Walton v. Colorado
Annotate this CaseAlysha Walton pled guilty to driving under the influence (“DUI”), and the county court sentenced her to twelve months of unsupervised probation. Because Walton did not provide a medical professional to testify regarding her authorization to use medical marijuana, the court, as a condition of probation, prohibited Walton from using medical marijuana. Walton appealed, and the district court affirmed the county court’s decision. The Colorado Supreme Court held that the plain language of section 18-1.3-204(2)(a)(VIII), C.R.S. (2019) created a presumption that a defendant could use medical marijuana while serving a sentence to probation unless a statutory exception applied. The relevant exception here applied if the sentencing court found, based on material evidence, that prohibiting this defendant’s otherwise-authorized medical marijuana use was necessary and appropriate to promote statutory sentencing goals. Because the county court made no such findings here, the district court's judgment affirming the county court was reversed. Because defendant completed her sentence, reversing and remanding was deemed moot.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.