State Courts

The Ohio Supreme Court has taken a stab at a largely yet-to-be-adjudicated area of Fourth Amendment law. In a ruling Tuesday, it held that police must obtain a search warrant to search an arrestee's cell phone.

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis thinks selling medical marijuana is illegal. But a San Diego jury disagreed Tuesday in the first dispensary case since her latest round of raids back in September.

The era of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses has come to an end in Rhode Island. But that's just a start -- you can still get up to 50 years for 10 pounds of pot.

To be a caregiver or not be a caregiver? That is the question in Colorado, and the criminal courts, civil courts, state bureaucrats, and the medical marijuana industry are all fighting over it.

Medical marijuana caregivers must actually know the patients for whom they are growing pot, the Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled. The opinion, if upheld on appeal, could put a crimp in the state's fast-growing medical marijuana industry.

A California Superior Court judge is blocking the city of Los Angeles from enforcing its moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries. This as local prosecutors declare that all dispensaries are illegal, and as their numbers continue to grow.

As many as 1,500 Rockefeller drug law prisoners could walk out of prison early after reforms passed in April went into effect this week. But that still leaves 12,000 more behind bars in the Empire State.

It's been 20 years since Janet Reno established the first drug court in Miami. Now, there are more than 2,100 of them, but the nation's leading criminal defense attorneys' group says they are distorting justice and need serious reforms.

It was strike two Monday for the Church of Cognizance and its argument that its members have a religious right to use marijuana. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected that claim from a church member. Last year, a federal court rejected a similar claim from church founders Dan and Mary Quaintance, who are currently in federal prison.

Maine marijuana activist Don Christen is getting ready to do eight months behind bars after the state Supreme Court rejected his appeal in a marijuana cultivation case where he argued he was growing for patients.