Jul 7, 2010
More Than a Whiff of Weed Needed for Warrantless Truck Search, N.J. Court Rules
The probable cause was so thick you could smell it, but that still didn’t give a New Jersey state trooper authority for a warrantless search of a tractor-trailer cab, an appeals court has found. Applying retroactively a state Supreme Court decision that requires both probable cause and exigent circumstances for a warrantless search, the judges said a strong odor of marijuana could supply the former but not the latter.