State v. Brown

MlKELL, Judge.

Jeremy Pierre Brown was charged by accusation with felony possession of marijuana, failure to maintain lane, and underage possession of alcohol. He moved to suppress the 1.15 ounces of marijuana seized from his pocket as well as the bottles of alcohol found in his car during a traffic stop, arguing that the arresting officer lacked reasonable suspicion necessary to sustain a second-tier search. The trial court granted the motion after a hearing. The state appeals, and we affirm for the reasons set forth below.

There are three tiers of police-citizen encounters: (1) communications…