State v. James Timothy Genous, 2019AP435, review of a per curiam court of appeals decision granted 9/16/20; case activity (including briefs)
Issue presented:
Do the following facts contribute to reasonable suspicion of illegal drug activity: a brief encounter in a car between two or more people, an officer’s belief that one or more of those people is a known drug user, the time of day or night, and the car’s headlights turning off right before the encounter and turning back on right afterward?
The issue presented tells you everything you need to know about this one. In the court of appeals, the state said publication wasn’t even merited because the case required only the application of established legal principles to a particular set of facts. But then the court of appeals went and applied those principles in a way the state didn’t appreciate. So, it filed a petition tacitly invoking the unwritten and most salient criterion for review: “the state lost!” It worked.
