Court Opinion

ID: 9744380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:01:42.013581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:48.853025
License: Public Domain

BROOK, Chief Judge,
concurring in result.
Although I agree with the majority’s result, I would not reach the merits in this case. Even if we assume that Meyers’s continuing objection based on his motion to suppress was proper, it applied only to “any and all evidence found, or seized as a result of the stop occurring on or about the 22nd day of October, 1999[.]” Appellant’s Br. at 26. Meyers did not seek to suppress testimony that he possessed marijuana and diazepam.
At trial, the following colloquy occurred:
Q Okay. After uh, he completed the filed sobriety test, um, what happened next?
A Asked him for permission to search his vehicle of which he agreed.
Q And what did you do?
A I started on the passenger side and in the rear. In the passenger seat there was a little glove box and inside there was a, a ziplock, a sandwich container, and inside it was a plastic baggie with greenish brown plant like material. Also inside was a prescription bottle, it was unlabeled, and it had (inaudible) hand rolled cigarettes with plain like material inside and a couple that were partially burnt.
Q Through your training and experience as an officer, have you ever come into contact with Marijuana?
A Yes.
Q Okay. Through your training and experience as an officer and having come into contact with Marijuana in the past, did you form an opinion as to what that greenish brown plant like material was that you found?
A I thought it was Marijuana.
[[Image here]]
Q What did you do after you found that?
A Then I just went down and uh, did a custody search of Mr. Meyers.
Q When you say went down ...
A I’m sorry, went back to the back of the car and did a custody search of Mr. Meyers, and in his front pocket found a unlabeled prescription bottle with several different pills inside [which Meyers had stipulated were diazepam] and a uh, soft green zip kind of container that had one pink pill in it.
Tr. at 78-9.
Meyers did not object to the officer’s testimony, which is merely cumulative of the physical evidence he sought to suppress. “Evidence that is merely cumulative is not grounds for reversal.” Tobar v. State, 740 N.E.2d 106, 108 (Ind.2000). For this reason, I would not address Meyers’s suppression claims.