Pointing to laws allowing use of medical marijuana and hemp, a state appeals court Wednesday reversed course and said police officers can’t search vehicles only on the basis of smelling cannabis.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal’s main opinion said that for “generations, cannabis was illegal in all forms — thereby rendering its distinct odor immediately indicative of criminal activity.” But the opinion said legislative changes have “fundamentally changed its definition and regulation” and made cannabis legal to possess in multiple forms.
Citing the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, the appeals court backed away from what it described as a “plain smell doctrine” related to cannabis.
“In light of significant legislative amendments to the definition and regulation of cannabis, its mere odor can no longer establish that it is ‘immediately apparent’ that the substance is contraband,” Judge Nelly Khouzam wrote in an opinion fully joined by nine other judges. “Accordingly, the plain smell doctrine can no longer establish probable cause based solely on the odor of cannabis. Rather, we now align the Fourth Amendment analysis for cannabis with the test that applies to other suspected contraband, such that its odor is a valid factor to be considered along with all others under the totality of the circumstances.”
Three other judges wrote or joined concurring opinions, including Judge J. Andrew Atkinson, who wrote that what is “pertinent to the resolution of this case on its facts is that an officer who smells either raw cannabis or the smoke from burnt or burning cannabis has encountered an odor that is no more likely to be indicative of criminal activity than licit use of a legal substance. On this record and under the statutes as they currently read, that smell, in isolation, does not give rise to probable cause to justify a search.”
But Judge Craig Villanti, in a dissent joined by Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe, wrote that changes over the past decade to allow medical marijuana and hemp products “did not wholesale decriminalize the possession of marijuana.” Villanti pointed to safety concerns about people driving while impaired by cannabis.
“People who traverse our Florida highways are entitled to share the roads with sober and safe drivers,” Villanti wrote. “The majority interpretation of the law and wholesale erosion of well-developed, reasonable Fourth Amendment analysis will only undermine the evolved public expectation that law enforcement will continue to protect them as they motor along Florida’s highways.”
The Hillsborough County case stemmed from law-enforcement officers in 2023 stopping a car in which Darrielle Ortiz Williams was a passenger. Officers smelled cannabis and searched the car, finding bags that included cannabis.
Williams, who was on probation at the time, also was found to have a drug known as “molly” in a plastic bag in a sock. A circuit judge found that Williams had violated probation. That led to the appeal, which was considered by the full appellate court.
Wednesday’s opinion reversed course from a 2021 decision by the 2nd District that said police were still able to conduct searches based on smelling cannabis. But it put the Tampa Bay-area court in line with an opinion issued last year by the 5th District Court of Appeal.
The 2nd District also took a step known as certifying a question of “great public importance” to the Florida Supreme Court to resolve the issue.
In a twist in Wednesday’s opinion, the court declined to suppress the evidence in Williams’ case because the court said “our precedent expressly permitted the search at the time it occurred” and “law enforcement was acting in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent.”
Florida voters in 2016 passed a constitutional amendment that allowed the use of medical marijuana. Lawmakers subsequently passed legislation to put the amendment into effect and also have allowed use of other hemp products.
In his dissent, Villanti wrote that he hopes the Supreme Court will address the issue about searches but also pointed to the possibility of the Legislature getting involved.
“I am equally hopeful that the Florida Legislature is aware of the dilemma that was inadvertently caused by the widespread acceptance of hemp and legalization of medical marijuana,” he wrote. “I invite the Legislature to review this issue and to consider that its recent legislation legalizing cannabis for medical purposes has made it easier for nefarious individuals to engage in criminal activity. Because I believe this is a great injustice to the citizens of Florida, I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that we have no choice but to recede from the ‘plain smell’ doctrine.”
The main opinion was joined by Chief Judge Matthew Lucas and Judges Stevan Northcutt, Morris Silberman, Robert Morris, Anthony Black, Daniel Sleet, Susan Rothstein-Youakim, Andrea Teves Smith and Suzanne Labrit.
In addition to Atkinson, the concurring judges were Patricia Kelly and Edward LaRose.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Ed P says
Impaired driving should be reason enough. Florida has over 20% of vehicles being operated that are not insured, driving up the costs for responsible drivers. Now reducing the probability of removing an impaired driver is going to help?
