{"id":2758,"date":"2016-09-29T21:04:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T04:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/appeals-court-reverses-homer-pot-conviction\/"},"modified":"2016-09-29T21:04:15","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T04:04:15","slug":"appeals-court-reverses-homer-pot-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/appeals-court-reverses-homer-pot-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court reverses Homer pot conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOMER \u2014 <\/strong>The Court of Appeals has reversed a conviction for marijuana possession against a homeless Homer man.<\/p>\n

In a decision released Sept. 14, the court also rejected the claim of Michael L. Murphy, that his backpack should fall under the same privacy provisions of a home as laid out in the Ravin v. Alaska decision.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Homer Police contacted Murphy and said they smelled marijuana in his backpack. He was charged with sixth-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance. In a bench trial, Homer District Court Judge Margaret Murphy found Murphy guilty. Murphy appealed his conviction.<\/p>\n

In a decision written by Judge David Mannheimer, the appellate court found that Michael Murphy was entitled to a trial by jury and that the district court should have addressed him personally to ascertain that he knowingly waived his right to a jury trial. The state conceded that his trial was illegal and the court reversed the conviction.<\/p>\n

Michael Murphy also claimed that because he was homeless his personal belongings had the same privacy protection as a home. Ravin v. Alaska found that Alaska\u2019s constitutional right to privacy allowed possession of pot in a home. The appellate court said that Murphy claimed a broader privacy protection for homeless people than people with homes. The appellate court found that Ravin focused \u201con the unique constitutional status of the home in the sense of a structure,\u201d Mannheimer wrote. It rejected the privacy claim.<\/p>\n

Ballot Measure 2 in 2014 legalized possession of marijuana by adults and now allows possession beyond homes.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Michael Armstrong is a reporter for the Homer News.<\/p>\n

Read more news:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Study: Marijuana legalization does not affect crime, economics<\/a><\/p>\n

Prostitutes and police: Southeast Alaska’s hidden histories<\/a><\/p>\n

Alaska flags lowered to honor former Israeli PM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOMER \u2014 The Court of Appeals has reversed a conviction for marijuana possession against a homeless Homer man. In a decision released Sept. 14, the court also rejected the claim of Michael L. Murphy, that his backpack should fall under the same privacy provisions of a home as laid out in the Ravin v. Alaska […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":417,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}