MARIJUANA CHARGES DROPPED BECAUSE OF ILLEGAL SEARCH

BLOOMINGTON -- Prosecutors dropped charges Tuesday against a
[redacted] accused of being caught with 10 pounds of marijuana in his
car trunk.

The move followed a judge's ruling earlier this month that a police
search in the case was illegal.

[redacted], was arrested following a traffic stop Feb. 8 on West
Market Street. Court records say [redacted] car did not have a
functioning light over the rear license plate.

After stopping him, Bloomington police patted him down and found 4.6
grams of marijuana in a plastic bag in one of his pockets, according
to court documents. A subsequent search found 10 pounds of marijuana
in the trunk of his car.

He was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana and unlawful
possession of marijuana with intent to deliver the drug, according to
court documents.

"The judge found that the officers discovered the drugs following a
search, which was not justified," said Assistant Public Defender
Brian McEldowney. "They did a pat-down search, and the judge found
there was no basis for that."

Bloomington police spokesman Duane Moss said department officials may
have comments on the case Wednesday, but they still were examining
the ruling Tuesday afternoon.

A message left for a prosecutor handling the case was not immediately returned.

McEldowney said the marijuana found in the trunk was inadmissible
because it is "the fruit of the poisonous tree" -- evidence that
would not have been discovered without the unjustified search of
[redacted]'s pockets.

"The police do a great job on the whole," McEldowney said. "And they
were following their instincts, and their instincts were right: There
was a lot of drugs there. But the judge found that they didn't have
the basis to do the pat-down search, which led to the discovery of
some of the drugs and the ultimate discovery of the rest of them."

An officer searched [redacted] because of safety concerns, and he
smelled a strong odor of marijuana during the search, prosecutors
said in a document filed in response to the defense motion
challenging the search.

McEldowney said he was not in a position to say why his client was
driving a car containing marijuana or whether he knew the drugs were
there. He said the issue of ownership of the drugs would have come up
in a trial.