DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDASECOND DISTRICT
DEMETRO L. BACON,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
No. 2D2024-0848
June 27, 2025
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Manatee County; Stephen MathewWhyte, Judge.
Blair Allen, Public Defender and Andrew Verblow, Assistant PublicDefender, Bartow, for Appellant.
James Uthmeier, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Lara E. Breslow,Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
PER CURIAM.
Demetro Bacon appeals his judgment and sentence for possessionof cocaine, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia,and resisting an officer without violence. He entered a plea to thecharges, reserving his right to appeal the denial of his dispositive motion
Original opinion page 2
2to suppress the contraband found in his car after he was stopped for atraffic violation. We affirm.Bacon argues that the search of his car was unlawful. He contendsthat "[g]iven the current state of the law," the officer lacked probablecause to search his car based solely on the odor of marijuana. We neednot decide this issue, however, because the smell of marijuana was onlyone of the factors relied upon to justify the search. Because the recordshows that the totality of the circumstances provided the officer withsufficient probable cause to search Bacon's car, we affirm the trialcourt's denial of his motion to suppress. See Hatcher v. State, 342 So. 3d807, 810 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022) (stating that courts must consider thetotality of the circumstances in determining probable cause to search avehicle).Affirmed.NORTHCUTT, KELLY, and MOE, JJ., Concur.Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.
Opinion text and original PDF from Florida Second District Court of Appeal · Source opinion