“The odor of marijuana should be taken into consideration along with any other circumstances in order to determine if there is a reasonable probability that a search may yield contraband.”
By Christopher Ingraham of Minnesota Reformer
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in a recent ruling that the smell of marijuana alone does not constitute probable cause to conduct a search by police officers.
The decision was made in the case of an 2021 traffic stop by Litchfield Police in Meeker County, where Adam Torgerson had been pulled over for having too many lights on his vehicle grill. The officer said he could smell marijuana from the vehicle’s open window. Torgerson denied that there was marijuana in his car, which he was driving along with his wife and child.
Another officer came up and confirmed that he too smelled marijuana. The officers searched the vehicle, and found a small amount methamphetamine as well as some paraphernalia.
Torgerson did not drive erratically nor were there any signs of criminal activity visible when the officers approached his car. The officers based their probable-cause finding on the marijuana smell.
A district court then ruled that evidence obtained during the search was not admissible. In 2021, marijuana possession was legal in certain circumstances. Patients who were on medical marijuana could also possess it. Industrial hemp, which looks and smells similar to regular marijuana, was also legal. Possession of small amounts of marijuana was also decriminalized at that time. It is still prohibited by law, but it’s not a crime.
The state of Minnesota appealed the decision and lost to an appeals court. It then brought it before today’s Supreme Court which affirmed the lower court decisions.
Justice Anne McKeig, writing for the majority of the court, noted that it had previously ruled the smell of alcohol alone was not sufficient to warrant a vehicle check. In 2021 marijuana will be legal under certain circumstances. McKeig noted that the “odor of marijuana” should be taken into consideration along with other factors to determine if there is a reasonable probability of finding contraband.
Outgoing Chief justice Laurie Gildea, who is retiring, dissented with the majority. She wrote that “because marijuana, in Minnesota, is contraband, the smell of pot coming from a car inside would lead a prudent and reasonable person…to assume that there will likely be marijuana in the vehicle.”
This ruling aligns Minnesota’s law with Colorado, where marijuana odor hasn’t been sufficient to establish probable reason for a search of a vehicle since 2016.
The Minnesota ruling, however, does not mention the changing circumstances that have occurred since the legalization in Minnesota of edibles with low doses of THC and personal use marijuana for this year.
The ruling is still a win for civil libertarians, racial justice activists, and others who have long claimed that marijuana odor was used in unconstitutional searches, which violated the Fourth Amendment.
The original publication of this story was by Minnesota Reformer.
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The article Smell of Marijuana alone does not justify vehicle search, Minnesota Supreme Court Rules first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
