Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

OH2: Men on street around smell of burning marijuana could not be searched without more

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

One police officer told another that four men were smoking marijuana at a bus stop. Another officer went to the bus stop and smelled marijuana. It could not be pinpointed to a particular man. This was less like Pringle and more like Ybarra, and searching the defendant was without probable cause. State v. Johnson, 2010 Ohio 840, 2010 Ohio App. LEXIS 682 (2d Dist. March 5, 2010): [*P25] Defendant's presence at the location where the odor of marijuana was in the air implicated him in the suspected crime, if only by complicity, on the view that smoking marijuana is an act which is visibly criminal. However, and unlike the three men in Pringle who were each implicated directly in possession of drugs that police saw in their car, Defendant's complicity did not create an implication that he actually possessed drugs...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 11, 2010 (boomark / email).