Of course. They’re always going to have reasonable suspicion though. If you’re a poor inner city youth who is “acting funny” that’s gonna be good enough for the judge.
I saw a hilarious Cops episode where they pulled over this little sorority girl. I don’t remember the details but they decided to search her car. She was shrieking at them, “I don’t give you permission to search my car” over and over again. The cops were cracking up over her behaviour. One of them told her, “you think you know the law but you don’t. Now keep quiet.”
I would take issue with use of the word “always” here. There have been plenty of cases in which evidence was thrown out because officers violated the suspect’s 4th ammendment rights. They failed to prove reasonable suspicion.
As to the OP’s question, it’s possible that officers are warned against trying to arrest anyone on LSD or PCP ALONE or without proper backup. It can get ugly.
While people on PCP may become oblivious to pain, effects of LSD are wildly unpredictable and can include violent behavior.
It is always a good idea to object to a stop and search, but not to resist one. Verbally objecting to a search simply establishes that you did not voluntarily submit to the search and can work in your favor in case the validity of the search/arrest is questioned. However, objecting to a search may lead to your immediate detention, so in most cases, you’re between a rock and a hard place.
I’d have to agree that police could always find reasonable suspicion to search your car. A policeman could flash the lights and “pull you over”. He could say you were driving erratically - even if you were the soberest, and safest driver on the face of the Earth. Then if he finds illegal substances, stolen goods, etc how are you to question the police officer? I highly doubt that the court would side with Mr John Q Citizen if you said “but I was NOT driving erratically, therfore the search was illegal and therefore the nothing can be used as evidence and I’ll have to be set free”.
Someone please tell me how a court would ever take your side in such a case. Also, tell me how you could definitely prove that you were not driving erratically ?
As for the LSD “no arrest” policy? That would be great - “yes officer I just robbed that bank for $100,000 and did I tell you I was on LSD ?”
You better not let Bricker hear you guys say that. I learned my lesson.
In any case, your suggestion would have the officer perjure himself in court, something most police officers would be unwilling to do, despite what you may believe.
Good grief. I guess crediting this theory really “could” stretch the meaning of the word ‘could’.
Taken literally, the police could, as you suggest, simply lie. As far as that goes, they could simply keep several bags of crack and some automatic weapons in a duffel bag, pull you over at random, and declare that they had found the contraband on you, and further testify that you offered them money and sex with underage prostitutes in they’d let you go. Therefore, I suppose we can conclude that constitutional guarantees are useless.
In fact, constitutional guarantees are NOT useless, and the scenario I describe above is far-fetched – but so, too, is wolf_meister’s theory above.
It posits that the ordinary, run-of-the-mill police officer is ready and willing to commit perjury at the drop of a hat. This idea is given lie by the large number of cases in which evidence IS thrown out by the courts for improper searches, when a mere shading of the truth by the arresting officer would permit the evidence to be used. If wolf_meister is anywhere near correct, I wonder what his explanation is for the number of cases in which evidence is ordered suppressed?
Even if we posit that a particular officer is willing to repeatedly lie, doesn’t it seem an odd choice to risk his career over and over? All that’s needed is one instance of independent verification - one passing motorist with a video camera, for example - and the officer is not only out of a job, but facing criminal charges.
Undoubtedly, police lie. But those instances are few and far between, for the reasons I allude to here.
Bricker
Well, looks as if QED’s prediction came true.
Bricker I will easily concede that the majority of cases in which police will “pull someone over” are done with good reason. However, I think your use of the word “far-fetched” is a bit extreme. For example, you must have heard some people complain that they were “pulled over” because they were guilty of “D.W.B.” - Driving While Black.
Also, if someone had videotaped the “erratic driving” example it could easily be refuted. If the videotape showed no such driving behavior it could be stated that the extremely egrergious driving occurred before that video was taken.
And Bricker, just out of curiosity, since QED predicted you would probably enter this discussion are you somehow connected with the law (police officer, lawyer, etc)? I read your profile but it doesn’t state much except that you live in Virginia.
