Background
Cincinnati police stopped Quentin Anderson’s car on June 11, 2025, for a broken mirror and excessive window tint. Officer Vincent Bley testified that he smelled a strong odor of burnt marijuana. Anderson denied smoking and refused consent to search, but officers told him that the odor supplied probable cause.
During the encounter, an officer reported finding a scale under the driver’s seat. Anderson then ran as officers attempted to handcuff him, and police subsequently found bags of marijuana in the car. Anderson was indicted for marijuana trafficking and possession. The trial court suppressed the evidence under the First District’s later decision in State v. Gray, which held that marijuana odor alone no longer establishes probable cause and must be assessed with other circumstances indicating illegal activity.
The Court’s Holding
The First District agreed that the search was unconstitutional under Gray. But Gray was issued on October 3, 2025—approximately four months after the search—and therefore was not binding precedent when officers searched Anderson’s car. At that time, the Ohio Supreme Court’s decisions in State v. Moore and State v. Vega, which treated marijuana odor alone as sufficient probable cause for a vehicle search, had not been expressly overruled.
The appellate court did not decide whether the evidence ultimately must be suppressed. Because the trial court had not addressed the State’s argument that officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent, the First District held that the trial court must consider the good-faith exception first. That inquiry may depend on the law as it stood when the search occurred, relevant agency training policies, and the participating officers’ training and experience.
The court sustained the State’s assignment of error, reversed the suppression order, and remanded for a hearing on whether the good-faith exception applies.
Key Takeaways
- Under the First District’s Gray decision, marijuana odor alone does not establish probable cause to search a vehicle; however, Ohio Supreme Court precedents Moore and Vega have not been expressly overruled.
- The unresolved issue is whether good-faith reliance on existing precedent applies to this post-legalization, pre-Gray search—not to all searches conducted before Gray.
- The trial court must decide the good-faith issue in the first instance based on the legal landscape at the time of the search and evidence concerning police policies, training, and experience.
Why It Matters
The decision addresses the transitional period after Ohio legalized recreational marijuana but before the First District clarified marijuana odor’s reduced role in the vehicle-search analysis. It recognizes that a search may violate the Fourth Amendment under later precedent while leaving open whether exclusion is warranted because officers reasonably relied on then-existing law.
For suppression litigation involving searches from that period, the ruling makes the good-faith inquiry fact-sensitive and emphasizes the importance of evidence concerning agency guidance and officer training rather than resolving admissibility solely by applying Gray retrospectively.