State v. Murray

OPINION

Paul R. Wallace, Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Just over a year ago, Delaware decriminalized the act of possessing a small quantity of marijuana for personal use. This motion, brought by a criminal defendant arrested shortly after that enactment, brings to the fore some underexamined (or, more likely, some wholly unanticipated) consequences of that change.

II. STATUTORY BACKGROUND: Delaware’s Fast-Changing Drug Laws 1

In 2011, at the urging of the Drug Law Revisions Committee, Delaware repealed significant portions of its extant criminal *478drug code and replaced it with laws creating three main drug…