SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-4223-18T1

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

TYJON A. WILLIAMS a/k/a

TYJOU WILLIAMS,

Defendant-Respondent.

Submitted October 17, 2019 – Decided

Before Judges Alvarez and Suter.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law 

Division, Middlesex County, Indictment No. 18-04-

0512.

Christopher L.C. Kuberiet, Acting Middlesex County 

Prosecutor, attorney for appellant (Joie D. Piderit, 

Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant 

Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for 

respondent (Marcia H. Blum, Assistant Deputy Public 

Defender, of counsel and on the brief).

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the 

internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

October 24, 2019
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PER CURIAM

By leave granted, the State appeals a March 25, 2019 Law Division order 

suppressing the evidence against defendant Tyjon Williams. See R. 2:2-4. We 

now reverse.

At the hearing, only the arresting officers testified. New Brunswick Police 

Officers Justin Meccia and Richard Reed were operating an unmarked patrol car

on January 29, 2018, at 11:24 p.m., when they noticed a black Acura parked at

the intersection in a high-crime area. The officers ran the license plate number

through their computer and learned the registered owner's driver's license 

privileges had been suspended.

The officers made a U-turn, and followed the Acura. After it turned right, 

the officers activated their lights. The vehicle, driven by defendant, stopped in 

an area described by one of the officers as a residential parking lot. Defendant 

lives in one of the homes or apartments adjoining the area where he parked.

Both officers testified, corroborated by the mobile video recording played 

in court during the hearing, that defendant when stopped immediately walked 

towards them asking "what I do wrong?" On the video, one of the officers 

responds that defendant was driving with a suspended license. Defendant was 

repeatedly instructed by both officers to return to his car. He continued to 
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approach and was arrested for obstruction. While searching his person incident 

to the arrest, the officers discovered $729 in cash. Both officers noted that 

defendant smelled of marijuana. Meccia specifically recalled the odor was of 

raw marijuana.

After placing defendant in the rear of their vehicle, the officers 

approached defendant's car. A voice is heard on the recording commenting "a 

strong odor in the back seat" emanated from the vehicle. A bag containing 

thirty-three grams of raw marijuana and a Tupperware container with plastic 

baggies were discovered underneath the passenger seat.

The judge found the facts, generally undisputed, as we have described 

them including that defendant was initially arrested for obstruction, N.J.S.A. 

2C:29-1, for which he was not formally charged, because of his failure to obey 

police commands. In contrast to the testimony, however, the judge described 

the area where defendant came to a stop as a driveway.

The judge granted the motion as a matter of law because "the vehicle was 

not mobile at that time . . . [and] defendant was already in custody." Since the 

vehicle was parked "in the driveway[,]" and he opined that the officers had 

secured the scene, he concluded no exception to the warrant requirement 

applied.
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The State's sole point on appeal is:

THE TRIAL COURT ERRONEOUSLY 

SUPPRESSED EVIDENCE FOUND IN 

DEFENDANT'S CAR FOLLOWING A VALID AND 

UNFOR[E]SEEABLE MOTOR VEHICLE STOP, 

FOLLOWED BY DEFENDANT'S FAILURE TO 

OBEY AN ORDER OF THE POLICE AND 

CREDIBLE EVIDENCE OF A STRONG SMELL OF 

MARIJUANA EM[A]NATING FROM THE CAR.

To restate the issue, the question posed is whether the automobile 

exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement applies. It is wellestablished that the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and 

Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution, require police to obtain

warrants before making searches and seizures. Warrantless searches and 

seizures are presumptively invalid. See State v. Rodriguez, 459 N.J. Super. 13, 

20 (App. Div. 2019).

In State v. Witt, 223 N.J. 409 (2015), the Court "announced . . . a sharp 

departure from a more narrow construction of the automobile exception." 

Rodriguez, 459 N.J. Super. at 21. As Rodriguez explains, the Witt decision 

observed that the "multi-factor exigent circumstances test" of prior case law was 

"difficult to apply with consistency, particularly for law enforcement officers on 

patrol, and placed upon them 'unrealistic and impracticable burdens.'" Ibid.

(citing Witt, 223 N.J. at 414-15). The Court in Witt restated the test to authorize
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automobile searches where "(1) the police have probable cause to believe the 

vehicle contains evidence of a criminal offense; and (2) the circumstances giving 

rise to probable cause are unforeseeable and spontaneous." Id. at 22 (citing Witt, 

223 N.J. at 447-48).

In this case, the police had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a 

driver was violating motor vehicle laws, and thus stopped the Acura because the 

registered owner's license was suspended. State v. Dunbar, 229 N.J. 521, 533 

(2017). Defendant's subsequent conduct of approaching police despite being

repeatedly commanded to return to his car, established probable cause for an 

arrest for obstruction. Once arrested, both officers smelled a strong odor of 

marijuana on defendant's person. Thus, the police had probable cause to search 

the vehicle for drugs. The strong odor of marijuana emanating from the car

bolstered the probable cause for the officers to lawfully search the passenger 

compartment.

The circumstances which gave rise to this search were clearly unforeseen 

and spontaneous. It makes no difference here, contrary to the Law Division 

judge's conclusion, that defendant drove his car to a residential parking area 

adjacent to his home. An unlicensed driver, like a drunken driver, cannot defeat 

enforcement of the motor vehicle laws by entering a restricted parking area, such 
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as the one in this case. See State v. Nikola, 359 N.J. Super. 573, 586 (App. Div. 

2003) (finding that defendant's entry into an open garage did not prevent her 

warrantless arrest for driving while intoxicated, N.J.S.A. 39:4-50).

After defendant was lawfully arrested, the officers smelled marijuana on 

his person, giving rise to probable cause to search his vehicle. The fact that the 

smell of marijuana from the car was noticeable before the officers entered the 

vehicle simply added an additional factor contributing to probable cause.

The three rationales that anchor the current automobile exception apply in 

this case. See Witt, 223 N.J. at 422-23 ("(1) the inherent mobility of the vehicle; 

(2) the lesser expectation of privacy in an automobile compared to a home; and 

(3) the recognition that a Fourth Amendment intrusion occasioned by a prompt 

search based on probable cause is not necessarily greater than a prolonged 

detention of the vehicle and its occupants while the police secure a warrant.") 

(internal citations omitted).

The vehicle continued to be mobile regardless of its location off-street. In 

the same way it pulled into the residential parking area, it could have as easily 

pulled out. The proximity of the parking area to defendant's home did not create 

a reasonable expectation of privacy that took the search out of the automobile 

exception. The intrusion upon defendant's privacy was no different regardless 
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of the location – here it was still, essentially, a roadside stop. See Witt, 223 N.J. 

at 422-23.

The officers were not obligated to obtain a warrant because defendant had 

been taken into custody and was seated in the back of the police car, or because

the arrest was made after he parked his vehicle in an open area near his home. 

The judge's observation that the scene was "secured" has little meaning in this 

case. The automobile exception as defined in Witt applies. The motion should 

not have been granted.

Reversed.