Police Officer Claims He Could Hear Marijuana Being Loaded into a Car. Marijuana has Sound?

The government argues that we should credit Jankowski’s testimony because of his nineteen years of experience as a police officer and thousands of hours of “stash house” surveillance. But while courts analyze the facts leading to an investigatory stop in light of a trained officer’s experience, these facts must be “more than the mere subjective impressions of a particular officer.” Hernandez-Alvarado, 891 F.2d at 1416. Reasonable suspicion must be based on more than an officer’s “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or `hunch.’ ” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968).

Here, Jankowski testified that the dropping of marijuana packages -onto what surface he did not specify -made “a flat-sounding kind of thump” that, to him was “pretty” distinctive “at times.” He could not describe the sound in any more detail, and he did not explain how it differed from thumps made by other kinds of packages.

Marijuana has a distinctive appearance, taste, and odor, and perhaps even a feel, but it does not have a distinctive sound. This is true regardless of how it is packaged.

A hunch may provide the basis for solid police work; it may trigger an investigation that uncovers facts that establish reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or even grounds for a conviction. A hunch, however, is not a substitute for the necessary specific, articulable facts required to justify a Fourth Amendment intrusion.

Because the investigatory stop of Thomas violated the Fourth Amendment, the district court was required to suppress the evidence that resulted from the stop as the fruit of the poisonous tree. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 484-85 (1963). This evidence includes the marijuana, the shotgun, and Thomas’s incriminating statements. It also includes the packages of marijuana found in the bathroom adjoining the garage at the residence under surveillance. As the district court found, ” [t]he evidence obtained in the Thomas stop led Officers back to [the house at ] 5825 East 23rd.” Because there is at least a reasonable possibility that the evidence obtained as a result of the unlawful stop contributed to Thomas’s convictions, we reverse those convictions and remand for further proceedings.

Read the full case here: United States of America v. Andrew Charles Thomas, 211 F.3d 1186 (9th Cir. 2000), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/211/1186/582645/