Court Opinion

ID: 9583074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:34:38.873332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:10.346854
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge.
By accusation defendant was charged with the offense of a misdemeanor: violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act, in that he did unlawfully possess and have under his custody and control less than one ounce of marijuana. Defendant moved to suppress “the alleged contraband” seized by a police officer in the search of an automobile without probable cause and without defendant’s consent. After a hearing, the motion was denied by the trial court upon its determination that “under the totality of the circumstances . . . reasonable grounds existed for an articulable suspicion sufficient to warrant a limited investigative detention of the vehicle in question and its occupants,” citing Stiggers v. State, 151 Ga. App. 546, 547 (1) (260 SE2d 413); State v. Carter, 240 Ga. 518 (242 SE2d 28); Allen v. State, 140 Ga. App. 828, 829-831 (1) (232 SE2d 250); and State v. Purdy, 147 Ga. App. 340, 341 (248 SE2d 683). This court granted an interlocutory appeal in order to review the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress. Held:
This case involves the issue of whether the police may make an investigatory stop of a vehicle on a street in an area having no other outlets where there had been problems of vandalism in the past. The area was a new subdivision just being constructed, and there had been reports of various problems in the new subdivisions throughout the county. As the officer approached the subdivision on its main road from its entrance he observed an automobile coming toward him which had just turned on its lights. He immediately directed the vehicle to stop and approached the car. As the defendant rolled down the window of the automobile in which he was riding, the officer immediately smelled what he thought was marijuana and observed paraphernalia used in smoking marijuana, in the vehicle in plain view as well as a passenger in the front seat discarding a bag containing a leafy substance “that smelled and looked like marijuana” on the ground from the passenger door. Also passengers *731were two juveniles, a male and a female.
Submitted July 1, 1980
Decided December 5, 1980
Richard E. Collar, Jr., for appellant.
Herbert T. Jenkins, Jr., Solicitor, for appellee.
Under the recent case of State v. Carter, 240 Ga. 518, supra, reversing Carter v. State, 143 Ga. App. 166 (237 SE2d 656), the evidence was ample for the police officer to stop the vehicle to ascertain the purpose of the occupants being in the uncompleted subdivision and to determine what their actions had been while they were there. Immediately thereafter the plain view doctrine came into effect with the smelling of the odor of marijuana and observing the various paraphernalia in the automobile. The trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress the evidence seized.

Judgment affirmed.

Deen, C. J., Quillian, P. J., Banke and Birdsong, JJ., concur. Smith, Shulman, Carley and Sognier, JJ., dissent.