## Facts

- Multiple defendants in consolidated cases participated in marijuana cultivation and distribution operations in California and Washington.
- Federal prosecutors charged defendants under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with marijuana-related offenses, including conspiracy to manufacture, possess with intent to distribute, and distribute marijuana.
- During the prosecutions, Congress enacted an appropriations rider (Consolidated Appropriations Act provisions, including § 542) prohibiting DOJ from using funds to “prevent” listed states from “implementing” state laws authorizing medical marijuana use, distribution, possession, or cultivation.
- Defendants asserted they were acting in compliance with their states’ medical marijuana schemes and argued that continuing federal prosecution would impermissibly use DOJ funds to prevent state implementation.
- District courts denied defendants’ requests to dismiss indictments or enjoin prosecutions; defendants pursued interlocutory appeals and, in parallel, petitions for mandamus, which were consolidated.

## Issues

1. Whether the court of appeals had interlocutory jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) to review denials of motions seeking to enjoin federal prosecutions.
2. Whether criminal defendants had standing to invoke separation-of-powers limits to challenge DOJ spending that allegedly violates an appropriations restriction in their own prosecutions.
3. Whether the appropriations rider prohibits DOJ from spending funds to prosecute individuals for CSA marijuana offenses when the individuals’ conduct is fully authorized by, and strictly complies with, state medical marijuana laws.

## Decision

- The court held it had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) because the appealed orders denied requests for injunctions against prosecution.
- The court held defendants had standing to argue DOJ was spending funds contrary to Congress’s appropriations limits, as applied in their criminal cases.
- The court interpreted the rider to bar DOJ from spending funds to prosecute individuals whose conduct is completely authorized by state medical marijuana law, meaning strict compliance with all relevant state-law conditions.
- The court held prosecutions of individuals who do not strictly comply with state medical marijuana requirements do not violate the rider.
- The court vacated the district courts’ denials of relief and remanded for evidentiary hearings to determine each defendant’s compliance; prosecutions must be stayed or enjoined to the extent they would use funds in violation of the rider while it remains in effect.

## Legal Principles

- Congressional appropriations restrictions bind executive agencies; spending in contravention of an appropriations rider is unlawful during the rider’s effective period.
- An appropriations rider barring DOJ from using funds to prevent states from implementing medical marijuana laws prohibits DOJ from funding prosecutions that would thwart the operation of specific state-law provisions authorizing medical marijuana conduct.
- The rider’s protection applies only to defendants who strictly comply with all conditions imposed by state medical marijuana law; it does not shield conduct unauthorized under state law.
- The rider is a temporary spending limitation, not a substantive change to federal marijuana prohibitions, and does not create permanent immunity from federal prosecution.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that, while the appropriations rider is in force, DOJ may not spend funds to prosecute CSA marijuana offenses against defendants who can prove strict compliance with state medical marijuana laws, and it required remand for evidentiary hearings to determine whether prosecutions must be stayed or enjoined on that basis.


United States v. McIntosh, 833 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2016)