Felony: Possession of a controlled substance

[Alexander12]

Texas,

I recently got pulled over and I am now out on bond for possession of a controlled substance (Cocaine, under 1 gram). I'm currently taking a break from school because my roommates died in a tragic car accident, and the cop knows that I am trying to get transferred from Texas Tech Univ. to the University of Houston. The cops pulled me over for expired registration in a neighboring area after playing some video games with a few friends. The cop first asked if I had been been drinking, I responded no ... I'm familiar with this scumbag excuse of a police officer because he's pulled me over several times and found nothing. Anyways he proceeded to ask for my license and registration, while making smart remarks like "****ing loser, dopehead, idiot". My wallet was located in the center console of my truck,i pulled out my license and gave him my registration. After this transaction he accused me of "being wasted on alcohol" ... I calmly replied no, I haven't been drinking and that he could breathalize me to make sure of that. After blinding my eyes with his flashlight, he pulled me out of my truck and slapped the cuffs on me. He proceeded to search my truck, ripping apart my console and throwing all of my possessions on the ground. He finally looked inside my center console and searched through my wallet. I keep my wallet very messy, which is a stupid mistake on my part; but I have never done cocaine in my life. The cop found a small baggie with cocaine residue in my wallet, then I thought to myself "what the ****". While attending Tech a year and a half ago living in the dorms, a few of my neighbors were snorting this cocaine. After finding out that cops were in our dorm building they knocked on my door and asked me to stash the cocaine ... so I put it in a compartment in my wallet where I keep business cards and random pieces of papers with phone numbers. I meant to get rid of it that day, but I forgot. 2 years later the cop finds the small bag of residue in my wallet and now I have a felony charge on me. Of course i'm guilty for possession of this substance for my dumb-ass mistake. I just got robbed at a corner store no too long ago for all of my cash. I have no money, no legal advice and I have 2 days until court. What should I do?

 

[cyjeff]

Plead not guilty.

Ask for an attorney.

Ask your attorney to explore the right of the officer to search the car.

 

[Alexander12]

reply

He didn't have probable cause to search my vehicle? I thought my expired registration was just enough reason.

 

[cyjeff]

He didn't have probable cause to search my vehicle? I thought my expired registration was just enough reason.

Did he ask you if he could search your vehicle?

Did you say yes?

 

[Alexander12]

re

no he never asked if he could search my vehicle.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

You can be placed under arrest for an expired registration and the vehicle can then be searched incident to arrest or as part of the inventory process. In a motion to suppress, (a hearing to determine the legality of the search and/or arrest) the court only looks to whether the officer had probable cause to make the arrest before doing the search, regardless of whether the officer actually did place you under arrest for that reason. So on the surface, the search is valid but an officer also cannot make a pretext stop even when they do otherwise have probable cause. Your description makes it sound like the officer knew you and recognized your car and basically made the decision to pull you over automatically and then try to come up with justification afterwards. Its possible that this bad faith can make anything he does unlawful, but this is the hardest kind of argument to win.

If you can't afford an attorney just apply for a court appointed one and see what he/she can do for you.

 

[Alexander12]

Re:

The officer definitely had it out for me. So on what basis can my atty. argue that a pretexted stop is unlawful? Oh yeah, and on top of everything even during the booking process I was NEVER read my Miranda rights by anyone.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

Yes your attorney can try to argue it was a pretext stop. Raising the possibility of a contested hearing on a motion to suppress might just be enough for the prosecutor to offer a reduced charge.

Miranda is only required to be read when they are going to interrogate you after you've been arrested. The vast majority of people arrested are never read their rights by the officer and there is nothing improper about that, it just means they don't have any questions that they want to ask you.

 

[cyjeff]

Yes your attorney can try to argue it was a pretext stop. Raising the possibility of a contested hearing on a motion to suppress might just be enough for the prosecutor to offer a reduced charge.

Miranda is only required to be read when they are going to interrogate you after you've been arrested. The vast majority of people arrested are never read their rights by the officer and there is nothing improper about that, it just means they don't have any questions that they want to ask you.

Caveman,

Correct me if I am wrong, but since the officer had no reason to search the car, wouldn't have been the prudent course have been for the officer to call in a K9 unit?

Then, if the dog tagged the car, a search would have been valid under probable cause?

