No one said it did. Quite the opposite, really.
The point is that if you are stopped for a busted tailight and the officer asks permission to search your car, you should say “no.” Absent probable cause – and a busted taillight alone is not probable cause – the officer can’t search without your consent. That means he has to ask you, and you are within your rights to say no.
Have you ever tried telling a cop “NO” and been succesful? I am talking real world not hypothetical world. Sure you can say “NO” till you are blue in the face, if a cop wants to search your car he is going to. I cannot even imagine a situation where a cop “asks” for permission to search a car, and a person says"NO" and the officer just meekly says"OH, OK , Sorry for the intrusion, I will just be on my way, good bye"
Exactly - a small pecentage of police officers ARE corrupt, and might plant something. You can’t be sure whether the one you’re dealing with is one of those or not.
And are you absolutely, 100% SURE there’s nothing illegal in your car? Could you have had a passenger drop something illegal that you don’t know about? Or something legal that looks questionable (such as a large quantity of prescription medicines)? Could you be carrying something that’s legal in most places, but illegal in the spcecific city/county you’re in at the moment (such as a handgun, or some types of porn)? Could you be carrying a legal item in a proscribed manner (a 6-pack of beer in the passenger compartment rather than in the trunk)?
Those are the reasons not to consent to a search. You could talk yourself right into trouble because you ARE in fact doing something illegal and just didnt know it. That you weren’t intentionally violating the law won’t matter to the cop - or to the court.
The great if-you-have-nothing-to-hide approach is why I’m not invited to lecture high school civics and anti-drug programs any more.
There is no valid reason to give the state’s police power any broader range that it lawfully has. “Just say no” works on several levels. This is especially so when you run into police officers, prosecutors and judges who are inclined to take anything, including failure to object, as consent for the purpose of avoiding the constraints of the probable cause requirement for a valid search.
The current ploy in this neck of the woods is to claim the search was not government sponsored or instigated when motel chambermaids are encouraged to go through waste baskets and ash trays and call the police if anything suspicious is found. There is a flush toilet in almost every rented room. Use it.
Stuff put in the trash causes trouble, too. One valuable technique in uncovering evidence in drug manufacture cases, especially meth (the rural hick’s drug of choice) is to comb through the suspect’s garbage. The argument is that there is no “expectation of privacy” in stuff put in the trash. But see the recent ruling in the Walt Disney – Winnie the Poo civil, not criminal, case which I read that a NY judge threw out because the plaintiff’s investigator went through Uncle Walt’s trash. Go figure.
askeptic, do you honestly believe most cops are corrupt? Because only a corrupt cop won’t stop if you tell him “No”.
Your approach is like saying: “There’s no way to avoid being robbed; there’s no way to keep someone from taking something from you if they really want to. So I’m not going to bother locking my doors, and I’ll wear my Rolex and my Armani suit the next time I visit the bad side of town.” It’s true there’s no way to 100% protect yourself from being robbed - but you can decrease your risks by taking sensible precautions. The same thing is true when dealing with the police. If you run into a bad cop, you’re going to be in a world of hurt, true - but that’s no reason to just consent to a warrantless search. Most cops WILL back off if you say “No” and mean it; and if they don’t, your legal position will still be stronger if you’ve adamantly refused to grant them permission for the search (especially if there are witnesses). Say “Yes” on the other hand, and the battle’s over before it even begins, as you’ve just made their search legal (even if you didn’t really want to go along with it).
It works around here. The next statement out of your mouth should be “am I under arrest?” If you are not arrested you should leave. Be polite but be firm.
Yes. About 2 years ago. At a “sobriety checkpoint” an officer was suspicious that I may have been smoking something illegal. His suspicions were not good enough for arrest (I assume since I was not arrested). I was detained for about 15 minutes during which time he asked 2 or 3 times for permission to search my car as a way to “get me on my way”.
I eventually was allowed to be on my way. After about another hour my heart rate was back down to normal.
If you believe this approach is impossible, what do you imagine the effectiveness of the Fourth Amendment is?
Contrary to your belief, I’ve seen a number of cases in which people have told the requesting officer no in response to a request to search. I’ve never seen an officer simply disregard that statement unless he had independent probable cause grounds to search.
I grant you that there is a very strong feeling amongst people – even veterans of the criminal justice system, who should know better the second or third time around – that they somehow must consent, or the officer will search anyway. But as a moment’s thought will indicate, if that were true, the entire aspect of probable cause searches would be an unnecessary area of law: an officer could merely ask, and always get consent.
