LAFAYETTE — No evidence means no case.

Prosecutors dropped weapon and drug charges earlier this month against 30-year-old Karlon Aaron Jackson based on a motion to suppress evidence filed by Jackson's public defender, Shay Hughes.

Community Corrections officials, with the assistance from Lafayette police, searched Jackson's apartment on Aug. 14, 2018, and found a handgun, marijuana and MDMA, according to a probable cause filed with the charges filed two days after the search.

As part of being on community correction, Jackson signed a release that allows community correction employees or law enforcement officers to search him or his property without a warrant and without probable cause.

By signing that, however, Jackson did not agree to all searches, according to Hughes' motion to suppress evidence collected in the Aug. 14, 2018, search.

Hughes' March 25 motion cited a Nov. 30, 2018, Indiana Appeals Court case, which addressed another Tippecanoe County Community Correction case in which the person was similarly searched.

That ruling noted that if police or community correction employees wanted to broadly search people under court supervision, the waiver should include language such as consenting to searches "without suspicion" or "without reasonable suspicion" or "without cause."

Future motions to suppress on the same argument are unlikely to succeed.

Tippecanoe County Community Corrections Director Jason Huber said the waiver's language was changed to allow the broader searches after the Indiana Appeal Courts' decision.

In response to Hughes' motion, prosecutors filed a motion on May 6 to dismiss charges of unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, dealing a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substances, two counts of dealing marijuana and two counts of possession of marijuana.

Tippecanoe Superior 1 Judge Randy Williams formally dismissed the charges on May 7.

Reach Ron Wilkins at 765-420-5231 or at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.

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