A Clayton County judge ruled Dec. 11 that an inventory search of a towed vehicle in State v. Damien Gerard Compton was lawful and therefore items recovered in that search may be admitted, but the judge suppressed field-sobriety-test (FST) evidence, concluding those tests were improper given the defendant's injuries.

Defense counsel Miss Tortorello argued the vehicle search and subsequent evidence were product of an illegal search and therefore barred, and also urged exclusion of FSTs on safety and relevance grounds because Compton suffered head and leg injuries in the crash. "This illegal search violated my client's constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment," Tortorello said in court.

Trooper Markquavius Majors (Georgia State Patrol) testified for the state that he smelled marijuana in Compton's vehicle, recovered a small plastic bag containing leafy material, observed drug paraphernalia and a scale, and saw clues on the defendant during standardized testing that suggested impairment. "I could smell unburnt marijuana inside the vehicle," Majors testified, and described HGN and other clues he observed during field testing.

Officer Michelle Reed, a state supervision officer who witnessed the crash scene, also told the court she smelled marijuana near the vehicle when she approached the car after the collision.

After reviewing the body- and dash-camera footage, witness testimony and the applicable law about inventory searches incident to impound, the judge found the impound and inventory search were performed in the ordinary course and admissible. But the court concluded that the FSTs should not have been performed because Compton sustained a head injury and had an injured, limping leg; the judge said those conditions undercut the reliability and fairness of HGN and balance tests. In the court's words: the inventory search "was done properly incident to a car being disabled and being towed," and "the FSCs will be suppressed" (the court suppressed HGN, walk-and-turn and one-leg-stand).

The ruling allows the state to use items discovered in the inventory search while excluding the contested sobriety-test observations from the prosecution's direct use at trial. The case will proceed with those evidentiary limitations in place.