## Facts

- Noah Kleinman helped operate California storefronts presented as medical-marijuana collectives under state law.
- Trial evidence showed the businesses were effectively open to the public and not limited to bona fide collective members.
- Undercover officers bought marijuana from the operation in 2010.
- Evidence showed marijuana was shipped to customers outside California, including Pennsylvania and New York.
- The government also introduced evidence of financial transactions supporting a money-laundering conspiracy theory.
- After a related state prosecution was dismissed, the federal government charged Kleinman with drug-distribution and money-laundering offenses.
- A jury convicted Kleinman of marijuana-distribution conspiracy, substantive distribution, maintaining a drug-involved premises, and money-laundering conspiracy.
- The district court imposed a 211-month prison term and special conditions of supervised release.

## Issues

1. Whether a congressional appropriations rider restricting DOJ spending to interfere with state medical-marijuana programs required dismissal or stay of the federal prosecution.
2. Whether a jury instruction directing jurors to follow the law and not decide the case based on sympathy or disagreement with the law improperly coerced the verdict (anti-nullification instruction).
3. Whether the district court erred by denying suppression and a hearing under *Franks v. Delaware* based on alleged misstatements or omissions in a search-warrant affidavit.
4. Whether challenged evidentiary rulings and sentencing determinations, including special supervised-release conditions, required reversal or resentencing.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed Kleinman’s convictions and 211-month prison sentence.
- The court held the appropriations rider did not bar the case because Kleinman’s conduct was not strictly compliant with California medical-marijuana law, including out-of-state distribution.
- The court upheld the anti-nullification instruction as a permissible direction to apply the law and decide the case on the evidence, without coercing a guilty verdict or reducing the government’s burden.
- The court found no reversible error in denying suppression or a *Franks* hearing, concluding Kleinman failed to make the required preliminary showing and probable cause existed.
- The court rejected most evidentiary and sentencing challenges as within the district court’s discretion or harmless.
- The court vacated certain special conditions of supervised release as vague, overbroad, or insufficiently justified and remanded for limited resentencing on those conditions.

## Legal Principles

- A DOJ appropriations rider restricting spending to prevent state implementation of medical-marijuana laws does not protect defendants unless they strictly comply with the state’s medical-marijuana requirements; conduct outside state authorization remains prosecutable.
- State medical-marijuana rules do not create a defense to federal Controlled Substances Act violations.
- Jurors have the power but not the right to nullify; courts may instruct jurors to follow the law and not decide cases based on sympathy or policy disagreement, so long as the instruction is not coercive and does not alter the burden of proof.
- A *Franks* hearing requires a substantial preliminary showing of intentional or reckless falsehoods or material omissions in the warrant affidavit and materiality to probable cause.
- Special conditions of supervised release must be reasonably related to statutory sentencing factors and impose no greater liberty deprivation than reasonably necessary; vague or overbroad conditions may be vacated and remanded for clarification or narrowing.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that the federal spending restriction for state medical-marijuana programs does not bar prosecution absent strict state-law compliance, approved an instruction discouraging jury nullification, found no suppression or *Franks* error, and otherwise affirmed the convictions and prison sentence while remanding to revise improper supervised-release conditions.


United States v. Kleinman, 880 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2018)