A strange one....
Cop believes he can smell weed coming from a sealed
container in a moving car from inside his own moving car.
Fortunately, a judge afflicted with common sense disagreed.
It's bad enuf that K9 drug sniffing dogs are the 4 footed
equivalent of Barny Fife. But had such an ability been
deemed cromulent, then any cop could stop anyone for
any reason, relying upon this super power.
Indiana: Federal Judge Says Cops Cannot Smell Pot From A Moving Car
Excerpted....
Prosecutors on Tuesday dropped all charges against an Indiana motorist after a federal judge found it entirely implausible that a police officer smelled three ounces of marijuana coming from sealed bags concealed in a moving car. Davon Gray was behind the wheel of a silver 2005 Dodge Stratus on January 11, 2018, when Indianapolis police Officer Daniel R. Hiser began to follow. While in his moving squad car, Officer Hiser insisted he could smell marijuana from the car ahead of him.
"Upon completing his turn Officer Hiser could immediately smell what he knew from his training and experience as a law enforcement officer to be the odor of raw marijuana," the police incident report explained. "Officer Hiser believed the odor to be coming from the vehicle in front of him."
After following for a while to confirm the observation, he conducted a traffic stop. A search of the Stratus uncovered a .40 caliber Glock 23 handgun that Gray, a convicted felon, was prohibited from possessing.
What the court had to decide was not whether Gray was guilty, but if the officer had any business stopping him in the first place -- whether any motorist should ever be stopped in similar circumstances. The court could find no past cases in which either an officer or a drug dog claimed to smell drugs from a moving vehicle. During training seven years ago, Officer Hiser says he spent a "couple of hours" learning how to identify various narcotics, but he did not claim to have an extraordinary sense of smell. He also could not say whether his window was up or down before the stop. Gray's lawyer insisted the evidence should be thrown out.
"The court agrees with Gray that it is incredible that Officer Hiser -- who self-admittedly does not have a heightened olfactory system -- could smell the scent of two resealable sandwich sized plastic baggies of unburnt marijuana coming from a moving vehicle when patrolling in his cruiser," Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled. "This occurrence is not only contrary to any common experiences, but is implausible and seemingly contrary to the laws of nature."
