Marijuana Supervised Release Violation Upheld Despite NY Repeal

A man sentenced to three months in prison for violating his supervised release by possessing marijuana failed to convince the Second Circuit Tuesday that the act wasn’t a crime.

Francis Francis asked the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reverse the decision of a district court in New York, which handed him the prison sentence and an additional year of supervised release after finding him in violation of New York Penal Code §221.05.

Francis argued the offense was a state “violation” and not a state “crime,” and therefore his marijuana possession didn’t violate the mandatory condition of ...