Florida has 40,000+ DUI annually, statistically meaning a million or more go unchecked.
Not every person impaired causes an accident, but no one can believe the potential isn’t increased. The statical rational of only 1-5% of drivers are impaired is ridiculous. Between the 1-2 beers, a joint 2 hours ago, a gummy, prescription drugs, cough medicine or the occasional whipped cream huff, are you serious? Even fatigued driving is an impairment. In what universe could this be deemed rational?
When does common sense return to protecting the responsible citizens? Is it so burdensome to be responsible when using alcohol, cannabis, or any thing that might impair your driving?
Leave your contraband at home, call Uber or a friend when necessary. That’s the solution. No instead let’s shackle law enforcement and make their job of keeping us safe even tougher. Then the same supporters of this idiocy can criticize our police when a tragedy is not prevented.
Personal responsibility is no longer a requirement.
JimboXYZ says
Disappointing, how many routine traffic stops end up with worse for illegal drugs & illegal/stolen guns, some of which have had the serial number filed off them. Just don’t see any reason to celebrate a court decision to weaken law enforcement or give criminals protections that enable them to be the lot of humanity that nobody neither wants around nor would miss. Don’t care what they do elsewhere, don’t set up shop next door or close enough that anyone would have to deal with their lowering of the bar for a lifestyle. More often than not, the smell of marijuana leads to what these people are doing above and beyond their hobby of getting high. That alone is impaired operation of a motor vehicle.
https://995wlov.com/2025/10/01/2-arrested-on-drug-charges-in-palm-coast-traffic-stop/
Pogo says
@Progress is progress
… or ought it be prograss?
Now, about all the masked, personally anonymous, agents of law and order — ever more ubiquitous, and licensed to kill; for the personal whim of a dilapidated pant load — and homo erotic icon (see its air brushed, Photoshopped image — whenever your eyes are open), beloved by rabid homophobes, who haven’t the personal insight to grasp what they’re communicating about themselves?!
Fix that mess.
For Cletus’ information
https://www.google.com/search?q=homo+erotic+icon
For low informationn snobs
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Cletus_Spuckler
Ray W. says
This is for Ed P. and JimboXYZ.
The opinion at the center of the article stands for the position that the scent of pot alone is not enough to support a search, given the legislature’s rewrite of cannabis law to allow for lawful possession of certain forms of cannabis. It is obvious to me that scent of a lawful substance should not be enough to provide grounds to search for contraband. Why both of you are not able to comprehend this begs credulity. Both of you present as smart enough to comprehend this, but you don’t.
The better issue is why didn’t the lawyers who advise law enforcement agencies and the prosecutors who are sworn to follow the law tell police officers that the legislature’s rewrite of cannabis laws means that search and seizure law had changed? That is their job after all.
I am reminded of a legislative change in robbery law that took effect in 1988. Prior to the change, robbery required proof of a threat of violence or actual violence occurring prior to or at the time of the taking of property. The legislature amended the statute to include “during the course of the taking”, which expanded the time frame for the specific mental intent element of a robbery charge.
A DeLand detective came to me with a Winn-Dixie retail theft case. The suspect had fled the store. Employees jumped into a vehicle and caught him about a mile east of the store on S.R. 44, where a struggle occurred. I told the detective that under the old law, robbery would not be appropriate, but that I didn’t know the extent of ongoing behavior that the new law permitted. Just what did “during the course of the taking” mean? Could a person steal a watch from Walmart and come back six months later wearing the watch and struggle with a store employee, thereby changing a petit theft into a robbery? Did it mean within the store parking lot and not beyond the perimeter?
But it was my job as a prosecutor to give advice to the detective. Since at no time had the store employees lost sight of the suspect, according to a sworn statement, I agreed to seek a robbery conviction, but I had my doubts about just how far a judge would let me go.
Ironically, the detective didn’t tell me that a responding patrol officer had filed a separate complaint affidavit for MM theft. We didn’t have computers in those days, so I didn’t know that a MM prosecutor had filed a petit theft case. I filed a robbery charge based on the detective’s robbery complaint affidavit. The suspect’s attorney trotted him into court for the MM theft charge and pled him out. Jeopardy killed the taking element of the robbery charge. It was my fault. I assumed that the detective had taken over the investigation of the case and that no separate prosecution was taking place.
