Illegal drug search voids teen’s weapon convictions

A state appeals court has overturned a San Francisco teenager’s convictions for illegal possession of a gun that police found in his backpack, which officers searched after smelling marijuana.

The court said the scent of marijuana on the youth and his clothes wasn’t enough to authorize the search without a warrant.

Police encountered the youth, 17-year-old D.W., in January 2015 in the Bayview district’s Silver Terrace neighborhood after responding to reports that someone had a gun. After seeing a group of suspected gang members on a street corner, one officer approached D.W. and smelled marijuana, and the youth admitted he had just smoked some, the court said.

The officers decided to search him for drugs, and one of them put his hand in D.W.’s backpack and found a revolver, the court said. A juvenile court judge upheld the search and found the youth guilty of firearms offenses.

The appeals court affirmed that ruling last year, but then was told by the state Supreme

Court to reconsider the case in light of that court’s decision in another search case in December. In that case, the state’s high court invalidated the search of a man who was stopped after rolling past a stop sign on his bicycle and said the crime, an infraction, was not legal grounds by itself for an arrest and search.

In this case, said the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, the crime that police suspected D.W. of committing — possessing a small amount of marijuana for personal use — was likewise an infraction, punishable by a fine of up to $100.

Based on the state Supreme Court’s precedent, the officers had no legal grounds to arrest D.W. or search his clothing or property without a warrant, Justice Peter Siggins said in the 3-0 ruling, which the court published Wednesday as a precedent for future cases.

Because the search was illegal, the court said, the gun, the sole proof of the youth’s crimes, should have been excluded from evidence.