Header Image: Attorney Benjamin Kull argues at the North Carolina Supreme Court. (Image from the Supreme Court of North Carolina YouTube channel)
The Carolina Jnl – reports
- The North Carolina Supreme Court heard three cases Tuesday dealing with law enforcement’s reliance on cannabis odor to justify warrantless vehicle searches.
- Defendants urge the high court to reject a state Appeals Court rule allowing authorities to rely on the odor alone to secure probable cause for a search.
- State government lawyers urged the Supreme Court to stick with the odor rule initially spelled out in a state Court of Appeals ruling in 1980.
The North Carolina Supreme Court will decide in the months ahead whether law enforcement officers who smell cannabis have probable cause to search vehicles without warrants in this state. In a series of cases Tuesday, defendants urged the high court to answer no.
Critics cite the General Assembly’s 2018 decision to legalize smokable hemp. Now, the critics argue, police across North Carolina have no way to distinguish between legal hemp and illegal marijuana.
“People of North Carolina through their elected legislative representatives have made a paradigm-shifting choice,” argued Benjamin Kull, the lawyer for defendants in two of the three “odor” cases before the state Supreme Court. “They have created a legal form of cannabis in North Carolina.”
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