Always be firm and clear with cops. Don’t weasel around it or wonder out loud. Say it, don’t imply it. If you are told or asked to get out of your car, roll up the windows, grab your keys, and lock the door as you get out. Shut the door firmly behind you while exiting. Same thing with them coming to your house… don’t stand there yappin’ with the door open. Open the door, step outside, and immediately shut it behind you. Cops in general aren’t assholes, and I am pretty convinced they aren’t “mostly” or “probably” or “partly” corrupt. But their purpose is to find and arrest people breaking the law. It is not a matter of having “nothing to hide”, it is your private property and they do not belong there. Know and assert your rights plainly.
Some other good advice is to ask them what the problem is, don’t sit there sheepishly in your car waiting for them to start up a conversation. As soon as they’re in earshot ask them what the problem is, or if you can assist them. Don’t give them evidence to ticket you, arrest you, and don’t allow them to search. If they can search, they will without asking. There is no need to give them more rights than they already have!
They will be firm with you, and you should be firm with them. They will not be assholes with you, so don’t be an asshole to them. You are not on even grounds with the police, they have power and resources behind them that you don’t even approximate. Use everything you do have. There is absolutely no good reason not to.
Bricker: I may be unwarrented in my belief that you have more legal experience than I but I do think that the Fourth Amendment has lost it’s teeth. Considering that Rhenquest (that yellow stripped lying partisan bastard) said that Miranda is just a prophilactic judge made rule (whatever that means) and not a constitutional requirement, and considering my actual experience with the legal system (not as a defendant but as an empoloyee of the Public Defender as well as (at a later time) an employee of the the District Attorney(IAAL not a secretary BTW)) it appears to me that if a cop wants to search your car, he is going to do it. It does not matter how adamantly you scream"NO" in the real world if he wants to search your car, he will.
Rehnquist may well have made that comment in light of Dickerson v. US, and with good reason: that was at issue in the case. Prior to Dickerson, it was unclear (at least explictly) if Miranda was a prophylactic rule – indeed, you may as well direct your outrage the the US Congress in 1968, and President Johnson, who respectively passed into federal law and signed into federal law a provision “overturning” Miranda. The Justice Department, believing the law to be unsound and Miranda constitutionally based, refused to enforce it, so there it sat for thirty years, until the Fourth Circuit more or less sua sponte used it to make a confession admissible.
So the comment, at least pre-Dickerson, was quite reasonable.
If he made it last week, of course, he’s not accurately stating the law of the law.
As to your “real world” experience, all I can say is it seems odd that in your view, there are legions of cops will to search absent consent or probable cause, knowing that the fruits of their search will be inadmissible. Or are these legions of cops also willing to perjure themselves to get their searches admitted?
Anyone who claims cops never lie under oath to justify a search is selling a load of 100% pure BullCaca.
I am not a lawyer, nor a policeman, but I do watch Cops a lot. It’s amazing how many people consent to seraches even though they know full well they have contraband. I’ve never seen anyone refuse to be searched. I imagine the psychological pressure to consent to an authority figure in such a situation is quite strong.
My one experience worked out pretty well. I was carrying my briefcase from work and was walking into Grant Park in Chicago. A policeman told me to open my bag. I said that he didn’t have any reason to search me and I wouldn’t do it. He called over his sergeant and his sergeant explained that since I was going into a city park, she had the right to inspect my bag to see if I was carrying alcohol (which is not permitted in city parks). She told me my options were to turn around and leave without being checked or consent to search and go into the park. Since I was satisfied that I had defended my constitutional rights adequately, I opened my briefcase, they looked at it briefly, and we wished each other good day.
Who claimed that?
Who claimed that?
Sure. I do it routinely. I’ve never had an officer search my car anyway after I denied consent. Generally the officer just shrugs, tickets me and goes on his merry way.
Not that it matters. If he’s going to search it anyway, so what? Make him do it without your consent! If you give your consent you just waived bye-bye to your Fourth Amendment rights. Denying consent at least gives you the opportunity to challenge the legality of the warrantless search later on in court.
"I’ve never seen an officer simply disregard that statement "
Dude, you’ve said “BullCaca” to almost every post in this thread and in about half of your posts to the board in general. Are you receiving some sort of royalty?
I asked who had claimed such a thing. You replied:
This was apparently quoting me:
Please concentrate closely. I said: “I have never seen an officer simply disregard that statement…”
That’s a very different claim than “…cops never lie under oath to justify a search…”
Undoubtedly, cops have lied under oath to justify searches. I have never seen it happen. And I have a fair amount of experience in the criminal justice system. So the inference you may draw from that is that the event is rare, not that it never happens.
I hope this clears up your confusion.
The statement you quoted DOES NOT equate to “cops never lie under oath”. It is a personal observation by Bricker intended to illustrate the fact that many (if not all) police officers DO comply with Fourth Amendment requirements, so it makes sense for someone to refuse permission to the police when they ask to perform a search and don’t have a warrant.
So far you have contributed nothing of value to this thread. Perhaps you’d care to contribute something beyond “Bullcaca” followed by a one-liner?