Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 9/22/2015

Commonwealth v. Rodriguez

Citations

472 Mass. 767
37 N.E.3d 611

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

holding on state constitutional grounds that odor of marijuana provided reasonable suspicion that a driver had committed a civil violation, but did not justify a traffic stop to enforce the civil penalty for possession of marijuana
acknowledging “significant possibility that the odor of burnt marijuana may be present on a person or in a vehicle, but the drug itself is not.”
odor of burnt marijuana, standing alone, does not create probable cause or even reasonable suspicion of criminal activity
motor vehicle stop unreasonable when based on reasonable suspicion of civil violation unrelated to traffic violation
motor vehicle stop unreasonable when based on reasonable suspicion of civil violation unrelated to traffic violation
because possession of one ounce or less of -4- marijuana had been decriminalized by referendum, odor of burnt marijuana alone did not create probable cause to justify search

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Botsford, Cordy, Duffly, Gants, Hines, Lenk, Spina

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

28 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

29 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

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