What If You Believe You Were Illegally Searched By The Police?
This country has founding principles, and one of those principles is the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. The Fourth Amendment holds in part, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
What this essentially means is that the police cannot arbitrarily search you, your house, your car, or your belongings, without a warrant, or without probable cause scenario which gives them an exception to not have a warrant and search.
THE SCENARIO:
Three young men, all under the age of 21 are in a parking lot drinking beer by two cars; one car red, the other white. A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s patrol vehicle drives into the parking lot and observes this. The Sheriff’s deputy exits his vehicle and orders the men to approach his patrol car while simultaneously shining his light on the men.
The men are told to put their hands on the hood of the patrol vehicle and the deputy empties their pockets. Citing officer safety, the deputy then places all three in his patrol vehicle. The deputy grabs a set of car keys that came from the pocket of one of the men, let’s call him John Doe. The deputy clicked the key remote and saw the lights of the white car flash. The deputy asks “who’s car is that?”, to which John Doe replies “its mine”. Keep in mind, at this time the deputy had access to all three men’s ID’s, and knew their names and dates of birth.
At this time the deputy informed John Doe that he going to retrieve the registration from John Doe’s vehicle. Upon opening the door of the vehicle, the deputy looked in the side door pocket, and found 7 tablets of Ecstasy. John Doe was arrested, and posted $30,000 bail. He was informed his court date would be in a few months.
THE COURT CASE:
John Doe wisely hired an attorney. Upon the first court date John Doe was informed he was being charged with a violation of CA’s Health & Safety Code Section 11377(a), possession of a controlled substance to wit, “Ecstasy”. John Doe’s defense attorney enters a “Not Guilty” plea and informs the DA and the Judge that he intends to file a motion to suppress the evidence found based on an unconstitutional search of John Doe’s car.
To give the reader some background, a warrant less search is per se unconstitutional. In this case, there was no warrant in existence to search John Doe’s car. Therefore, the deputy would need an exception to that rule to search the car. There are many, some of which would be that John Doe consented to the search; that John Doe was under arrest and at the time of the arrest he was near the car; that the car was being impounded and needed to be searched for inventory; or finally that there was some contraband visible through the car’s window. None of these exceptions applied here. If no exceptions apply, and there is no warrant, then any evidence seized must be thrown out.
In this case, John Doe’s defense attorney successfully argued these points during the suppression motion. The Judge granted the motion to suppress the Ecstasy seized, and the Los Angeles County DA’s office had no choice but to dismiss the complaint against John Doe.
THE LESSON:
Be cognizant of your constitutional rights, and always protect yourself by hiring a competent defense attorney who understands these issues.