Court Opinion

ID: 9856931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:07:19.267152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:33.190111
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Judge,
concurring specially.
Under the unique facts of this case, because the defendant did not prove that it was impossible for this officer to stand outside the car and smell unburned marijuana wrapped in plastic inside a bag in the closed trunk, over the competing odor of a baby powder-scented air freshener and a Black & Mild cigar, I am constrained to agree that we must affirm the trial court’s denial of King’s motion to suppress, based on the trial court’s finding that the officer’s testimony was credible.
We have held that “a trained police officer’s perception of the odor of burning marijuana, provided his ability to identify that odor is placed into evidence, constitutes sufficient probable cause to support the warrantless search of a vehicle.” State v. Folk, 238 Ga. App. 206, 209 (521 SE2d 194) (1999). While the officer in this case testified that he smelled “raw” as opposed to “burned” marijuana, he also testified *549that he was able to identify that odor as contraband in the closed trunk of the car. We leave the factfinding to the trial court, and the trial court in this instance found credible the officer’s testimony. Perhaps if defense counsel had introduced expert testimony regarding a person’s ability to smell certain substances from a distance through layers of plastic, paper, carpet, steel, and leather, or had conducted his own courtroom experiment regarding this officer’s ability to smell different substances through a locked briefcase, the outcome might have been different.
Decided May 21, 2004.
Peter J. Ross, Noah H. Pines, for appellant.
Tommy K. Floyd, District Attorney, Sandra G. Rivers, Alicia C. Gant, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
This case, however, illustrates the very furthest that credibility can possibly be stretched and almost does not pass the “smell test” itself. The evidence showed that a K-9 officer and his drug dog arrived at the scene 26 seconds after the arresting officer pulled King over. The arresting officer did not ask the K-9 officer to walk the drug dog around the car to see if he alerted; instead, after arresting King, he made a 20-second search of the car’s interior and then popped the trunk. While the officer admitted that dogs are used to sniff for drugs because their sense of smell is better than humans’, the officer asked the trial judge to believe that his sense of smell surpassed that of the trained dog. Although credibility is the sole province of the trial court, this case strains against the outer boundaries of the “clearly erroneous” standard. It should not, therefore, be cited as precedent for other cases. Police officers may not open people’s trunks merely because they say they smell something suspicious, which would be a ludicrous result.
For these reasons, I specially concur in the majority’s decision to affirm the trial court’s order.