Why would you give a consent to search?
I came across an article in the Houston Chronicle regarding a recent drug seizure. The drug seizure was a 400 pounds seizure of marijuana in San Antonio. My first question is if you had 400 lbs of marijuana in your vehicle, why would you voluntarily give the officer consent to search your vehicle? I guess this guy did not read or take my advice in a previous post and “Just Say No”! What I also find interesting is how the officer said that this was just a routine stop for an expired registration. In my opinion, this sounds like a “pretextual traffic stop”. Unfortunately, the courts allow officers to make pretextual stops, as long as they can reasonably articulate some minor traffic violation that was committed. If the officer, truly stopped a person for an expired registration, why would you ask a person for consent to search his/her vehicle for a “routine” traffic stop. It’s all a load of crap. It’s just a way for officers to pull people over for minor traffic violations in hopes of having people, ignorant of their rights, consent to a search in hopes of finding evidence and probable to arrest for drug offenses generally. Generally, if the officer had probable cause to search your vehicle, the officer would not need your consent. Remember, just because the officer asks does not mean you are obligated to to allow the search…that’s your constitutional right!!!
but if you refuse to consent, won’t they revoke your drivers license and throw you in jail?
i spoke with a cop about this, isn’t it the same as refusing a DUI test? he said the signature on your drivers license means that you consent, so if you refuse, then they can throw you in jail for driving without a license?
JCole, with all due respect, the article also mentioned the officers became suspicious of the drivers behavior. It did not state what that behavior was, and frankly, that is an issue for the courts, but your blog should mention such details if you’re going to once again vilify the police.
Do pretextual stops occur in the world? Probably, but assuming as much is why so many defense attorneys huff & puff but ultimately lose these challenges in court. Also, given the brevity of the article in the first place, I suspect that there was more to it that could come out in court regarding the totality of circumstances (like someone tipped them off).
So yes, consenting to search when you are carrying large amounts of illegal substances is dumb but not as dumb as carrying them in the first place. SCOTUS recently strengthened our rights in this regard but ultimately most of these mules are not known for keeping up with current events or for reading your blogs so don’t set the bar too high, okay? ;)
Pete,
First of all, I have a link to the article for people to read, so why should I need to mention everything in an article that a person can simply click on and read for themselves, just like you did. I agree with you that the article was brief and I imagine that there are other details not mentioned in article. However, the purpose of bringing up the article is to simply bring to the reader’s attention the issue of pretextual stops in general, not to discuss the details of the specific stop in the article.
Next, pointing out the fact, that law enforcement officials conduct pretextual traffic stops is not “vilifying” the police, it’s informing people of certain law enforcement practices that take place. Now, you might be ok with the police going around stopping individuals for minor traffic stops as a facade to circumvent an individual’s constitutional rights against unreasonable search & seizures. Most courts would agree with you, as I mentioned in my post. However, that certainly does not mean that I have to agree with that prevailing viewpoint. Maybe you just would prefer that individuals not exercise our constitutional rights and “trust” the government to do the right thing when it comes to protecting our rights. Simply informing people that they have the right to refuse to consent to such searches allows people to freely exercise the constitutional rights afforded us all. It’s not just the criminally accused that should care about protecting our constitutional rights, it’s all citizens that should care.
So with all due respect, you might not care about your exercising your constitutional rights, but I damn sure care about mine and I care about informing other people of theirs.