Maine Supreme Court tosses drug conviction over improper stop timeline

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has overturned a drug trafficking conviction for Jeff Belony, a man from Bangor. The court ruled that a lower court judge failed to properly justify the duration of a 2021 traffic stop that led to the discovery of drugs on Belony’s person.

Justice Andrew Mead noted that the trial court’s findings regarding the timeline of the stop were “clearly erroneous.” While the lower court claimed the identification occurred within five to six minutes, video evidence indicated the process took at least eight minutes and 48 seconds. The high court found that the lower court did not adequately address whether officers used the time before identification to pursue a drug investigation rather than addressing the initial traffic violations, a distinction established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

The case has been sent back to a lower court to determine if the detention was improperly prolonged.