This makes me so angry  :cigar

A self-described Michigan “soccer mom” who had “every belonging” taken from her family in a 2014 drug raid has been cleared of all criminal charges, 19 months after heavily armed drug task force members ransacked her home and her business. But in many ways, her ordeal is only beginning.

Annette Shattuck and her husband, Dale, had been facing felony charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession with intent to manufacture marijuana and maintaining a drug house. But last month, Michigan Circuit Court Judge Daniel Kelly threw out all criminal complaints filed against the Shattucks "on the grounds of entrapment by estoppel," according to court filings. Entrapment by estoppel occurs when a government official leads a defendant to believe that their conduct is permissible under the law.

The Shattucks’ case is an illustration of how the nation’s patchwork marijuana laws can be a confusing mess for patients, businesses and law enforcement officials alike. Nearly two dozen states now have medical marijuana laws on the books, but laws vary significantly from state to state. And even within states, various arms of government have clashed over how the laws are interpreted and enforced.

In 2014, the Shattucks were starting up a marijuana dispensary under Michigan’s medical marijuana law. They worked to ensure every last detail was in full compliance with the law as they understood it: They obtained the permission of the landlord of the building where the dispensary, called the DNA Wellness Center, was to be housed. They went to local planning commission meetings to obtain the proper permits and licenses. They discussed business hours, security measures and even signage requirements with the planning commission.

The town building inspector checked the property and approved the signage. The chairman of the planning commission publicly thanked the Shattucks for working within the allowed legal framework. According to court documents, the Shattucks even went so far as to call the local sheriff’s Drug Task Force to invite them to inspect the property and verify their compliance with the law.

"We really went above and beyond," Annette Shattuck said in an interview. "We asked for help. We went out of our way to make sure that everything was legit."

Annette Shattuck holds her son Keaton in their living room while her husband works on repairing the damage from when their home was ravaged in 2014 on March 29, 2016 in Port Huron, Michigan.
© Photo by Ali Lapetina/For the Washington Post Annette Shattuck holds her son Keaton in their living room while her husband works on repairing the damage from when their home was ravaged in 2014 on March 29, 2016 in Port Huron…
But the Task Force never inspected the property. Instead, acting on an anonymous tip that marijuana was being sold at the location, agents of the St. Clair County Drug Task Force conducted a number of "controlled buys," where informants with medical marijuana cards entered the dispensary and purchased marijuana under the guise of medical use. That gave them enough probable cause to execute a raid.

Michigan’s existing voter-approved medical marijuana law doesn’t address the legal status of dispensaries, leaving room for conflicting interpretations. The Shattucks’ case is an example of what some drug policy experts say are the shortcomings of writing drug policy via ballot initiative. A more carefully considered piece of legislation may have clarified the gray areas that led to the raid on the Shattucks’ home and business, for instance.

Michigan’s medical marijuana law, approved by voters in 2008, "is a very confusing statute," according to Stephen Guilliat, chief assistant prosecutor for St. Clair County, where the dispensary was located. "Whoever drafted it was either crazy as a fox, or didn’t know what they were doing."

Of the 22 states plus D.C. with medical marijuana laws currently on the books, only Michigan, Montana and Alaska do not allow for medical marijuana to be sold from dispensaries. Patients in those states are, however, allowed to cultivate limited numbers of marijuana plants themselves, according marijuana reform group NORML. Michigan’s legislature has been working on legislation that would allow regulated dispensaries, but progress has been slow.

Technically, Shattuck’s dispensary should not have been approved by the town planning commission, because the law does not provide for selling marijuana in dispensaries, Guilliat said. "I think the township probably thought they were doing the right thing, without knowing what the law says," he added.

On July 28, 2014 — not long after the couple reached out to them to perform a compliance check — task force agents raided both the dispensary and the Shattucks’ home. In addition to charging the Shattucks with a variety of marijuana-related drug crimes, they took a lawnmower, a bicycle, their daughter’s birthday money, their marriage certificate and numerous other belongings, according to Annette Shattuck’s testimony before the Michigan House last year.

But Judge Daniel Kelly ruled last month that, because the town planning commission had signed off on the dispensary, and because the Shattucks "would not have called [the Drug Task Force] and invited law enforcement to their compassion center for an inspection unless [they] believed in good faith" that they were operating within the bounds of the law, "basic principles of due process preclude prosecution in this case." In short, the government can’t prosecute you for operating an "illegal" business if another arm of government has given you the green light on it.

Annette Shattuck says "it’s beyond exciting" to have the criminal charges cleared. But the tough work of getting her forfeited property back has only just begun.

Under asset forfeiture laws, police are allowed to seize and keep property suspected of involvement in a crime, regardless of whether the property’s owners are ever convicted — or even charged, in many cases. Michigan’s laws are particularly skewed against property owners, according a 2015 report from the Institute for Justice. The nonprofit civil liberties law firm gave Michigan a D- on its forfeiture laws, citing "poor protections for innocent property owners" and policies that allow police to keep up to 100 percent of the proceeds from forfeited property, creating a profit motive for seizing belongings.

Annette Shattuck says that since the charges have been dismissed, the Drug Task Force has returned some of her property. But much of it is damaged. Electronic items are missing power cords and remotes. Her and her husband’s phones were smashed. They returned her husband’s guns and the safe he stored him in, but they didn’t return the key. Two of the kids’ insurance cards are missing. Shattuck says her marriage and birth certificates haven’t been returned, and since the Task Force does not itemize seized documents in its paperwork, it has no record of taking them in the first place.

"We had plans to get the property back and sell a lot of it to pay for legal fees," she said. "But now we can’t."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/what-life-is-like-after-police-ransack-your-house-and-take-%E2%80%98every-belonging%E2%80%99-%E2%80%94-then-the-charges-are-dropped/ar-BBr7HU3?li=BBnbfcL