Court Opinion

ID: 9729667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:46:06.272713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.417593
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
dissenting. I would reverse and remand. There was probable cause to believe that it was defendant cultivating the marijuana plants. The Court has applied too high a standard to these facts.
There is no question based on the electronic monitoring that someone was in the marijuana patch for one-half hour. Defendant’s basic argument, and the one adopted by the Court, is that someone else might have been on the path and tended the plants. The Court concludes that the State did not prove that defendant was the one. The Court suggests that defendant may have just stumbled upon a marijuana patch while meandering through the dense forest.
This case is not one of mere physical proximity to a crime. The plot was remote. The path was not well-travelled, at least not during the three days of police observation. During that time, no one but defendant was observed in the area. The access path was difficult to locate, being more like a tunnel through the underbrush than a path. Someone triggered not only the monitor on the access path but also a monitor in the marijuana plot. These sensors signaled the officers of someone’s presence for a half hour’s time. Immediately upon the heels of these signals, defendant exited the plot and walked down the path toward the officers. As the trial court stated, “when the Defendant exited the plot from one of the tunnels through the vegetation, the [officers] . . . arrested the Defendant.” Looking at the facts in a nontechnical commonsense manner, the officers had enough facts to support a reasonably cautious belief that it was defendant who was cultivating the marijuana plants. What else would defendant be doing for half an hour in a patch containing eighty-five manicured marijuana plants?