Time after time, I point out to FlaglerLive readers that the most important thing that people need to know about the law is that the law is what a judge says it is on the day that he or she says it, and don’t you ever forget it. My father introduced me to that idea before I went to law school; he said that one of his first-year law school professor had told a class in which he was a student the same thing, telling the class that this was the most important thing they could learn in law school.
So, no, Ed P., the courts are not shackling law enforcement officers. The reverse is occurring. The courts are telling law enforcement officers what the law now must be after the legislature changed the law, freeing law enforcement officers to follow the new law.
And, no, JimboXYZ, no one is celebrating a court’s weakening of the law or the giving to defendants more protections. Again, the legislature decided to rewrite our cannabis laws. The courts are responding to that rewrite. The protections remain the same.
But there is a bigger and much older issue at work and it appears that neither Ed P. or JimboXYZ have a clue about what is happening.
In 1986, Mr. Boyles, the elected State Attorney for the 7th Judicial Circuit, interviewed me for a position as an assistant state attorney. In a darkened conference room and with his characteristic measured pattern of speech, he asked me to explain the evolution of constitutional law that led to Mapp v. Ohio, the 1964 opinion that extended a federal search and seizure doctrine to state law enforcement officers.
I explained that in 1914, the USSC had ruled that proof that a law enforcement officer had deprived an individual of any constitutional right related to searches and seizures violated that constitution.
I then explained that in 1948, the USSC had fashioned a remedy for ongoing violations of those constitutional rights, with the remedy being exclusion of evidence obtained during an illegal search or seizure, but the remedy applied only to actions by federal officers.
I then explained that in 1964, the USSC had extended that federal remedy to state law enforcement officers.
Mr. Boyles seemed satisfied because he immediately offered me a job.
Apparently, it was that important to him. He wanted to know if his prosecutors, including me, knew what the law on search and seizure actually was, not the law as so many people wanted it to be.
Basically, in 1914, the USSC was asked to rule whether police officers could violate their oath of office by violating the constitution and, if yes, what the remedy should be. In 1914, the USSC ruled that, yes, officers can violate their oaths of office if they violate constitutional proscriptions on issues of search and seizure, and the Court went on to write that the remedy for any constitutional violation was for the victim of the violation to sue the offending officers in civil court for damages.
34 years later, the USSC finally announced that because so many federal officers were still willing to violate their oaths of office it was obvious that the civil remedy wasn’t working. So, the court held that it had no other choice but to create a different remedy in hopes of stopping, or at least reducing, the constitutional violations. For the first time, evidence obtained in violation of an officer’s oath of office was no longer admissible in court.
16 years later, and 50 years after the original USSC opinion, so many state officers remained willing to violate their oaths of office that the USSC extended the exclusionary remedy to the states.
Once Mapp v. Ohio came out, police officers immediately began testifying in court that defendants in great quantities had suddenly begun throwing down drugs upon seeing police officers, when officers had not experienced that phenomena prior to Mapp. In the New York City court system, such testimony soon became known as “dropsy” testimony.
A sociologist studied the sudden phenomena, finding that prior to Mapp, police officers almost never utilized dropsy testimony in court. After Mapp, the rate of use of dropsy testimony skyrocketed. It became such a problem that a USSC opinion set out in a footnote its recognition of the sudden propensity of officers adopting dropsy testimony. The USSC commented that it was unfortunate that the Mapp opinion likely had caused so many officers to suddenly begin fabricating testimony.
Decades later, a Florida appellate court judge, in a concurring opinion, wrote of the USSC footnote. The concurring judge wrote that too many of the cases that were coming before the court involved police officers walking up to suspects outside their homes. In previous years, this fact scenario had not come before the court in such great numbers. Suddenly and mysteriously, the facts in case after case had begun to follow a pattern. Police would quickly obtain oral consent from suspects to search their homes, not written consent. The officers would then enter the homes and find drugs in plain view on tables or end stands or kitchen counters. The defendants would come into court claiming that they had not orally consented to searches of their homes. It was a he said/police officer said scenario and trial courts always sided with police officers in such situations, binding the appellate courts to accept that part of their rulings.
