PORT ANGELES — A case against a Joyce-area couple who provided medical marijuana to an AIDS-stricken childhood friend has been dropped by the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
The county Superior Court convictions of Earl Otis, 47, and Stephanie McCarty, 44, for manufacturing marijuana were overturned Aug. 11, 2009, by the state Court of Appeals, which ordered a new trial.
On Friday, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office cited “increasingly limited prosecutorial resources” in deciding not to pursue further prosecution.
Otis had been sentenced to four months in jail May 1, 2008, and McCarty to 15 days for growing 75 marijuana plants at their home at 3070 Eden Valley Road.
“This has been a long time coming,” Otis said Monday.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Troberg said Monday in an interview that the case is not “serious enough” to warrant a retrial.
Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said her office may establish a separate policy for pursuing criminal charges in cases in which marijuana is allegedly being used for medical purposes.
Better guidance is needed from the state Legislature “in light of our diminished resources,” Kelly said.
The state Legislature is clarifying medical marijuana laws in the current session, she added.
Otis and McCarty were in Superior Court on Monday getting refunded a combined $510 in fines related to the case.
“I feel that I paid the price for something that I shouldn’t have had to pay the price for,” Otis said.
“I was within the law as it was written then.”
When they were convicted, medical marijuana laws said users could have a 60-day supply without defining exactly what that meant, Otis said.
“It did not have a set number of plants, it did not have a set amount,” Otis said.
When arrested, “I had a quarter-ounce of dried weed in my safe and 52 cents in my pocket,” he said.
The Legislature has since changed the law to allow up to 24 ounces, Otis said.
Washington state also allows up to 15 plants, according to the website www.medicalmarijuana procon.org.
Otis said 18 of his 75 plants had buds on them and were mature and usable.
“The 18 with buds were the only ones that counted,” he said.
Otis’ medical marijuana prescription is for a seizure disorder, he said.
Otis was supplying medical marijuana to the late Ronald King Jr.
Otis and King had met as children, when King attended Queen of Angels School in Port Angeles, Otis said.
Decades later, in his early 40s, King needed marijuana “to keep his appetite up since he suffered from several symptoms of AIDS,” according to appellate court documents filed by his attorneys, Manek Mistry and Jodi Backlund of Olympia.
In its ruling, the Appeals Court said Otis and McCarty should have been allowed to use their status as providers of medical marijuana in their defense.
They were convicted in a bench trial before county Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor.
The court said Taylor erred when he ruled that a handwritten note from King’s doctor authorizing King to use marijuana was not “valid documentation” and should have included a reference to state law.
The doctor had said King “should be able to use marijuana for appetite stimulation.”
“The note contains no reservations,” the appeals court said.
Backlund said the court struck down the often-used judicial recourse in which doctors were told they had to refer to the state medical marijuana law when justifying a patient’s marijuana use.
Neither Backlund nor Mistry was available for comment Monday.
Voters in Washington approved medical marijuana in 1998.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.