Well, I shocked to find Texas law enforcement officers planting evidence and demanding a confession. Had you caved, they would have worked on you until you closed all the open homicides in the county.
Double the drunk limit? Are you even sure the stuff you say happened in the jail happened? Plus, from what I’ve seen, even in small rural towns, cops generally search the vehicle at the same time they’re arresting the drunk driver.
By your own report you were swerving on the road. That there is probable cause for a stop. It’s got nothing to do with the car you drive and everything to do with the fact that you were way over the limit and swerving on the road. I can’t comment on any bogus pot charges.
However, if you want to talk about BS stops-I was pulled over last week for not getting over a lane when I passed a police car on the side of the road. Did I mention that there were a lot of trucks on the highway (I-95) and I was in the right-hand lane so I could go more slowly? Or that by the time I moved over a lane I would have passed the police officer? Or that I dutifully slowed down when I saw him which is probably why he stopped me and not any of the other cars zooming past him? Or that he then chose to lecture me about how many police officers are killed when they are stopped at the side of the road. (Not to say he didn’t have a point, but the law says to change lanes if it is safe and reasonable and it seemed safer to me to stay on the right, slow down, and keep my eyes on the road rather than try to dodge the trucks and move over).
Question: had the browbeating been successful in eliciting a confession, would the vehicle have been subject to asset forfeiture under Texas or federal drug laws?
I just wanted to say I had the EXACT SAME THING happen to me, right down to the lecture about police officers killed and the fact that I got busted because I slowed down (and the fact that the highway was crowded enough that I couldn’t have gotten over easily in the first place). I wonder if it was the same highway patrolman. I tried to fight it but only succeeded in getting the fine halved.
Question: had the browbeating been successful in eliciting a confession, would the vehicle have been subject to asset forfeiture under Texas or federal drug laws?
Oh, we may have a winner here…podunk town, nicer car.
For anyone surprised by what happened, you really should watch The Thin Blue Line.
Why is everyone so sure the pot wasn’t his? The guy drove drunk. For all he knows, he bought it wherever he was and doesn’t remember.
So how are you going to prove it? You said yourself that it wasn’t on your arrest report. Are you going to stand in front of a judge and accuse a fine, upstanding and sober officer of the court of lying while you were drunk? Good luck with that. It still wouldn’t make you any less drunk at the time.
I think that is more probable that you got pulled over because the cops noticed that you were drunk out of your mind.
If you can’t stop yourself from getting drunk before you get behind the wheel of your flashy car, you need to be stopped from driving before you kill yourself or someone else.
Not this time,
Shodan
How much did you have to drink, and how much to you weigh? Honestly. I think you can estimate your BAC from that, without the need to blame the breathalyzer (unreliable or not). My guess is, yes, you were well over the limit.
Take your experience as a wake up call, and don’t do it again.
The possession charge might have been dropped because there was something procedurally wrong with the search or how the evidence was handled after the arrest.
Maybe I’ve seen too many COPS episodes where the person arrested for dope possession swears up and down that that it wasn’t his, someone else who drove the car must have left it there, strangers threw it in the open window etc. etc.
Don’t smoke pot, don’t know anyone who does, but you know what a $10 bag looks like?
That shit happens all the time. A good ex-cop buddy of mine told me plenty of certain tactics traffic cops have to try to garner confessions, even when there’s no evidence.*
There’s a good chance that anyone who’s driving drunk might also do weed. So, what that cop was trying to do was get you to slip, in case you were high. You’re lucky you didn’t, because then all hell would’ve broke loose.
*I was in a very minor fender-bender late at night a while ago. It was my fault, I was texting near a red light, but I hadn’t been drinking. I was completely sober. It was just being stupid.
Anyway, when the cop started asking questions, I had to recite the alphabet backwards, touch my nose, etc. Then he says he smells pot in my car. I was non-plussed, then realized what he was trying to do. I kept my responses very short and succinct, saying, “I don’t smoke pot.” “I don’t know what he could be smelling?” Then otherwise just acting completely confused by his comments, like he was on pot. It’s a nasty game they play my ex-cop-friend assured me after the incident, so be wise.
Eventually he backed down and just wrote me up for the accident.
Forgot to say, what that cop was hoping for was a response of something like, “I didn’t smoke in my car!” or, “It was my friend who was smoking pot.” … something to that effect. Then the gloves would’ve come off.
This was awesome!
For the OP, the marijuana charge was clearly bullshit; they were probably just trying to find an excuse to seize your car. Welcome to the age of civil and criminal asset forfeiture. Texas is particularly bad from what I hear.
The cops and prison system are out of control these days though the majority of police are good people trying to do their jobs. The privatization of prisons and the laws that allow police to fund their activities through seizures are an abomination. They have created economic incentives for police to arrest, seize property and incarcerate people. If there is an economic incentive to do something, people will do it. It’s one of the things that really pisses me off about conservative ideology these days; the ones I know are all for the privatization of law enforcement (and the military, see Xe for an example) and they claim to support and understand capitalism, but they completely ignore or dismiss the perverse incentives that have been created. It’s fucking shameful.
Finally, as someone who has lost several people close to me because of drunk drivers, I hope they throw the book at you. Jerk.
I would be very surprised if an adult told me they had no idea what a dime bag of pot looked like, pot smoker or not.
I don’t.
Then you don’t watch nearly enough television and movies.
I know that such things as “nickel bags” and “dime bags” exist.
I have no experience as to what their relative sizes are, what the origin of the names is, or how much either one would cost.
I’m sorry I don’t watch the same shows you do.