The concurring appellate judge wrote that it begged credulity that so many suspects would suddenly begin to orally consent to a search of their homes when they knew that drugs were in the open, when they hadn’t been doing so in the recent past. Perhaps, some of suspects would orally consent, but not all of the massive numbers that had suddenly started appearing in the appellate record.
The judge bemoaned the fact that it was obvious that at least some police officers were fabricating consent testimony to get around search and seizure requirements. The judge argued that trial courts should never be used to rubber stamp such testimony, writing that prosecutors were the ones who were supposed to be the gatekeepers responsible for keeping out such obvious fabrications and that prosecutors should know better than to accept such testimony at face value. Since prosecutors were incapable of acting in their role as gatekeeper of evidence, the courts were going to have to do the job that prosecutors were failing to do.
I learned long ago that the limit of a police officer’s power was an allegation of probable cause and that the complaint affidavit was immediately sent to a judge to determine whether probable cause existed. In this way, judges at first appearances are an immediate check and balance on an officer’s limited political powers. In the entire history of our country, law enforcement officers have never been given the political power to determine guilt or innocence.
I also knew that the limits of my political power as a prosecutor was an allegation of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a higher standard than that required of law enforcement officers. That meant that I, too, never had the political power to determine guilt or innocence. That also meant that I, as a prosecutor, also had a mandate under the law to act as a check and balance on a law enforcement officer’s exercise of political power. I was supposed to be a “gatekeeper” on allegations made by police officers. If I didn’t do that, I would be violating my own oath of office. When I swore to an allegation of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in an information or juvenile petition, I knew that my case would go either to a judge or a jury to determine whether proof beyond a reasonable doubt to support the charges actually existed, because judges and juries were checks and balances on my political powers.
Its been 111 years now and we are still arguing over whether police officers should be allowed to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution. Ed P. and JimboXYZ argue that police officers should be justified in an ability to violate their oaths of office at will. I disagree with them.
As an aside, prosecutors have had 61 years now to present to judges proof that law enforcement officers are now capable of upholding their oaths of office. The exclusionary remedy exists only because sufficient proof existed over several decades that police officers couldn’t follow their oaths of office. The original exclusionary remedy opinions hold that if there came to exist competent and reliable evidence that enough of today’s officers could follow their oaths of office without court oversight, the exclusionary remedy would no longer be needed and it would go away.
FlaglerLive readers need to understand that there exists a Justice on the USSC who advocates the need to strike down the importance of precedent. If he is successful in that effort, it is likely that the exclusionary remedy will go away, not because officers have proven that they can follow their oaths of office, but because enough Justices have come to believe that officers should no longer be held responsible when they fail to follow their oaths of office.
JimboXYZ says
Ray W. with all due respect, we all know where this is heading. Too often the routine traffic stops & smell of Marijuana, law enforcement already knows the plates on the motor vehicle that was pulled over has most likely had license plates swapped, that’s if the vehicle isn’t outright stolen. The motorists that are pulled over usually have a record for illegal activities that span years. Law Enforcement ends up having to manage these folks. They are generally individuals with limited options in life, they don’t play by the same rules the rest of us do for getting ahead in life on merit. The smell of pot as an illegal drug, the link I commented with, that retard was smoking a joint in the vehicle. The scent isn’t enough ? Think about the officer that pulled those dimwits over. We all know the effects of 2nd hand smoke from just tobacco as a hobby/abuse. To have to deal with folks that are driving around with scales, the drugs, armed to make a stand for their own transactions that go sideways. If the scent of pot is enough to get them into a jail, I have no problem with it. The world would be a better place without any drugs/alcohol, The only folks getting benefits from the sale of any of it are always he one’s that are peddling & profiting from the transactions. I’m not an abuser of any of it, I won’t have a sense of humor for being involved in an accident with an impaired motorist. And we all know the general direction those go too. That impaired motorist is the first to try to weasle out of financial responsibility even. Whether the accident is minor enough to attempt the con artist approach to not get police or insurance involved for a roadside remedy. Here in Flagler we had the son of a FCSO officer outright leave the scene of an accident involving a fatality. And the investigation & anything else post fatality became a circus of legal bargaining of pleas to the detriment of victims. That young man is now serving prison time, he wanted to get some special loophole applied in his specific case. We can have all the compassion in the world for the drunk/dopehead. But that was a choice, the rest of us aren’t amused by court decisions that relax how law enforcement catches those folks when they endanger innocent victims lives on the roadways. And if it ever happens to anyone you care about, even yourself, are you going to be as sympathetic to their plight ? The whole thing is rather parasitic really. Lawyers, prosecution teams, judicial and raking in the big bucks to handle that relative industry. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance. No medical pot card, that THC isn’t the same as the type that a drug addict is on. If pot isn’t addictive, why are the criminals on it ? Might not be as difficult to “quit” getting stoned, they need to “GTFU” (grow TFU) as it;s time to be an adult, do adulting things. Like Mathew McConaughey, put it, there’s a difference in the context between being “a good guy” vs “being a good man”. My own take on it, “One is either making the world better or they’re not”. Those not making the world better, I have no time for, don’t want them around, not will miss them when they move on. But move on from where I’m making the world better for my own efforts is the only option. Criminals will never be welcome, they need to understand that. That much is non-negotiable. Your stance on it may be different, that would be how you choose to live, I would hope that I’m never your next door neighbor for that stance of tolerance ?
