Supreme Court: Police OK to search drug suspect

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s highest court has ruled that police did not violate the constitutional rights of a man they stopped on suspicion of dealing drugs.

A divided state Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that deputies were justified in stopping Syllester Taylor in a neighborhood known for drug activity and engaged in what they thought was a drug deal.

Taylor was arrested in 2006 and eventually sentenced to 30 years in prison for dealing crack cocaine. His attorneys appealed, arguing that police didn’t have reasonable suspicion to stop Taylor or probable cause to search a tennis ball they found on him for drugs.

The state’s Court of Appeals reversed Taylor’s conviction and vacated his sentence in 2010. But on Wednesday, Chief Justice Jean Toal wrote that evidence backed up Taylor’s conviction.

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