FRANKFORT, Ky. — The drug trafficking prosecution of a Pike County man is back on, after a three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals reinstated evidence that the trial judge had ruled inadmissible.

Steven Cody Adkins, 40, of Wolfpit Branch Road, was arrested in December 2022, after police found a variety of drugs in his home during a “knock-and-talk.”

A knock-and-talk is an investigative procedure used by police to try to obtain permission for a search, when they do not have enough evidence to support a search warrant.

In this case, the officers had been told by a witness that Adkins was trafficking in drugs, so they went to talk to him. They first tried knocking at his front door, but he didn’t answer. They then found Adkins exiting his back door, and after talking to him, he gave the officers permission to search his house.

During that search, the officers found meth, prescription medications and more than 5 lbs. of marijuana, along with guns, cash and trafficking materials, and Adkins was arrested on six counts of drug trafficking.

In 2023, Adkins’ attorney, Larry Webster, argued that the evidence should be suppressed because the officers improperly conducted the knock-and-talk. He argued that the officers were prohibited from going to the front door, because they had to cross a yard which was surrounded by a fence and closed gate with no trespassing signs displayed.

Pike Circuit Judge Howard Keith Hall agreed with that argument and tossed out all of the evidence obtained from the knock-and-talk.

But earlier this month, the Court of Appeals overturned Judge Hall’s ruling.

The court determined it was not improper for the officers to go through the fenced-in yard to get to the front door because the gate was not locked, and they likened the officers’ approach to the front door to a delivery driver leaving a package on the front porch.

The case has now been returned to Pike Circuit Court for further action.