Question: What if you are driving a car and a police officer pulls you over. He thinks that you have been smoking marijuana and requests to search my car. Does he have the right? Can I refuse him from searching my car? How far can a Police Officer use "probable cause" as an excuse to search/test/arrest me?
Answer: Yes, he or she can search your car. As a general rule, the police have quite expansive rights to search cars. In addition, if the officer 'thinks' you have been using drugs or alcohol, he or she will most likely have probable cause to search your car.
Probable cause exists when an officer, drawing on his or her experience as a police officer, believes that a search will find evidence of a crime. In this case, if the officer "thinks" you've been using drugs or alcohol, they have probable cause to believe that they will either find drugs or alcohol in the car or on your person.
If you refuse to allow the officer to search your car, he or she would most likely get a search warrant from a court and search it anyway.
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On 05/10/04
Nic from TX said:
Probable cause is such a ludicrous thing anyway. A cop can basically say that anything is probable cause, so the police have pretty much the ultimate authority concerning searches. Can we say 1984?
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On 04/22/04
James from AZ said:
I recently had a run in with the Mesa Police Dept. and the officer who was talking to me was trying to intimidate me and act all hard. I asked him what he was doing and he got all scared and started telling me to "back off" when I was 6 feet away. This police officer must have had a childhood where he was picked on and beat up, so I figured he joined the force in order to get a chance to pick on high schoolers like myself. Is this true that cops become that way because of early life experiences?
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On 03/03/04
Ofc in AZ from AZ said:
If ya smoke dope, and we smell it..We're getting in your car whether you like it or not. We also do not need probable cause to use a canine on your vehicle. If he alerts, we're coming in! Happy partying!
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On 02/26/04
Michelle from AZ said:
hi, I don't think a police or anyone should search your house without a warrant I think it is wrong! Later.......
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On 02/23/04
Diana from NY said:
What if two people are inside a parked car and the police pulls up on them and says "get out the car" and the person in the passenger seat runs out of the the car and the police arrest him because he had drugs which were found near the area where he was arrested not on him? In this cause can the evidence be surpressed if there was no probable cause to begin with?
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