Just the other day, there was a VCSO deputy/officer that was terminated for operating a motorcycle without a valid registration & plate. Why would she play the “good to go” card knowing her tag was fictitious ? She knows the laws regarding that. And she knew & didn’t resist. When another officer tells you that you are good to go, she was free to go home according to laws regarding her motorcycle. That was a case of no drugs or firearms involved. And that’s a good indication that Law Enforcement knows what the score is for what’s going on with most anyone they pull over. The wildcard is how that law breaker chooses to handle their moment of being caught in the act.
https://www.newsdaytonabeach.com/stories/off-duty-deputy-resigns-following-fake-tag-arrest,117728
Ed P says
Ray W,
Your explanation almost sounds reasonable, until it won’t be.
The cashless bail experiment and bogus statistical proof that it works is brought to mind.
Common sense says that a bail amount, even minimal, is a deterrent to reduce committing crimes while on bail and entices the court appearance. The friends or family along with the bondsman help provide support. Abandoning no cash bail doesn’t mean everyone who can’t afford it will be incarcerated until their hearing/trial. Forfeiture of one’s car, home, or even money is a motivator. Remember, a judge still retains the authority to issue a zero bail, PTA, when warranted. The revolving door of criminals gaming the system will be slowed. This woke experiment failed.
The communities that are preyed up by the criminal elements know this.
My point about searches from a common sense view is that now when a police officer smells something, one of our 5 senses, they will need to jump through more hoops. They can call in a drug dog and when a hit occurs, a search will occur. Who pays for the delay, the dog? How many hours will be wasted waiting the back up. The possibilities of another impaired driver running into the scene increases and some other duty is being ignored while the officer waits. Taxpayers and citizens pay the costs. The slope becomes slippery when in the future sight may be called into question.
You can “splain ” all day long, but just because the search and seizure laws are changed does not make them correct or help to protect society as a whole. This will also prove to be a mistake, providing cover for illegal activity, thus reducing the chances of finding illegal guns or other contraband. We will all be a little less safe because of this change.
Can a committed Hegelian to accept woke ideology?
I believe you accept the law as law but silently reject this new rule.
Laurel says
Some police could use a little shackling.
I was a 16 year old, with full permission to drive my family’s car to my boyfriend’s apartment. It was a rainy day in Ft. Lauderdale, and my boyfriend lent his car out to a friend. That friend crashed the car. The police came to the apartment, to inform him of the accident. I answered the door. The police barged in without invitation, looked around the room, saw hippie posters, and one declared “I smell pot!” They told him of the accident, and left him at the apartment.
Know this: I had not smoked pot or done any drugs, had permission to be there, was a virgin, and had a pants zipper with a broken catch that had to be pulled up regularly. The cop forced me into the patrol car, in the front seat wet with rain from the his raincoat, and informed me “That’s why I’m not sitting there.” They hauled me off to the police department, one cop who took me to another floor, called me a “whore” in the elevator when we were alone, called my parents and told them I was high on drugs and came to the door dressing myself. Then, placed me in a cell. Sixteen years old, with no juvenile record of any kind.
