The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that the smell of marijuana alone, whether burnt or not, cannot justify a warrantless vehicle search by police.
In a decision published Thursday, the court addressed two consolidated cases where officers conducted vehicle searches based on the odor of burnt cannabis (People v. Redmond and People v. Molina). In both cases, small amounts of marijuana were found, and the defendants were charged with improper storage, as state law mandates that cannabis be transported in odor-proof containers.
The justices upheld lower court rulings that suppressed the cannabis as evidence, stating that “the odor of burnt cannabis, by itself, is not enough to establish probable cause for a warrantless vehicle search.”
Justice P. Scott Neville delivered the opinion, with five justices concurring. The ruling noted that in the case of Ryan Redmond, Illinois State Police Officer Hayden Combs did not observe any signs of impairment or recent cannabis use when he stopped Redmond in 2020. Combs later justified the search by claiming Redmond was traveling between Des Moines and Chicago, which he described as “hubs of criminal activity.”
Neville highlighted the evolving cannabis laws in Illinois, which legalized adult-use marijuana in 2019. He emphasized that while lower courts had delivered conflicting rulings on the impact of legalization on probable cause, the Supreme Court’s decision provided clarity.
“There are now numerous situations where cannabis use and possession are legal, and the odor alone does not necessarily indicate a crime has been committed,” the opinion explained.
The ruling concluded that while the officer’s suspicion warranted further investigation, no evidence emerged to elevate that suspicion to probable cause, making the search unlawful and supporting the decision to suppress the evidence.
