Column: Supreme Court Throws Out Drug, Gun Search
Lisa Coryell
July 22, 2009
Times of Trenton Regional News (Trenton, New Jersey)
New Jersey's Supreme Court has thrown out the search of a city man's apartment that yielded a cache of drugs and weapons during a 2004 sting operation.
The ruling published yesterday upholds an appeals court decision that said the search warrant that led to Quinn Marshall's arrest should not have been issued because it wasn't specific enough about which apartment in a two-unit building was to be searched.
The case stems from an investigation into drug activity in Trenton. An informant working with police told investigators he had seen a suspect enter an apartment at 105 Wayne St. to buy drugs but didn't know which apartment the suspect had visited when the transaction was made.
Police obtained a search warrant for both apartments at that location and arrested Marshall, then 34, in his first-floor apartment after finding 8 ounces of crack cocaine, 4 pounds of marijuana and two weapons.
Marshall sought to have the evidence thrown out, arguing that police did not have probable cause to conduct the search. But a trial court judge disagreed, ruling that the conditions of the warrant were satisfied. The motion to suppress was denied.
Marshall subsequently pleaded guilty to first-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance with the intent to distribute. In January 2006, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison with a four-year period of parole ineligibility. According to state records, he is in custody at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton.
In January 2008, an appellate court reversed the decision, ruling that the warrant was issued in error. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 6-1 decision.
"(T)he police did not know in which of the two apartments at 105 Wayne Avenue the asserted criminal activity took place. As a result, the search warrant was issued in violation of the requirement in our constitution that the warrant particularly describe the place to be searched," the panel ruled.
Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto was the dissenter.
The reversal paves the way for Marshall to withdraw his guilty plea.
"We will review the case and decide how to proceed from there," said Casey DeBlasio, a spokeswoman for the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office. | 
