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Professor Joel Schumm has petitioned the Indiana Supreme Court to accept the transfer of a case that could be one of first impression in Indiana: a person's constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness by smoking marijuana.

Police stopped a car that John L. Solomon was riding in, and found a marijuana blunt near where he had been sitting. Solomon was convicted of Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana at a bench trial. He then challenged Indiana's criminal law against marijuana on state constitutional grounds, but the Indiana Court of Appeals declined to accept his argument that his rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness under the Indiana Constitution were violated. A story about the case appeared in the Indiana Lawyer. Professor Schumm, a magna cum laude graduate of IU McKinney who directs the Appellate Clinic and the Judicial Externship Program, is representing Solomon in the case.

In the petition, Professor Schumm writes that "Perhaps most troubling, without citation to authority the opinion broadly declares an Article 1 constitutional claim is off-limits as 'a legislative determination and not a judicial one.'" He also notes that the Court of Appeals opinion here is in conflict with Indiana Supreme Court precedent.