“A generalized odor of raw marijuana is not a reason to search every compartment in an automobile.”
By Sophie Nieto-Munoz, New Jersey Monitor
In a unanimous decision, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police officers searched a man’s vehicle on the New Jersey Turnpike improperly in 2016 based on the smell of pot. This ruling allows the man withdraw his guilty plea for a weapons offence.
This ruling was made more than two-years after the Governor. Phil Murphy (D), who signed the law, prohibits police officers from using the smell of cannabis to justify a search. This law was not relevant to the current case because it was passed at the wrong time. However, the ruling on Thursday states that police will use the smell of cannabis to search vehicles in the future.
Raymond Hamlin cheered the decision. He was the lawyer who represented Cornelius Cohen, the defendant.
Hamlin said, “It is significant that we were vindicated and that’s unbelievably pleasing.”
In January 2016, police pulled over Cohen’s black Honda Civic as he drove north on the Turnpike. The police were on the lookout because an informant had told them that Cohen was traveling south to bring weapons back to New Jersey.
The officer who pulled Cohen over said that he detected “a strong smell of raw marijuana” from the Honda. He then searched the Honda’s passenger compartment and found no marijuana. Next, he checked the engine compartment and found nothing but a revolver and rifle.
Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis noted that the officer should have stopped searching the car after finding no marijuana in its passenger compartment.
The Supreme Court’s opinion today examines the question of whether the smell of marijuana in the vehicle allows a search to be conducted of the engine compartment or trunk. #supremeopinionhttps://t.co/x8DXv24D97 pic.twitter.com/lP8zbGw1tW
New Jersey Courts June 22, 2020 HTML0
Pierre-Louis said that a generalized smell of marijuana raw does not warrant a search in every compartment of a car.
Cohen tried to suppress evidence of guns discovered during the car search, but to no avail. The trial court judge was disturbed by “subjective testimony,” of the smell marijuana in the car when there was no evidence to “suggest marijuana was in it.” Cohen was sentenced five years behind bars for one count of illegal possession of a firearm.
The Appellate Court upheld the decision that the weapons could be used as evidence against Cohen. However, the ruling on Thursday reverses this decision and sends Cohen’s matter back to lower courts.
Pierre-Louis cited the 1980 case New Jersey v. Patino which stated that an officer’s search “must be reasonably in scope.” In another case, a trooper pulled over a vehicle for a broken rearlight and smelled a strong odor of pot. He then found 176 pounds in the trunk. The Supreme Court in this case ruled that the search of a car was valid, because the odor was so strong. This officer had probable grounds to search the interior of the vehicle.
The decision of Thursday also noted that the officer could have obtained a search warrant in Cohen’s case to examine his engine compartment.
The New Jersey recreational marijuana law was not relevant to the case, as the arrest took place before the law. The legalization act decriminalized cannabis and stated that “the odor of burnt cannabis or cannabis cannabis” or possession of marijuana in excess of the six ounces allowed by law does not constitute reasonable suspicion.
The original publication of this story was by New Jersey Monitor.
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