Needless to say, both my mom and dad came in a panic, and angry, and as it was back then, believed the cops. I was accused, prosecuted and punished, all in about two hours.
The smell of pot alone, existing or not, is not punishable by law. So, Ed P and JimboXYZ, do you feel the cops should be endowed with super human powers to smell the guilty?
I’ve had an issue with Ft. Lauderdale cops ever since.
Ray W. says
Yes, JimboXYZ, we all know where this is going. You are going to continue to argue that law enforcement officers should be able to violate the law without sanction.
A court has ruled that odor of cannabis, alone, is no longer enough to justify a warrantless search. You don’t like that. Because you don’t like that, you will make up all kinds of reasons and claims in order to get what you want. This is nothing knew. People like you want our officers to violate their oaths of office. I do not want our officers to violate their oaths of office.
If the current ruling is appealed to Florida’s Supreme Court, the law may revert back to odor of cannabis alone being enough to engage in a warrantless search. Maybe not. Time will tell.
Does any FlaglerLive reader believe that our founding fathers approved of unbridled warrantless searches? One of the issues of their day was British officers going to magistrates to get a stack of “general” warrants, which meant blank warrants signed by the magistrates so that British officers could enter homes at will and then fill in the particulars of the warrants later. The argument raised by the British officers was that they needed these blank pre-signed warrants to stop crime. People can justify many things in the name of stopping crime. You made an impressively long list of reasons why law enforcement officers should not have to honor their oath to follow the law.
Law enforcement officers who swear to uphold the state and federal constitutions are granted limited political powers, not limitless political powers. They have every right to act up to the limits of their delegated powers. But they cannot cross the boundaries, without risk of sanction. We call this checks and balances.
The appellate court simply redefined a boundary because the legislature redefined a series of statutes that cast the old boundaries in question. Law enforcement officers are still free to act within the limits of their political powers.
Ray W. says
Ed P., yours is a curious response.
Are you really gullible enough to argue that cashless bond is a “woke” experiment? Have you fallen down the rabbit hole so deep as to permit you to expand the meaning of “woke” to something that isn’t woke? Since long before I began practicing law, cashless bond has long been known as release on recognizance (ROR). By both statute and rule, also existing from long before I began practicing law, conditions are set out in writing why a judge should or should not release a defendant on his or her own recognizance, either at first appearances or during a hearing to reduce or modify or set bond. I can’t count the times I have heard judges go down the list of reasons for or against requiring a cash bond.
It is true that about 35 years ago or so, a debate began in Volusia County over the creation of a Pre-Trial Release agency in order to reduce pre-trial jail costs. The purpose of bond is to ensure that people appear in court. The existing jail was at or near capacity nearly every day. I remember the arguments raised by bondsmen against the creation of the agency. One of the arguments was that bondsmen were better able to look over their cases, as they had a financial interest in ensuring that people appeared for court. After much debate and over perhaps a few years, the agency was created and positions funded. Basically, Pre-Trial Release was a form of probation before conviction, complete with drug tests, if ordered, mandatory reporting dates, and home visits, if called for. In all those years, I am sure some pre-trial releasees violated the terms of their release. But people continued to show up for court, so the agency accomplished its purpose.
Again, this isn’t woke, unless someone foolishly accepts your bastardized meaning of woke.
Since people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, the presumption upon a finding of probable cause is against cash bond, not for cash bond. The presumption is for cashless bond unless certain conditions are met, so when a judge releases someone on their own recognizance, he or she is doing so because that is what our constitution requires.
Of course, this argument does not apply to more serious crimes. Each county has a bond schedule approved by the chief judge of the circuit. Certain crimes by definition admit the probability of ROR. Other crimes do not. Possession of cannabis is one of the offenses that often supports an ROR determination by a judge at first appearances.
So, again, please stop with your stupid “woke” crap. Again, the term has been bastardized so far from its original meaning that in your mind we should rescind the presumption of innocence, a presumption that is at the very heart of our criminal justice system.
You know, Ed P., you posted the other day an excellent, well-informed and comprehensive comment. I thought about thanking you. Indeed, I have thanked you on other occasions. But I waited. And here you go, commenting after your wheels have fallen off.
Like JimboXYZ, you now come up with “reasons” why law enforcement officers should no longer have to follow their oaths of office. I oppose that line of reasoning.
