Illinois high court says odor of ‘burnt’ marijuana not probable cause to search cars

Sept. 19 (UPI) — The smell of burnt marijuana is no longer grounds to search a vehicle, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The ruling stems from a traffic stop in 2020 during which officers pulled over Ryan Redmond for traveling 73 mph in a 70 mph zone on U.S. Interstate 80 in western Illinois. The officer who stopped Redmond said there also was a registration issue with the license plate.

During the stop, Illinois State Trooper Hayden Combs said he smelled a strong odor of burnt cannabis coming from the car, prompting him to search the vehicle.

He found one gram of marijuana inside the center console in a plastic bag, according to the court ruling. Redmond was cited for violating a state law that requires that cannabis being transported is kept in odor-proof containers.

Redmond denied smoking marijuana in the car and Combs said that while Redmond did not show signs of impairment during the traffic stop, Combs said Redmond gave evasive answers during questioning.

Redmond told Combs that he was headed from Des Moines to his home in Chicago along Interstate 80, a stretch of freeway that has been described by police as a “known drug corridor.”

Thursday’s ruling affects two separate cases: People vs. Redmond and People vs. Molina, both of which involved police searches after officers said they could smell burnt cannabis in the vehicles.

Thursday’s ruling upheld lower court decisions affirming that the odor of burnt cannabis alone is insufficient evidence to perform a warrantless vehicle search.

“We also hold that the totality of the facts and circumstances known to Officer Combs did not provide probable cause to search Redmond’s vehicle,” the state Supreme Court ruling said.

“The laws on cannabis have changed in such a drastic way as to render the smell of burnt cannabis, standing alone, insufficient to provide probable cause for a police officer to search a vehicle without a warrant,” Supreme Court Justice Scott Neville Jr. wrote in the Illinois high court’s opinion Thursday.

The court noted in its ruling that since marijuana is legal in the state, and that there are a myriad of legal uses for the substance, the aroma of the burnt drug is not enough to justify a search.