Florida court deals blow to marijuana ballot initiative
Headline Legal News
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a potentially fatal blow to supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at legalizing marijuana under certain circumstances.
The justices ruled that the initiative’s ballot summary is “misleading” in part because it does not spell out that recreational marijuana possession and distribution remains a federal crime.
“The point is that a summary should not contain language that is affirmatively misleading and creates a risk that voters will be confused,” the majority justices wrote in a 5-2 ruling.
The ruling came after Attorney General Ashley Moody requested an advisory opinion on whether the marijuana initiative was valid.
A group called Make It Legal Florida had been gathering petition signatures in hopes of placing the initiative on the 2022 ballot. Now, they will have to start all over again.
The group would need more than 891,000 signatures to get the marijuana measure on the 2022 ballot
The proposal would permit Floridians 21 and older to possess up to 2.5 ounces (70 grams) of marijuana for personal use, with some restrictions over where it could be used. The court majority objected to the summary because they said it implies Floridians would be completely free of criminal exposure despite federal law.
The court reasoned that the ballot summary “affirmatively misleads voters into believing that the recreational use of marijuana in Florida will be free of any repercussions, criminal or otherwise.”
Justices Jorge LaBarga and Allen Lawson dissented, with Lawson filing an opinion saying the ballot summary accurately describes what the proposed amendment would do. Lawson said he would have approved it.
Florida voters in 2016 approved a constitutional amendment permitting medical use of marijuana.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.