JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Supreme Court is reversing a marijuana possession conviction, saying a car passenger didn’t actually possess the drug.
The court on Thursday overturned the 2012 conviction of Marvin Carver in Madison County on a 7-0 vote.
Carver had been sentenced to six years in prison.
Justice Leslie King writes that prosecutors never proved that Carver knew about or intended to possess the large quantity of marijuana that was in the trunk of his half-brother’s rental car.
The half-brother, Nicholas Ingram, told police that the marijuana belonged only to him after he was pulled over by a state trooper.
King writes that just being close to the marijuana isn’t enough to make Carver responsible for it, especially because he didn’t own the car.
