The Michigan Supreme Court just struck down a probation condition that Montcalm County never bothered to justify. The marijuana question made headlines. The justification question is the one that should worry every court administrator in the state.
On July 6, 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled unanimously in People v. Hess that a trial court cannot ban marijuana use that is legal under Michigan’s recreational marijuana law simply by pointing to the fact that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The Court held that the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act, known as MRTMA, controls over the state’s probation act when the two conflict. The Court did not rule that marijuana-related probation conditions are always unlawful. It ruled that this one was unsupported, because the district court imposed it with no individualized justification on the record. The case returns to the lower courts to apply that standard.
Key Points
All seven justices agreed that MRTMA preempts the probation act’s reliance on federal marijuana prohibition, extending the reasoning the Court applied to medical marijuana in Ter Beek v. City of Wyoming in 2014.
According to the case record, the 64B District Court imposed the marijuana ban on Danielle Hess with no stated justification. That absence, not the marijuana itself, is what the ruling ultimately turns on.
Judges retain authority to restrict marijuana use for individualized reasons tied to rehabilitation, treatment, or public safety. The Court explicitly left that question for a future case.
The ruling has no effect on federal probation, and prosecutors say individualized screening at the local level is not currently built to scale statewide.
Quick FAQs
Can judges still restrict marijuana use on probation at all?
Yes, if the restriction is tied to something specific in the case, such as a treatment plan or a documented safety concern. What the Court removed was the option to impose a blanket ban with no stated reason.
Does this apply to marijuana crimes, or just probation for unrelated offenses?
Hess was on probation for retail fraud, unrelated to marijuana. The ruling addresses probation conditions generally. It does not decide how courts should handle cases where the underlying offense involves marijuana itself.
Will this change how Michigan courts write probation orders?
It should. Courts that rely on standard-form conditions without case-specific findings are now on notice that those conditions may not survive a challenge if the underlying restriction burdens MRTMA-protected conduct.
Who brought this case, and who else weighed in?
Hess’s appeal was argued by attorney Emma Lawton. The ACLU of Michigan filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting her position. Montcalm County Prosecutor Thomas Ginster argued for the state.
What Happened in People v. Hess
In August 2021, Danielle Heaven-Leah Hess pleaded guilty in the 64B District Court to third-degree retail fraud after taking clothing from a store, and was sentenced to one year of probation under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act. Her probation order barred her from using or possessing marijuana and required her to submit to drug testing. In 2022, she tested positive for marijuana twice. The first positive test produced a probation violation she did not contest. After the second, she moved to amend her probation terms to permit MRTMA-compliant marijuana use and to vacate or dismiss the violations tied to it.
The district court denied the motion, found her in violation, revoked her youthful trainee status, and sentenced her to jail. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed, reasoning that the state’s probation act requires probationers to obey federal law, and since marijuana remains a federally controlled substance, the act permitted, and arguably required, courts to prohibit MRTMA-compliant marijuana use as a condition of probation.
The Part the Headlines Skipped: There Was No Justification in the Record
Most of the coverage of this ruling led with marijuana. That is the accessible hook. It is not the structural finding. According to the case summary published by Justia, the district court prohibited Hess from using or possessing marijuana as a condition of probation, and the court provided no specific justification for that restriction.
No finding that marijuana use posed a risk to her recovery. No finding that it related to the retail fraud conviction. No finding that it implicated public safety. The condition appears to have been imposed the way standard-form probation conditions get imposed across Michigan’s district courts every day: as boilerplate, attached to the order because it is available to attach, not because the record supports it.
The Michigan Supreme Court did not have to reach a sweeping constitutional question to decide this case. It reached one because the trial court skipped the step that would have made the sweeping question unnecessary: showing its work.
What the Court Actually Decided, and What It Pointedly Did Not
Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Welch grounded the ruling in the Court’s 2014 decision in Ter Beek v. City of Wyoming, which held that Michigan’s medical marijuana law preempted a municipality’s attempt to rely on federal prohibition to override state-protected conduct. Hess extends that preemption logic to MRTMA and to the state’s probation act. Where the two statutes conflict, the Court held, MRTMA controls, because the statute was written to prevent MRTMA-compliant marijuana use from becoming grounds for punishment.
