’s claims are meritless and therefore we will affirm.

FACTS

The charges in this case stem from a traffic stop on May 15, 2008, in which Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Timothy Mohr stopped defendant because the registration had expired on the truck defendant was driving. Deputy Daniel Cline also participated in the traffic stop, although it is not entirely clear from the record when he became involved. At the very least, once it was determined that defendant’s vehicle registration had been expired for more than six months, Deputy Cline was involved in inventorying the vehicle’s contents so that it could be impounded.1

[1476]*1476In the course of that inventory, Deputy Cline found two large plastic bins behind the passenger seat. The bins contained 38 small marijuana plants that ranged in height from six to eight inches. At some point, apparently before Deputy Cline had actually looked inside the truck, defendant told the deputies that he had his “work” in the vehicle and that he needed to deliver it to the Los Angeles or Valencia area. Defendant apparently clarified that he had medical marijuana he was delivering to a collective in the Los Angeles area and that he had the paperwork in the truck that allowed him to have the marijuana. According to Deputy Mohr’s trial testimony, defendant got upset when Deputy Cline put the marijuana plants on the tailgate of defendant’s truck. Defendant said the heat would ruin the plants and that would cost defendant $400 of income.

Deputy Cline found a green folder or binder in the map pocket behind the driver’s seat. The folder contained defendant’s medical marijuana physician’s statement, along with various other papers that all included handwritten notations. At trial, Investigator Ken Thurm, a Riverside County Deputy Sheriff assigned to the Special Investigations Bureau and the case investigator, testified that the papers and handwritten notations looked like “a sales call sheet. [][] [‘]I called this person back. This person is not interested. Yes, this person would like some clones.[’] ”

Investigator Thurm also testified that he spoke with defendant over the telephone and defendant told him he had intended to trade the marijuana he had in his truck for finished usable marijuana that he uses to medicate himself. Defendant said the plants are clones, which are grown from female plants. The investigator confirmed that defendant is a patient of Dr. Weiss, who wrote the medical marijuana authorization that was found among the papers in defendant’s truck. Investigator Thurm also expressed the opinion, based on all the evidence gathered in the case and the number of plants, that the marijuana found in defendant’s truck was possessed for sale. Although defendant said he traded the clone marijuana plants at collectives,2 Investigator Thurm expressed the opinion that defendant derived income from the plants. In Thurm’s view, if defendant has plants he could grow them himself: “Instead of planting these and yielding his own medication, he is constantly selling them, passing them off, getting an income.”

Defendant did not testify at trial. Instead he presented the testimony of Dr. Dean Weiss, who confirmed that he had examined defendant and approved his use of medical marijuana for the treatment of pain. A second witness, Christopher Conrad, testified as an expert on medical marijuana use and cultivation. Conrad expressed the opinion that possession of 38 marijuana [1477]*1477plants is consistent with personal use by a person with a physician’s authorization for medical use of marijuana.

DISCUSSION

As previously noted defendant’s first two claims of error involve the trial court’s failure to give certain jury instructions. We first address those claims.

1.

INSTRUCTIONAL ERROR CLAIMS

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
202 Cal. App. 4th 1473, 136 Cal. Rptr. 3d 538, 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 78, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-hughes-calctapp-2012.