Supreme Court Rules Raw Cannabis Smell Justifies Search of Vehicle
Just months after ruling that the smell of burnt cannabis alone cannot justify a police officer subsequently searching a vehicle, as we covered here, the Illinois Supreme Court found that the opposite holds true for raw cannabis alone and its smell does satisfy the probable cause needed to justify a police search. After marijuana was legalized in Illinois in 2019, there were challenges to the long-standing precedent in Illinois that the smell of marijuana by itself provided the justification needed for police to search a vehicle. Earlier this year in People v. Redmond the Supreme Court reasoned that because it was now legal and there could be innocuous reasons for the smell of burnt marijuana (someone previously smoked in the car, the smell could be on their person, etc.), police would need to point to some other signs of inebriation from marijuana to justify a search, reasoning that it should be treated similar to alcohol. While the case at issue, People v. Molina was previously combined, Justice P. Scott Neville Jr. writing for the majority reasoned that because the Illinois Vehicle Code requires any marijuana to being transported to be, “in an odor proof container”, and because, “An officer [is] trained to distinguish between burnt and raw cannabis…the odor of raw cannabis suggests that cannabis is currently possessed in the area where the odor is detected” the police were justified in searching the vehicle in this case. “In short, while cannabis is legal to possess generally, it is illegal to possess in a vehicle on an Illinois highway unless in an odor-proof container,” he went on to explain. Writing for the dissent, Justice Mary K. O’Brien “point[ed] out the absurdity of this inconsistency” and wrote that raw cannabis and burnt cannabis should be treated the same, namely that there should have to be other factors present to justify a search of the vehicle. While there have been bills proposed in the Illinois legislature that seek to either remove the odorless container requirement in vehicles or put into law that the smell of marijuana, raw or burnt, does not satisfy probable cause alone, neither measure advanced to a vote in the last session. With the Supreme Court ruling as it has, there may be renewed interest at the legislative level to provide clarity to ordinary Illinois citizens who may be confused as to the different standards.
Questions Raised About Marijuana DUI Convictions Legitimacy
It was recently uncovered that the University of Illinois Chicago Analytical Forensic Testing Laboratory, one of the labs which Illinois law enforcement and prosecutors relied on for testing individuals accused of driving while under the influence of marijuana, were at times using tests that were flawed and could have lead to unreliable results. In a recent court filing, attorney’s representing a man, Corey Lee, currently serving a 6 year sentence after being convicted of being under the influence of marijuana after he got into a fatal accident, claim that the testing used in his case was somehow flawed because the blood test utilized by the lab was unable to distinguish between delta-9 THC (the main psychoactive compound in marijuana) and other THC compounds. “The University of Illinois Chicago lab has been providing misleading testimony in court, and as a result of that, their accrediting agency decided to audit the lab and then began to find a series of, they call them, nonconformance or failure to follow scientific standards, which has now put about 1,600 cannabis DUI cases that they tested in jeopardy” according to an attorney representing Lee. It was revealed that the lab, which no longer provides marijuana tests in DUI cases, knew of the problem last March, but did not notify law enforcement of possible flawed results until May of that year. There will likely be long legal battles for those who were possibly convicted by results from the flawed methodology used by the lab as they may seek to overturn their conviction. In either case, recent developments make it clear that we still have a long road ahead in providing clarity when it comes to marijuana over just how police enforce the laws on the books, exercise their police powers, and ensure the public trusts the outcome of said enforcement.