A Carroll County circuit judge ruled Friday that a 1992 raid at marijuana-rights activist Pamela Snowhite Davis' farm was overzealous, but valid, and that misdemeanor convictions against her should stand.
Ms. Davis said she would appeal the convictions. Judge Francis M. Arnold released her on her own recognizance.
Friday's hearing was another step in a long and complicated case that began when county narcotics officers, dressed as delivery men, searched Ms. Davis' farmhouse on Humbert Schoolhouse Road north of Westminster and seized less than an ounce of marijuana.
Ms. Davis won her first victory in the case in June when the Maryland Court of Special Appeals threw out the felony conviction that resulted from the raid. The court said Carroll prosecutors failed to present enough evidence to find her guilty of maintaining a common nuisance.
The court also ruled that she should be granted a Circuit Court hearing on whether certain evidence obtained during the search should be suppressed. If so, then two misdemeanor charges -- possession of marijuana and paraphernalia -- would have to be dropped.
The appeals court also invited her to appeal if the misdemeanor charges were not dropped as a result.
After hearing arguments from Ms. Davis' lawyer, Daniel Goldstein of Baltimore, and Assistant State's Attorney Barton F. Walker III, Judge Arnold said he could not drop the charges.
He said that while he would not have issued the original warrant to search her home based on available evidence, he could not say that Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr.'s decision to do so was unreasonable.
But, narcotics officers who conducted the search overstepped their bounds by seizing possessions that were outside the jurisdiction of the warrant, Judge Arnold said.
The warrant authorized the officers to seize drugs or drug paraphernalia, but they also seized personal papers, record album covers, magazines, computers and other items belonging Ms. Davis and three other people who lived with her.
Ms. Davis had been sentenced to one year in a local detention center for the misdemeanor charges. She served 56 days last year before being released while she appealed the convictions.
If she loses her appeal, she probably will have to finish the sentence, Mr. Walker said.
Judge Arnold said he offered to proceed to the sentencing phase of the case Friday, but Ms. Davis wanted to appeal. After the hearing, neither side would say whether the state offered to reduce her sentence if she did not appeal.
Police obtained a warrant to search Ms. Davis' house after police in Orange County, Calif., alerted them that a package addressed to her home contained 1 1/2 ounces of marijuana.
Carroll officers, dressed in United Parcel Service uniforms, delivered the package, searched the house and filed charges against Ms. Davis. The officers found about 3/4 ounce of marijuana in Ms. Davis' bedroom.
Ms. Davis, who now lives in Baltimore, continues to be defiant about her marijuana use.
She said she has used the drug for medicinal purposes since 1991. She said she recently was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis or a related disease. She now walks with a cane.
Symptoms of the illness began about a year before the drug raid, and she was using marijuana to ease them, she said.
"I can't use a natural, herbal, made-by-God remedy for what ails me," she said.