 George Worden IV (Photo: WTVF) On March 4, 2019, 28-year-old George Worden IV, of Gallatin, Tennessee, was charged with simple possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor.
Available court records don’t describe the circumstances that led to Worden’s arrest, but he fought the charge, stating that he had legally purchased a hemp product at a store in Gallatin.
Tennessee allows the legal purchase of hemp and other products with a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) level of no more than 0.3 percent.
At Worden’s trial, in Sumner County Circuit Court, there was conflicting evidence about the substance Worden possessed. The police had performed two field tests. One came back negative; the other, inconclusive. Later, the Sumner County District Attorney’s Office requested that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation test the material.
The TBI’s lab report said that the substance had a THC level of greater than 1 percent. A chemist with the agency testified that the material was marijuana.
The jury convicted Worden of possession on August 20, 2020. He was fined $1,500 and sentenced to 60 days in jail.
In February 2024, the TBI notified the state’s district attorneys about problems with their testing procedures, which involved heating the substances in question during the analysis. The heating altered the chemistry of hemp products, producing a level of THC that might be higher—and considered illegal—than the substance contained at the time of purchase.
The Sumner County District Attorney’s office contacted Worden’s attorney, and the parties moved to set aside his conviction.
Judge Dee David Gay ordered the conviction vacated and charge dismissed on August 8, 2024.
He wrote: “Considering this new information about the potential for unreliability in the TBI’s THC testing process at the time of the investigation, combined with the doubts raised in the trial proof regarding inconclusive field test results, the evidence in this case does not support the defendant’s conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”
– Ken Otterbourg
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