Pubdate: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 Source: Associated Press (Wire) Copyright: 2003 Associated Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) NEWS IN BRIEF FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Butte County's only guilty verdict to be returned so far in a medical marijuana case has been thrown out of court. Michael Kelly, 22, who was acquitted last spring of felony cultivation and sales charges but convicted for misdemeanor drug possession, asked a Butte County Superior Court judge Monday to grant him a new trial. Judge Robert Glusman instead threw out the conviction, which could have carried up to six months in jail, saying there wasn't enough evidence. Sheriff's deputies raided Kelly's rural property February 2001, seizing a small amount of dried and processed marijuana. At his trial, a Berkeley psychiatrist told jurors he had prescribed marijuana to help alleviate Kelly's obsessive compulsive disorder. The jury ruled that he had the right under California's medical marijuana law to grow and smoke the drug. But they said afterward that a confusing legal instruction led them to convict him for possession for having more than an ounce of marijuana. On Monday, defense attorney Jodea Foster argued that the amount of marijuana "fell within permissible limits for personal use." Glusman threw out the misdemeanor drug conviction, agreeing with the defense that the jury verdict was "contrary to evidence." The medical marijuana case is one of only two to go to trial in Butte County. In 2001, Cohasset resident Michael Rogers, who had 21 marijuana plants at his house, was also acquitted. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh