Smurf that!

Nathan Webb and Sarah Morrison won in State v. Glassock, No. 96,109 (Kan. App. May 4, 2007) (unpublished) reversing a Sedgwick County drug prosecution on Fourth Amendment grounds. Ms. Glassock and her friend went into a Wichita Target store and each separately bought some Sudafed. The women left separately and got into a truck with Oklahoma tags. The officers were suspcious that the women were "smurfing," where persons from out of town make repeated small buys at several different places. The officers detained the women, leading to an eventual search and discovery of evidence supporting the drug charges.

The COA followed previous cases holding that a split purchase of Sudafed by itself does not provide reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to be committed. The state relied heavily on the fact that the truck had Oklahoma tags. But the COA was not persuaded:

Although the state presented testimony that Oklahoma had more restrictive laws and that the department had experienced a large increase in arrests of Oklahoma residents coming to Wichita to purchase methamphetamine ingredients, this fact would not appear sufficient to create reasonable suspicion justifying the detention of an individual. It is incongrous in a Fourth Amendment analysis to find that facts insufficient to rise to reasonable suspicion for persons from Kansas or 48 other states in the union can without more satisfy the reasonable suspicion standard simply because the individuals are believed to be from Oklahoma.

By the way, for all of you young'uns, smurfs are cartoon characters. Here is a Smurf.

[Update: the state filed a PR on June 4, 2007].

[Further update: the KSC denied the state's PR and the mandate issued on November 8, 2007.]