Legal Question in Criminal Law in Ohio

search and seizure

I have a friend at the OSU campus who was recently arrested for posession of marijuana. He was sitting in his car smoking when an officer drove by, saw him, stopped, approached the car and asked what he was doing. Since his car was running he repied, ''I was just leaving.'' The officer asked why he smelled marijuana to which my friend gave no response. The officer then asked if my friend had on him any marijuana or mariajuana pipe. My friend said no, and was then asked by the officer to step out of the car where he proceded to pat him down. After not finding anything on my friend's person he looked in the front seat to see a bag of marijuana that my friend had been sitting on and that the officer had not seen up to this point. He then arrested my friend and be gan a search of the car, looking in the ash tray,trunk and glove box. He found two other pipes in the car. My questions is was this search legal considering his only resonable suspicion was the smell of marijuana which could have come from anywhere. Thank you


Asked on 10/06/02, 9:55 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Joseph Jacobs Jacobs & Lowder

Re: search and seizure

If the officer reports that he smelled marijuana coming from "around" the car, then he would be able to search. This sounds like a good search but I would have to read the police report.

Remember that there is a automatic license suspension of at least 6 months that come with these charges. I have worked on over 200 cases in the last 6 years with these kinds of cases for NORML. If you would like to call I would be glad to help save the license.

JOE JACOBS 216-952-1990 216-227-0900

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Answered on 10/07/02, 4:29 pm


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