“Sorry, so there’s “a smell”, cop says it was marijuana....not buying it. If there’s no arrest this is theft plain and simple.”
You and I both know it is, but under the law, it’s not. The smell triggers the search, whether there’s an actual smell or not at the time of the stop, we don’t know, maybe there is, maybe there isn’t.
But the reason that will be given by the police will be that they smelled marijuana and that triggers the search.
Now for the sake of argument, say the item seized wasn’t cash but jewelry. Say the guy had a bag of high end jewelry in his car and couldn’t in some way provide proof of ownership. Would the police be remiss in seizing the jewelry because it may be stolen?
This is how the thinking goes. I may not agree with it, but that’s how it goes.
“You didn’t bling that.”