Inside the Illinois Supreme Court
State Supreme Court rules unanimously in case stemming from 2020 traffic stop
On Thursday, September 19, 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the smell of burnt marijuana alone cannot justify a warrantless search of a vehicle.
The ruling was unanimous, but Judge Lisa Holder White did not participate. In his contribution to the court, Judge P. Scott Neville pointed to Illinois' landmark 2019 law legalizing recreational marijuana and decriminalizing possession of up to 30 grams.
“Marijuana laws have changed significantly to the point where the smell of burnt marijuana alone does not provide sufficient reason for a police officer to search a vehicle without a warrant,” Neville wrote in a 20-page opinion. There is. .
The incident began in September 2020, when Ryan Redmond was pulled over by an Illinois State Police trooper on Interstate 80 in Henry County, just east of the Quad-Cities. Redmond's license plate was not properly secured to the car and he was allegedly driving three miles over the speed limit, according to court records.
However, during the interaction, officers allegedly smelled burnt marijuana inside Redmond's car, searched the vehicle and found approximately 1 gram of marijuana in the vehicle's center console.
Redmond was later charged with a misdemeanor charge of failure to transport marijuana in an odor-proof container.
The court found that the officer's detection of the odor of “burnt marijuana” in the vehicle “certainly established reasonable suspicion warranting further investigation,” but the officer's further investigation did not indicate that Redmond was driving. He pointed out that nothing further was available, including any indication that the patient was at fault. Therefore, Neville wrote, the officer's reasonable suspicion should never have advanced to “probable cause for the search.”
The court accepted that the officer's initial suspicion that Redmond “may have smoked cannabis in the vehicle at some point” was not outside the realm of possibility, but Neville said the officer “did not observe any signs of impairment.” Further investigation revealed no drug paraphernalia or evidence of marijuana use in the vehicle.
The officer said, “Redmond did not detect any odor of burnt marijuana, which refutes any reasonable belief that Redmond had recently smoked marijuana in his vehicle while traveling on an Illinois highway.'' The book says:
The court will hear the Redmond case in January, along with arguments in a related case that focuses on a provision in Illinois law that requires marijuana to be stored in sealed, odor-proof containers when transported in vehicles. The trial was held.
In that case, an Illinois State Police trooper stopped a car for speeding in rural Whiteside County, also near the Quad-Cities, and arrested the passenger of the car for illegal possession of marijuana. According to court records, Vincent Molina was arrested in December 2020 after officers found a small box containing rolled joints during a search of his vehicle due to the odor of raw marijuana inside. , Molina told officers he had a medical marijuana card.
The Supreme Court heard the cases in consolidated arguments earlier this year, but the justices only ruled on the Redmond case on Thursday. The decision briefly mentioned Molina in a footnote and said the court did not address the “reasonableness of the odor-proof container requirement” in Redmond.
Ahead of joint oral arguments in January, national and state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed briefs in support of Molina and Redmond, acknowledging the odor of marijuana as a reason for the search. I wrote it. The vehicles would lead to disproportionate policing of Black and Latino residents in Illinois.
“This state has a decades-long pattern of police using pretexts such as the smell of marijuana to stop and search black and Latino drivers unreasonably,” the brief says. Illinois' stop and search policy “unreasonably intrudes on[Black and Latino drivers']privacy and reduces them to second-class citizens.”
These organizations argued that legalizing cannabis meant its presence was not indicative of contraband or crime.
Thursday's opinion also cited the Kansas Supreme Court's decision earlier this year, which other states agree with, as an example. High courts in other states, including Minnesota, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont, have ruled similarly, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the opposite in a 2023 decision.
Other states have also passed laws prohibiting warrantless searches of vehicles based solely on the smell of marijuana. But a similar effort in Illinois stalled last year as the Redmond and Molina cases were pending.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and television stations throughout the state. It is primarily funded by the Illinois Publishing Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, with generous gifts from the Illinois Broadcasting Corporation and the Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