It could be worse. The cops could assassinate you in your driveway on your wife’s birthday. This happened to our newly-elected sheriff a few years back.
Of course, it should be noted that police cars are increasingly equipped with video cameras themselves, so the absence of such objective video evidence could be taken as a point for the defense. Depending on the layout of the road, it’s possible for erratic driving to occur “off screen” but in my experience as an ordinary driver trying to avoid dingbats and variously-impaired on the roads, they rarely instantly return to safe and sane operation.
While the hypothetical crooked cops could preface every false stop with remarks like “Whoa! Did you see what that car did? That’s crazy!”, the pattern would become obvious over time [e.g. in successive arrests or on review of the entire tape of that shift and previous shifts, if the court allows]
An old friend of mine told me his kid brother called him from jail the next morning. " I don’t understand. After I turned those cops into white rabbits, everything should have been okay." :smack:
Cite for LSD reducing pain? Second-hand stories from a friend in college. On that particular aspect, I’m as clueless as the guy the OP was talking to.
Thanks for helping to fight ignorance!
The “DWB” approach is not predicated on pulling a minority motorist over for no reason at all. It is instead allegedly pulling a minority motorist over for a minor infraction, one that, had the motorist been white, presumably the officer would have ignored.
In other words, the initial traffic stop in most DWB cases is technically valid. The complaint in these cases revolves around the police using their discretionary powers to target black drivers for minor road violations that they ignore in white drivers.
This is not laudable, of course, but a far cry from the “making up out of whole cloth” you alluded to earlier.
I don’t practice law any more, but I was, years ago, a public defender in Virginia.
Several posters have mentioned driving erratically as a good enough reason for a police officer to search your car without permission. I don’t believe this is the case. What does bad driving have to do with searching your car? IANAL, please correct me if I am wrong.
Friend of mine was in that very situation - got himself arrested while tripping on acid. The police were not aware of this, so he tried to keep his composure, but because he was a student they made some drug-related jokes as they led him down to the cells. At one point he cringed at some hallucinatory apparition, and was even more freaked out when one of the officers said
Driving erractically suggests that traffic laws are being broken. This generally gives the police reasonable, articulable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop. In some jurisdictions, the police have the discretion to arrest for any offense, even a minor traffic one. In those cases, police may search your person incident to arrest, and search your car both incident to arrest and for inventory purposes.
Assuming the police only have the authority to issue a summons for traffic violations, the brief period of detention while the citation is being issued may also serve to develop probable cause for a search. For example, the odor of marijuana wafting out of the car window will permit the officer to search the car, as will a visible weapon, visible drugs or drug paraphenalia, or the like.
The police may NOT infer probable cause from a refusal of a consent search.
Bricker
So, you now admit that you were a public defender. And for how long did you think you could keep that a secret from the court ??? (or the Message Board even ?) LOL just kidding !!!
Anyway, it’s good to see you agreed with my DWB argument.
Still, it is conceivable that some police could stop you for no good reason - granted it would be out of the ordinary but not to the point of its being “far-fetched”. Unfortunately, this is the kind of story that makes the evening news. Police stopping people and taking bribes to forget about an infraction that never took place. Police stopping pretty young women and … well I need not go into this any further. As I’ve said this is the kind of story that makes the news. Not just stories about police either. For example, watching the news you would think that every hospital nurse thinks she is an Angel of Death just waiting to give a patient a fatal injection.
Anyway, one thing I like about this board is that despite the differences of opinion, the conversations generally remain polite and civil.
Or, in my experience, a brown glass bottle of Dominion Root Beer in a cupholder. I speak only the truth.
Rick, while I think you might speak the truth de jure I think that de facto any minor offense that leads to a traffic stop has the potential to lead to an search of a vehicle. And given the somewhat unforgiving nature of today’s traffic laws (in principle if not in practice) I think that most of us would give throughout each day at least a few opportunities for police to pull us over for a minor infraction that could lead to a search.
