United States v. Tamichale Paige
2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 16884, 2017 WL 3821250, 870 F.3d 693 (2017)
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Rule of Law:
The odor of marijuana, when sufficiently localized to a specific person and combined with other corroborating circumstances indicating impairment or criminal activity, provides probable cause to arrest that person. A search of the individual's person and vehicle incident to that lawful arrest is permissible under the Fourth Amendment.
Facts:
- An employee of a McDonald's restaurant called 911 after a vehicle driven by Tamichale Paige had been stationary in the drive-through lane for approximately one hour after midnight.
- When emergency personnel arrived, they found Paige asleep in the driver’s seat of the vehicle.
- After being awakened, Paige was approached by Officer Tiara Sheets-Walker, who detected a strong odor of fresh marijuana emanating from his person.
- A firefighter at the scene made a gesture to Officer Sheets-Walker indicating that he believed Paige had been drinking.
- Officer Sheets-Walker observed that Paige appeared sleepy, kept his eyes low, and walked slowly.
- Paige told the officer he had just fallen asleep, a statement the officer found suspicious given the one-hour timeframe reported by the 911 caller.
Procedural Posture:
- A federal grand jury indicted Tamichale Paige on one count of possession of a firearm by a felon and one count of possession with intent to distribute drugs.
- In the U.S. District Court, Paige filed a motion to suppress the firearm and drugs, arguing the search was unlawful.
- A magistrate judge held an evidentiary hearing and recommended that the motion to suppress be denied.
- The district court judge adopted the magistrate's recommendation after a second evidentiary hearing and denied Paige's motion to suppress.
- Paige entered a conditional plea of guilty, which allowed him to preserve his right to challenge the court's denial of his suppression motion.
- Paige appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a police officer have probable cause to arrest an individual and conduct a warrantless search of their person and vehicle when the officer detects a strong, localized odor of fresh marijuana on the individual, who was found asleep for an hour in the driver's seat of a running vehicle in a public place?
Opinions:
Majority - Ripple, Circuit Judge
Yes. A police officer has probable cause to arrest under these circumstances, and the subsequent searches are therefore constitutional. The totality of the circumstances—including the strong odor of fresh marijuana localized to Mr. Paige's person, his extremely unusual behavior of sleeping in a drive-through for an hour, his sleepy demeanor, and the firefighter's suggestion of intoxication—was sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that Paige had committed the offenses of marijuana possession and operating a vehicle while impaired. Because the officer had probable cause to arrest, the pat-down of Mr. Paige's person was a valid search incident to a lawful arrest, even though it slightly preceded the formal arrest. The search of the vehicle was also justified under two exceptions to the warrant requirement: 1) as a search incident to arrest, because it was reasonable to believe the vehicle contained evidence of the offense of arrest (marijuana), and 2) under the automobile exception, because the strong odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle provided probable cause to believe it contained evidence of criminal activity.
Analysis:
This decision reaffirms the vitality of the 'plain smell' doctrine as a basis for establishing probable cause for an arrest, not merely a search. It clarifies that for an arrest, the odor must be sufficiently localized to a particular individual, often requiring corroborating facts. The case also provides a clear, practical application of the Supreme Court's vehicle search rules from Arizona v. Gant, demonstrating how both the search-incident-to-arrest exception and the separate automobile exception can independently justify a warrantless search of a vehicle based on the same core facts.
