A (somewhat belated) thank you to all. So it looks like the answer to the “search and seizure” question is what I told her in the first place–“it depends”?
Also, I did find out that Illinois is still a “secondary law” state, meaning cops can’t pull you over if they see you aren’t wearing your seat belt. (However, I don’t think I’ll rush to correct The Cat on this.) 
However, I did remember it right about cops being able to pull you over if your kids aren’t in proper child restraints.
I seem to remember a case a while back where a cop stopped a car for not having a front license plate, whereupon he found that they were smuggling cocaine.
The defendants later won the case on the idea that the cop had no right to pull them over in the first place, because they were travelling in another state and their home state requires only a rear license plate.
Not the kind of scenario that we want our Constitution defending; but hey, you take the good with the bad.
Why not? Their rights were violated by an illegal search and seizure. The findings of the search are irrelevant because the search should never have taken place. They weren’t criminals in the eyes of the courts until the illegal substance was found, and it was found illegally.
–Tim
Bad news, Dan…Jersey just passed laws making seatbelt offenses a primary (pulloverable :D) violation last year.
New Mexico has been the same way for several years.
Oh yeah, there was an OP, wasn’t there? heh
That’s about the size of it. If the police have a legitimate reason to be looking wherever they are looking (executing a search warrant for something else, making a legal traffic stop, walking down the street and glance into the window of a parked car, etc) and during the normal course of legitimate action they happen to see contraband or evidence of a crime, they then have probable cause to expand the search.
Example: You get pulled over for seatbelt violation. The cop sees an empty beer can on the seat. He is completely within his power under the law to demand you submit to a breath test. In some states, that is also probable cause to search the rest of the vehicle.
Example 2: You’re sitting in your legally parked car listening to the radio, and a cop walks up and tells you to get out and open your trunk so he can search it. Unless you are violating some sort of loitering law or he can produce a warrant or probable cause, he is violating your rights and conducting an illegal search.
and…
As to the car… I think “it depends” is a fairly safe statement. The jurisdiction’s rules and the excat circumstances could turn the answer either way.
However, the history teacher’s comments ought to be expanded upon a bit.
If “they” come into your house with a warrant looking for stolen tractors, and they open your dresser drawers ostensibly pursuant to that warrant and find a baggie of coke, then Teach is right – the baggie would likely be suppressed. The reason is that it’s not reasonable for a tractor to be in a dresser drawer; the cops would have no business searching dresser drawers and their warrant would not permit it.
If the reverse were true, though - they had a warrant to search for cocaine and open a garage to find a large tractor with “Property of the State of Kansas” stenciled on it, the discovery could be used against the garage owner. This is, as posters have indicated, an application of the plain view doctrine, which generally says that if the police are lawfully in a particular place and see the fruits of a crime in plain view, no warrant is required.
Okay. Thank you. 
Now I just have to think of a way to work all this into the conversation, never an easy task with a touchy teenager.