A divided Supreme Court of Mississippi upheld a prisoner’s sentence of life imprisonment for possession of marijuana under the state’s violent habitual offender law.
The affirmation of the sentence comes as laws regarding marijuana are being loosened nationwide.
A Buffalo Law Review article by Paul J. Larkin Jr. titled “Cannabis Capitalism” from a year ago, points out that at that time, 36 states had medical marijuana programs and 14 states—plus the District of Columbia—now allow it to be used recreationally.
Mississippi itself created a medical marijuana program when a state statute was signed into law on Feb. 2, 2022.
The defendant, Allen Russell, argued that the life sentence without the possibility of parole violated his right under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, along with his constitutional right not to be subjected to ex post facto laws….