Volitions Advocate on 15/6/2011 at 20:11
Reading the OP i was about say exactly what GBM just said. He says "I'll HAVE to search your car." you can say, no thank you I don't want you to. Legally they can't search your vehicle without permission. Not saying I'm all for smuggling drugs around. But you never know what stupid thing they might find to screw with you even if you're not doing anything illegal. Or what they might deem worthy of confiscation.
Renzatic on 16/6/2011 at 05:34
I've always been under the impression that the police can search your car without your permission, as long as they can provide a reason that appears legitimate in court. A cop saying he detected the singular odor of weed emanating from the area pertaining to the interior of your vehicle is usually one of those legitimate reasons, and hard to argue against if you ever decide to issue a formal complaint.
Muzman on 16/6/2011 at 10:07
Where's our small army of lawyers when you need them (although they're all marriage,tax,water, pie and international pie specialists or something. Like being stuck with a planeload of neuroligsts when the pilot has a heart attack)
demagogue on 16/6/2011 at 12:34
This is like bar exam stuff that unless you're a crim lawyer or want to remember it to give friends "lawyerly" advice, you learn it for the test and then forget it. Anyway, in the US the 4th Amendment doesn't allow "unreasonable" search & seizure. Minus consent, the officer has to have a reason or grounds to search or take any evidence. Then the whole thing turns in whether that reason is reasonable, e.g., if you wanted to suppress any evidence coming out of it in any action (a 4th Am motion to suppress because the search was unreasonable).
So in cases like this it often turns on whether there's a reasonable expectation of privacy. It's tricky for a car because a lot of things in a car you can see or sense (sight, sound, odor) just standing next to it publicly in the street, even if it's pulled over for completely independent reasons, and that's technically fair game as a reason to search. I gather the idea is you can smell odors from the street; though of course it's probably more prone to abuse than something obviously lying on a seat the officer & everyone else can just see looking at it. Does he really smell something? Can he persuade anyone that he did months later? The burden is on the officer to prove it. There are lots of ways to attack it. But the guy's probably been trained to be alert to certain smells, too, and if there'd really been pot in the car before (it wasn't an imaginary odor) it's a tougher sell to suppress. But of course without the paraphernalia he found there isn't a case. So the officer is rolling the dice; that's why consent is important even if there are ways to search without it.
PeeperStorm on 16/6/2011 at 19:04
Quote Posted by Muzman
Like being stuck with a planeload of neuroligsts when the pilot has a heart attack)
The nerve of some people!
Martin Karne on 18/6/2011 at 05:11
You haven't been on transcontinental flights awake all the time and then you start to see a little dwarf guy standing behind the rear end of the seat forward and next to you... oh geez it was so real...
:nono:
