On November 12, 2022, a City of South Fulton police officer executed a traffic stop after his license plate reader showed that the vehicle had an expired tag and that Rosales, the person to whom the car was registered, had an outstanding arrest warrant. At the time of the traffic stop, Rosales was driving and had one passenger. As the officer spoke to Rosales, he smelled “an odor emanating from the vehicle that he suspected to be burnt marijuana based on his training and experience.” The officer told Rosales why he had pulled her over and confirmed that the arrest warrant was active “before placing her in custody in the back of his vehicle.” (The officer also removed Rosales’ passenger, who was not arrested, from the car.)
The officer then executed a warrantless search of Rosales’ vehicle, “based on the odor of suspected burnt marijuana coming from the vehicle.” When the officer informed her that the odor was the basis for the search, Rosales admitted “that she had recently smoked in the vehicle but did not specify what she had smoked.” During the vehicle search, the officer found: (1) “a small plastic bag containing a brown crystalline substance that a roadside drug test indicated to be methamphetamine[;]” and (2) “two glass smoking devices and an e-cigarette or ‘vape’ pen containing a gold or yellow waxy substance that the officer suspected to be an illicit marijuana product.” The officer subsequently allowed Rosales’ passenger “to drive the vehicle from the scene” instead of calling a wrecker service to tow the vehicle.
Based on the evidence found during the vehicle search, Rosales was charged with possession of methamphetamine. (Subsequent testing by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed that the substance was methamphetamine.) She was also charged with driving with an expired registration. Rosales later filed a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that the officer did not have probable cause to conduct the search. The trial court denied Rosales’ motion, “finding that the officer had probable cause to search Rosales’s vehicle based on the odor of what he suspected to be marijuana based on his training and experience.” The trial court subsequently granted Rosales’ request for a certificate of immediate review, and the Court of Appeals (or “Court”) granted Rosales’ application for interlocutory appeal.
On appeal, Rosales argued that the Georgia Hemp Farming Act (“GHFA”) “nullifie[d] precedent holding that the odor of marijuana provides probable cause for a warrantless search of a vehicle because hemp is now legal in Georgia, and legal hemp and illegal marijuana have similar odors.” The Court of Appeals rejected Rosales’ argument that “the odor of marijuana does not by itself necessarily indicate criminal activity, and the officer in this case provided no other reasons for suspecting the presence of an illegal substance aside from odor.”
In its 2024 decision in Coverstone v. State (“Coverstone”), the Court of Appeals wrote:
Under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement imposed by the Fourth Amendment, a police officer may search a car without warrant if he has probable cause to believe the car contains contraband, even if there is no exigency preventing the officer from getting a search warrant. Applying this exception, our Supreme Court and this Court have held that where a trained police officer detects the odor of … burnt marijuana coming from a vehicle, the officer has probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of the vehicle, provided that the officer’s ability to identify the odor is placed into evidence. Such a search can encompass every part of the vehicle which might have concealed the drug contraband, including the trunk and closed containers.
In rejecting Rosales’ argument, the Court of Appeals reviewed precedent established in both Coverstone, decided in 2024, and Gowen v. State (“Gowen”), decided in 2021. In Gowen, the defendant asserted that the officer “lacked probable cause to search his vehicle based on the odor of burnt marijuana because he possessed legal hemp with an odor indistinguishable from that of illegal marijuana.” Since “the record did not reflect that the hemp [Gowen] possessed was designed to be burned or smoked[,]” however, and “[Gowen] had an outstanding arrest warrant for a drug-related offense,” the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s finding “that the odor of burnt marijuana coming from [Gowen’s] vehicle ‘provided police with probable cause to search that vehicle.’”
Like Gowen, the defendant in Coverstone “argued that an officer lacked probable cause to search his vehicle based on the odor of marijuana because he possessed legal hemp, the odor of which was indistinguishable from that of illegal marijuana.” Unlike in Gowen’s case, however, the record in Coverstone’s case included the defendant’s evidence “that the hemp he possessed was designed to be burned or smoked.” Even though Coverstone presented this evidence, the Court of Appeals still affirmed the trial court’s denial of Coverstone’s motion to suppress: “[U]nder the totality of those circumstances, including the defendant’s admission to marijuana use four hours earlier and the officer’s observations of the defendant exhibiting physical symptoms of marijuana impairment and impaired driving, the officer had probable cause to search the defendant’s vehicle.”
Therefore, based on its holdings in both Gowen and Coverstone, the Court of Appeals “did not reach the issue of whether the odor of marijuana by itself provides probable cause to search a vehicle in light of the GHFA.” Although Rosales argued “that the circumstances of this case require us to revisit the question of whether the odor of marijuana alone can support a probable cause finding[,]” the Court stressed that Rosales’ argument “ignores the fact that when confronted by the officer about the smell of suspected burnt marijuana emanating from her vehicle, Rosales stated that she ‘had smoke[d] in the car recently.’”
The Court reasoned that although Rosales’ admission to having smoked in the car recently was “equivocal on its face,” a reasonable law enforcement officer “could have interpreted it as an admission to recent marijuana use in the vehicle.” The Court pointed out: “While this statement is susceptible to an innocent explanation, i.e., that Rosales had recently smoked something in her vehicle other than illegal marijuana, a reasonable officer would not have been required to draw this conclusion.”
The Court of Appeals also looked to its 2015 decision in Hughes v. State, in which the Court reasoned: “[W]here the totality of the facts and circumstances known to an officer would permit reasonable officers to draw differing conclusions about whether the suspect probably has committed a crime, probable cause exists, and it is for the officer—not judges, trial or appellate—to decide which of the several reasonable conclusions to draw.”
Therefore, the Court concluded:
[C]ontrary to Rosales’s argument, this case does not require us to revisit our prior legal precedent specific to odor-only probable cause. Based on the totality of circumstances, including the officer’s detection of the odor of burnt marijuana emanating from Rosales’s vehicle and her admission to recently smoking something in the vehicle that the officer could have reasonably inferred to be illegal marijuana, there was probable cause to justify the search of Rosales’s vehicle. Accordingly, the trial court did not err by denying the motion to suppress.
Rosales-Urrutia v. State, A25A2084, 2026 WL 506922, (Ga. Ct. App., Feb. 24, 2026).
In the early morning hours of March 16, 2025, Fort Stewart Military Police officers (“MPs”) Specialist Rinke and Sergeant Ashley were riding together in a patrol vehicle when they saw a car “traveling fifty-four miles per hour in a forty-mile-per-hour zone.” Upon making a traffic stop of the car, the driver, later identified as Rivers, “pulled her vehicle safely to the side of the road.”
As Specialist Rinke approached Rivers’ vehicle to request her license, he noted “ an ‘overbearing smell of perfume,’ that her speech was slurred or ‘slightly slurred,’ and that her eyes were ‘glossy’ or ‘bloodshot [and] watery.’” Based on his training and experience, Rinke believed that “the unusually strong perfume odor . . . was potentially ‘masking’ the odor of some intoxicant.” In Rivers’ case, Rinke testified “that the combination of the indicia led him to suspect that Rivers was under the influence of an intoxicant, specifically alcohol.”
Sergeant Ashley asked Rivers whether she would submit to “standard field sobriety tests and she consented.” However, when Sgt. Ashley asked Rivers to exit her vehicle so that the tests could be administered, she “behaved strangely[.]” Rivers’ odd behavior included “raising and lowering the driver’s side window, turning the engine on and off, and, for no apparent reason, showing officers her perfume bottle and stating: ‘This is my perfume.’”
Next, Rivers ignored the MPs’ repeated commands for her to exit her vehicle. Instead of doing so, Rivers “pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor.” Since the car was still in park, it did not move. After the MPs opened the driver’s side door, “Rivers was forcibly removed from the car, subdued after a brief scuffle, secured in a police car, and placed under arrest.”
Rivers was charged with DUI, less safe (alcohol), speeding, obstruction or hindering law enforcement officers, and an open container violation. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia (“District Court” or “Court”) had jurisdiction over Rivers’ case because she was arrested on Fort Stewart, an Army post, which is federal property. Therefore, any crimes committed on the property are federal offenses.
Rivers filed a motion to suppress in the District Court:
Rivers’ Motion argues two issues. First, it argues that the traffic stop was prolonged, resulting in a violation of the Fourth Amendment, when the officers “suspend[ed] tasks necessary to complete the traffic stop to instead investigate possible charges of driving under the influence without reasonable suspicion.” Second, it argues that Rivers’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated when she was seized without probable cause.
In reviewing a motion to suppress, “the district court acts as the factfinder and must evaluate the credibility of any witnesses.” In 2002 the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (“11th Circuit”) explained: “In considering a witness’s credibility, the court, as factfinder, must ‘weigh[ ] the testimonies of all the witnesses, taking into account the interests of the witnesses, the consistencies or inconsistencies in their testimonies, and their demeanor on the stand.’”
The District Court found Specialist Rinke’s “consistent and unequivocal testimony about his observations of Rivers when he initially approached her vehicle entirely credible.” The Court wrote:
“Rinke’s initial observation of the indicia of intoxication provided sufficient reasonable suspicion to prolong the stop to request Rivers submit to field sobriety testing. The basis of the stop, therefore, changed from the simple traffic infraction into an investigation of Rivers’ potential intoxication.”
In U.S. v. Campbell (2022), the 11th Circuit set forth a three-part analysis: “[T]o unlawfully prolong [a traffic stop], the officer must (1) conduct an unrelated inquiry aimed at investigating other crimes (2) that adds time to the stop (3) without reasonable suspicion.”
In a 2000 decision, the United States Supreme Court explained: “While ‘reasonable suspicion’ is a less demanding standard than probable cause, there must be at least a minimal level of objective justification for the stop.” In a 1989 decision, the Supreme Court noted: “Reasonable suspicion entails some minimal level of objective justification for making a stop—that is, something more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch,’ but less than the level of suspicion required for probable cause.”
The District Court was not persuaded by Rivers’ contention that “the officers improperly prolonged the traffic stop when they did not diligently pursue the process of issuing the speeding citation and, instead, began to investigate whether Rivers was intoxicated.” Rather, the Court opined:
Given that the Court finds that there was no unlawful prolongation of the traffic stop to request that Rivers submit to a standard field sobriety test, her other challenge necessarily fails. Both Rinke and Ashley consistently testified that, after she consented to a field sobriety test, the indicia of Rivers’ intoxication increased, she refused to comply with commands, and, ultimately, attempted to flee. The culmination of that sequence of events provided officers with sufficient probable cause for Sergeant Ashley to reach into her car and the officers’ forceful removal of her from it.
The Court also rejected Rivers’ argument that the MPs violated her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable government searches and seizures “when she was seized without probable cause.” The Court reasoned: “Rivers behavior after she consented to submit to [field sobriety] tests, which quickly became tantamount to refusal to submit to them, gave officers probable cause to believe she was intoxicated and arrest her.
For the foregoing reasons, the District Court denied Rivers’ motion to suppress. U.S. v. Rivers, CR425-064, 2026 WL 124237 (S.D. Ga., Jan. 16, 2026).
Take the implied consent card that was read to the DUI defendant to the ALS Hearing. When testifying at the ALS Hearing, provide testimony regarding how you determined the age-appropriate implied consent notice to read to the DUI defendant. The implied consent notice must be read into the record at the ALS Hearing.
The Department of Public Safety Legal Review is published with the approval of
Colonel W. W. Hitchens III
Legal Division
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