Background
Danielle Heaven-Leah Hess pleaded guilty to third-degree retail fraud after shoplifting clothing from a Meijer store. The 64B District Court sentenced her to 12 months’ probation under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act (HYTA), MCL 762.11, and, without explanation, included a condition barring her from using or possessing marijuana. While on probation, Hess twice tested positive for marijuana and was charged with probation violations. After the second charge, she moved to amend her probation conditions to permit use and possession compliant with the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act (MRTMA), MCL 333.27951 et seq., and to vacate and dismiss the violations. The district court denied the motion, found her guilty of a probation violation, revoked her HYTA status, and sentenced her to ten days in jail.
The Montcalm Circuit Court stayed the jail sentence pending appeal but otherwise affirmed. The Court of Appeals also affirmed in a published opinion, reasoning that MCL 771.3(1)(a) of the probation act mandates that every probationer refrain from violating any criminal law of the United States, and that because the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) criminalizes recreational marijuana, the probation act both permits and arguably requires courts to ban MRTMA-compliant marijuana use as a probation condition. Hess sought leave to appeal in the Michigan Supreme Court, which granted the application.
The Court’s Holding
In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Welch, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals. The Court held, first, that the CSA does not preempt § 5(1) of the MRTMA. Extending its earlier analysis in Ter Beek v. City of Wyoming, 495 Mich 1 (2014)—which held the CSA did not preempt the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act—the Court applied the “positive conflict” preemption test and found none. Section 5(1) of the MRTMA grants Michiganders state-law immunity from arrest, prosecution, or penalty for MRTMA-compliant conduct; it does not purport to prohibit federal enforcement or alter the CSA’s criminalization of marijuana, and therefore creates no obstacle to the CSA’s purposes and objectives.
Second, the Court held that the probation act is inconsistent with the MRTMA to the extent it incorporates federal marijuana prohibitions. Because the MRTMA expressly provides that “[a]ll other laws inconsistent with this act do not apply to conduct that is permitted by this act,” MCL 333.27954(5), and because the MRTMA’s stated intent is to prevent arrest and penalty for MRTMA-compliant marijuana use, the probation act’s blanket federal-law bar cannot automatically strip probationers of the immunity the MRTMA guarantees. The Court therefore held that a trial court may not prohibit MRTMA-compliant marijuana use as a probation condition solely because such use violates federal law. The Court expressly declined to decide whether a court could impose such a restriction as a discretionary, individually tailored probation condition under MCL 771.3(3), as the Court of Appeals had not addressed that question.
The Court of Appeals’ judgment was reversed and the case remanded to the district court to reconsider Hess’s motion to amend her probation conditions, to vacate her first violation, and to dismiss her second violation.
Key Takeaways
- The CSA does not preempt the MRTMA under the positive-conflict preemption standard; Ter Beek‘s reasoning, originally applied to the MMMA, extends equally to the MRTMA.
- A Michigan probation condition categorically banning MRTMA-compliant marijuana use on the sole ground that it violates federal law is inconsistent with the MRTMA and therefore unenforceable under MCL 333.27954(5).
- The Court left open whether a trial court may restrict a probationer’s marijuana use as a discretionary, individually tailored condition under MCL 771.3(3)—that question was not reached below and remains unresolved.
- The April 2026 federal reclassification of certain marijuana products to Schedule III did not affect the Court’s analysis; recreational marijuana use remains illegal under the CSA.
Why It Matters
This decision establishes that Michigan’s voter-enacted marijuana legalization law has real teeth in the criminal-justice context: courts cannot use the federal prohibition as a backdoor to nullify MRTMA rights for the state’s nearly 1.4 million adults on probation. Defense attorneys now have a clear statutory and preemption-doctrine basis to challenge blanket marijuana probation conditions and to move for relief from violations premised solely on MRTMA-compliant use.
The ruling also leaves significant unresolved territory. The Court explicitly reserved judgment on whether judges may still ban marijuana use as a discretionary, case-specific probation condition—for instance, where marijuana use was connected to the underlying offense or the probationer’s assessed risks. Trial courts, prosecutors, and defense counsel should expect substantial litigation over that question in the months ahead, with the companion case People v. Lopez-Hernandez held in abeyance pending this decision now returning to the spotlight.