Any true Hegelian would oppose your gullibly stupid bastardization of what “woke” actually means.
You really don’t get it! And perhaps you never will. We are a nation of laws or we are not. You advocate for a nation that does not adhere to any law except that which you define.
Again, please stop with your bastardized “woke” crap. This needs to be repeated ad nauseam. The presumption of innocence is not woke. Limitations on warrantless searches are not woke. Both legal ideas have been around long before our founding fathers wrote and then ratified them into our liberal democratic Constitutional republic.
Perhaps the horror would be when you realize that it is you who is woke. See how easy it is for anyone to define “woke” to fit whatever they want it to mean?
I suppose it is appropriate to see if one can find out what “woke” meant way back when Governor DeSantis began using it as a political tool. I remember that Governor DeSantis’ general counsel once gave a definition of “woke” in a court proceeding. He told the judge that “woke” meant a belief that there are systemic imbalances in American society and a need to address them. More specifically, he added that in the criminal justice system there is reason for people to believe that systemic injustices exist and on that basis believers can decline to fully enforce and uphold the law.
Now that I think more on the issue, and now that I reflect more on your whining about systemic injustices in the criminal justice system that permit one to no longer fully uphold the law, you really do fit the early Republican definition of woke. Imagine the irony.
Sherry says
Dear Ray W., Thanks so much for my laugh of the day regarding the definition of “Woke” and the irony of how that bastardized term is used. Priceless! Really Priceless!
Ed P says
Ray W,
Not one word if cashless bail is making the rest of us more or less safe? The same cashless bail reform used in liberal democratic strong holds like Chicago.
You don’t mention its effectiveness, only that you don’t like it referenced incorrectly as woke. You are correct, I misused the adjective describing modern cash less bail reform.
It’s a liberal, progressive ideology that has repeatedly allowed career criminals to game the system. I believe it makes us all less safe. The argument that crime hasn’t spiked because of it is gullible. The statistics can not even prove that definitively.
What say you?
You know the current cashless bail reform is not your father”s bail you kept espousing-ROR.
Your recent less than gentile suggestions for me to quit” vomiting “anything, bastardizing the word woke or suggesting I’m gullible is rich. You deflect many debates by latching upon a secondary technical concept that is a minor side issue to prove yourself correct in your response. Just like your post above. You made woke the issue, not cashless bail or wether the newest search regulations makes us safer or not.
Also, your new tough guy criticism parroting the ineffective democratic play book, is not a good look for you, especially so, since you’ve spent years presenting yourself as cerebral thinker.
I sense your Hegelian ideology conflicts a bit with both subjects. Justice isn’t just about individual rights, but a harmonious social order. Balancing rights with safety is a fine line. Both accused and victim need to be protected.
Skibum says
Having worked for 29 years in the law enforcement profession, some might be surprised by my comment regarding this latest appellate court ruling, but here goes anyway.
The use of marijuana has become so common in today’s society that I was not even a little bit surprised by the court ruling that says the smell of marijuana odor alone is insufficient to establish probable cause for an officer to conduct a search within a vehicle. It sounds to me like the justices’ reasoning is akin to saying the odor of alcohol on a driver’s breath has not been sufficient to warrant a vehicle search, so why would it be any different for marijuana.
The sticky part for me comes when you think about drug smugglers who are transporting large amounts of marijuana or other illegal drugs in their vehicle. Obviously, other indicators of drug smuggling need to be present in order to legally justify a search. Without having read the court decision, I’m wondering if this ruling will have any affect on vehicle searches conducted subsequent to a police K9 having given a positive indication of the possibility of drugs in a vehicle since it is their highly sensitive nose that picks up the presence of drugs from the odor that is present.
Law enforcement officers are never happy after learning about court decisions that make their jobs more difficult, but that is something that comes with the territory. Just like after the decades old Miranda v. Arizona case way back in the mid 60s (and many others) since, many in the law enforcement profession might have predicted doom and gloom, thinking crime would soar because cop’s hand were being tied by the courts to prevent them from doing their jobs. But you learn to live within the rules and laws which govern police conduct even if you don’t like or agree with them in order to provide justice to victims and put criminals away to keep innocent people and our communities safe. That is the goal and that will continue going forward.