Court Opinion

ID: 9854005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:59:02.097874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:52.439902
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
Having concurred in Chief Justice Bakes’ opinion, time is taken for the sole purpose of expressing my understanding of why the appeal was taken. At first blush when we read the briefs and heard oral argument, seemingly there was merit in Ryan’s appeal. Ryan just happened to be a passenger in the car. Unfortunately for Ryan the driver of the car was speeding, and an officer pulled the car over for that offense. Unfortunately for Ryan the car was registered to a person other than the drivér, and when the officer asked who owned the car, the driver gave a name which did not match with the owner’s name on the registration. Unfortunately for Ryan it was a cold night and the officers allowed the inhabitants of the suspect car to sit in the warm patrol car while the suspect vehicle was searched. Powdery substances and drug paraphernalia were found in the car, and unfortunately the substances turned out to be the cocaine which the officers suspected to be the case. Unfortunately for Ryan the purse of the female passenger did contain six baggies containing the white powdery substance, and, to Ryan’s extreme misfortune, the female passenger declared the baggies were not hers, but were Ryan's, and that he had asked her to put them in her purse while they were in the process of being pulled over. Unfortunately, being a gentleman of honor, Ryan confirmed what the lady said.
The law being as it is, and being well-established as pointed out by Chief Justice Bakes, it is pure and simple a case of Ryan being in the wrong place with the wrong medication at the wrong time — a victim of *508circumstances which would have been of no consequence had he not possessed illegal drugs.