Arrest, prosecution, penalty, search, or the denial of any right or privilege.
MRTMA’s protected-conduct language, as applied by the Court in People v. Hess
The Court was careful to draw a line it did not cross. It did not hold that marijuana can never be restricted as a condition of probation. It left open whether and under what circumstances a court could impose that restriction for reasons independent of federal illegality, such as a documented treatment need or a case-specific safety concern. That question was not before the Court in Hess, because the district court never articulated a reason of that kind in the first place. Montcalm County Prosecutor Thomas Ginster told reporters after the ruling that individualized screening for every probationer is not currently workable at the local level given resource constraints, a practical concern the opinion does not resolve.
Michigan voters pass MRTMA
Michigan voters approve the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act, legalizing recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older and building in protections against arrest, prosecution, penalty, or denial of rights for compliant use.
Hess pleads guilty, probation imposed
Hess pleads guilty to third-degree retail fraud in the 64B District Court and is sentenced to one year of probation under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act. Her probation order includes a marijuana ban and mandatory drug testing.
Two positive tests, two violations
Hess tests positive for marijuana twice. She does not contest the first violation. After the second, she moves to amend her probation to permit MRTMA-compliant marijuana use and to dismiss the resulting violations.
District court and Court of Appeals both side with the state
The district court denies Hess’s motion, revokes her youthful trainee status, and sentences her to jail. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirms, reasoning that the probation act’s requirement to obey federal law permits courts to bar MRTMA-compliant marijuana use.
Michigan Supreme Court reverses, unanimously
The Court holds that MRTMA controls over the probation act’s reliance on federal law, reverses the Court of Appeals, and remands for the lower courts to reconsider Hess’s motions under the corrected standard.
Boilerplate conditions survive because almost nobody checks the record for the justification behind them. Clutch Justice’s court literacy courses teach you what to look for and how to document the gap when it is not there.
See the Courses ?Why a Boilerplate Condition Is the Real Story
Clutch Justice does not track this case because it involves marijuana. It tracks it because it is a clean, published example of a pattern that shows up across sentencing and probation practice statewide: conditions imposed because a template makes them available, not because a judge made a case-specific finding and put it on the record.
That pattern is hard to see case by case. A probation order with an unexplained condition looks unremarkable on its face. It takes a challenge, an appeal, and a published opinion to surface what was missing. Most probationers never have the resources to mount that challenge. Hess did, and the absence in her record became visible only because she pushed the question all the way to the state’s highest court.
A condition that cannot survive being asked “why” is not a finding. It is a placeholder. Hess is a reminder that placeholders sit in probation orders until someone with standing and persistence makes a court explain them.
Institutional Performance: Grading the Three Courts That Handled This Case
Investigation Scorecard
What This Means for Probation Practice Statewide
The immediate effect of Hess is narrow. It applies to state court probation, not federal supervision, and it does not ban marijuana-related conditions outright. Courts can still impose them if they document a case-specific reason.
The broader effect is a compliance question every district court in Michigan should now be asking internally: how many active probation orders include a marijuana restriction with nothing in the record explaining why it is there. Prosecutor Ginster’s public comment that individualized screening is not workable at scale is worth taking seriously as a resource problem. It is also, functionally, an admission that the boilerplate practice Hess exposed was not an isolated drafting error. It was how the system has been operating.
Why This Matters Beyond Marijuana
Probation conditions are one of the quietest places where judicial discretion operates with almost no outside review. They are set at sentencing, rarely litigated, and enforced through violation proceedings that move fast and get little scrutiny. Hess matters less for what it says about cannabis policy than for what it confirms about that quieter process: conditions get attached because a form allows it, and the system counts on nobody asking for the justification behind them. This time, someone asked, and the answer was that there wasn’t one.
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