Case Name: STATE of Louisiana, Respondent, v. Donald R. JONES, Relator
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1978-05-22
Citations: 358 So. 2d 1257
Docket Number: No. 60955
Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Respondent, v. Donald R. JONES, Relator.
Judges: SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 358
Pages: 1257–1262

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana, Respondent, v. Donald R. JONES, Relator.
No. 60955.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
May 22, 1978.
Dissenting Opinion June 1, 1978.
Kenneth D. McCoy, Jr., Whitehead & McCoy, Natchitoches, for relator.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ronald C. Martin, Dist. Atty., Andrew S. Vallien, Asst. Dist. Atty., for respondent.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
The defendant Jones was convicted of possession of marijuana, La.R.S. 40:966(C), fined $500, and sentenced to six months imprisonment. We granted certiorari, 351 So.2d 1213 (1977), because we believed that, on the showing made, the defendant was convicted on the basis of evidence seized as a result of an unlawful entry into and search of the apartment in which the defendant, his wife, and his two children lived. His motion to suppress evidence so seized was denied by the trial court.
The facts of the entry and search are as follows:
At about 7:00 p. m. the city police received a complaint of loud music in a ground floor apartment of the College Man- or Apartments. Two policemen went to the door of the apartment, accompanied as backup by a third officer with a canine.
A policeman knocked on the door. The defendant Jones opened it, and the policeman asked him to turn the music down. Jones closed the door and turned the music down. When he reopened it a crack, an officer put his foot in the door, and the officers forced their way in.
The policemen testified that they did so because they smelled marijuana smoke. They saw in the ashtray what they thought were (cold) stubs of marijuana cigarettes.
In the darkened living room, five young men were sitting listening to the music. Jones' wife and two children were in the adjacent bedrooms.
The policemen sent for a narcotics officer. On the basis of their report, the latter executed an affidavit and secured a search warrant. However, since (for reasons to be stated) we find there was no initial probable cause for the warrantless entry into the apartment, the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant should have been suppressed: The affidavit and the warrant itself were based upon the product of an illegal invasion of a home without probable cause. State v. Kuhlman, 293 So.2d 159 (La.1974).
Essentially, the officers burst into this residential apartment because (they said) they smelled an odor which resembled marijuana smoke. The search warrant was secured on this basis, and because, after entry of the officers, they saw in the ashtrays what they believed to be marijuana roaches.
However, subsequent laboratory analysis did not identify the burnt cigarettes as containing marijuana. The cigarettes themselves were cold, when the officers burst in, seconds after they thought they smelled the odor. They found no substance or cigarette burning or warm anywhere in the apartment (although they thought the marijuana smell came from the cold butts in the ash- , trays).
In our opinion, the evidence proves beyond reasonable dispute that the odor, if any, smelled by the officers could not have been marijuana. It is apparent that, if indeed there was an odor, it resulted from some other source than any marijuana smoked in the apartment. Thus, in fact no actual probable cause existed for the police to invade this residential apartment, without a warrant as done (or even with a warrant).
In summary, probable cause for a forcible entry into a residential apartment is not supplied by the invading officers' smelling non-existent marijuana smoke. Merely imagined smells cannot supply such cause to invade the sanctity of a home. Imagined facts based upon mere suspicion, like mere suspicion itself, cannot suffice as probable cause to do so.
To permit governmental agents to search on such a basis would undermine the right of individuals guaranteed by our state constitution "shall be secure . . . against unreasonable searches, seizures, or invasions of privacy." La.Const. of 1974, Art. 1, Section 5. The constitutional sanctity of a home against unreasonable government intrusion should not depend on the unfounded imagination of police officers, or the potential for fabrication that thereby would result.
Further, no exigent circumstances are shown for these police officers to burst into the apartment without a warrant, even though there had been probable cause. As we reiterated in State v. Kuhlman, 293 So.2d 159, 161 (La.1974): " 'The search of a home without a warrant is banned notwithstanding probable cause to believe that it contains contraband or other seizable articles. Such a search, moreover, is not validated by what it brings to light. The tradition of time immemorial sustains this firm constitutional policy protecting the privacy of the home.' "
DECREE
Accordingly, the denial of the motion to suppress is overruled, and the conviction and sentence are reversed; the case is remanded for a new trial in accordance with law.
Reversed and remanded.
SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
. As of a result of the consequent painstaking search of the premises, the police found one plastic baggie and two unburned cigarettes of marijuana in the trash containers, and two plastic baggies of marijuana in a blue jean jacket that did not belong to Jones. After Jones was arrested because of the product of this painstaking but illegal search (see text below), gleanings were removed from his clothing, which, upon laboratory analysis, appeared to be marijuana.