While I realize that there is an "automobile exception", I don't see where the officer had a reason to believe he/she was in danger or that the contraband was in "plain view".

From here...FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment: Annotations pg. 3 of 6

Vehicular Searches .--In the early days of the automobile the Court created an exception for searches of vehicles, holding in Carroll v. United States 55 that vehicles may be searched without warrants if the officer undertaking the search has probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband. The Court explained that the mobility of vehicles would allow them to be quickly moved from the jurisdiction if time were taken to obtain a warrant. 56

Initially the Court limited Carroll's reach, holding impermissible the warrantless seizure of a parked automobile merely because it is movable, and indicating that vehicles may be stopped only while moving or reasonably contemporaneously with movement. 57 Also, the Court ruled that the search must be reasonably contemporaneous with the stop, so that it was not permissible to remove the vehicle to the stationhouse for a warrantless search at the convenience of the police. 58

The Court next developed a reduced privacy rationale to supplement the mobility rationale, explaining that ''the configuration, use, and regulation of automobiles often may dilute the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists with respect to differently situated property.'' 59 '''One has a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle because its function is transportation and it seldom serves as one's residence or as the repository of personal effects. . . . It travels public thoroughfares where both its occupants and its contents are in plain view.''' 60 While motor homes do serve as residences and as repositories for personal effects, and while their contents are often shielded from public view, the Court extended the automobile exception to them as well, holding that there is a diminished expectation of privacy in a mobile home parked in a parking lot and licensed for vehicular travel, hence ''readily mobile.'' 61

The reduced expectancy concept has broadened police powers to conduct automobile searches without warrants, but they still must have probable cause to search a vehicle 62 and they may not make random stops of vehicles on the roads, but instead must base stops of individual vehicles on probable cause or some ''articulable and reasonable suspicion'' Supp.5 of traffic or safety violation orsome other criminal activity. Supp.6 By contrast, fixed-checkpoint stops in the absence of any individualized suspicion have been upheld. 64 Once police have validly stopped a vehicle, they may also, based on articulable facts warranting a reasonable belief that weapons may be present, conduct a Terry-type protective search of those portions of the passenger compartment in which a weapon could be placed or hidden. 65 And, in the absence of such reasonable suspicion as to weapons, police may seize contraband and suspicious items ''in plain view'' inside the passenger compartment. 66

Once police have probable cause to believe there is contraband in a vehicle, they may remove it from the scene to the stationhouse in order to conduct a search, without thereby being required to obtain a warrant. ''[T]he justification to conduct such a warrantless search does not vanish once the car has been immobilized; nor does it depend upon a reviewing court's assessment of the likelihood in each particular case that the car would have been driven away, or that its contents would have been tampered with, during the period required for the police to obtain a warrant.'' 67 The Justices were evenly divided, however, on the propriety of warrantless seizure of an arrestee's automobile from a public parking lot several hours after his arrest, its transportation to a police impoundment lot, and the taking of tire casts and exterior paint scrapings. 68 Because of the lessened expectation of privacy, inventory searches of impounded automobiles are justifiable in order to protect public safety and the owner's property, and any evidence of criminal activity discovered in the course of the inventories is admissible in court. 69

It is not lawful for the police in undertaking a warrantless search of an automobile to extend the search to the passengers therein. 70 But because passengers in an automobile have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior area of the car, a warrantless search of the glove compartment and the spaces under the seats, which turned up evidence implicating the passengers, invaded no Fourth Amendment interest of the passengers. 71 Luggage and other closed containers found in automobiles may also be subjected to warrantless searches based on probable cause, the same rule now applying whether the police have probable cause to search only the containers 72 or whether they have probable cause to search the automobile for something capable of being held in the container. 73

So, unless the officer believed that a weapon could be hidden within the OP's wallet or that said wallet's contents were in plain view, I see some room on the search.

Especially given the parameters surrounding the relationship between the officer and the OP.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

Caveman,

Correct me if I am wrong, but since the officer had no reason to search the car, wouldn't have been the prudent course have been for the officer to call in a K9 unit?

Then, if the dog tagged the car, a search would have been valid under probable cause?

You can arrest for expired registration. If he placed him under arrest for that he doesn't need probable cause to search the vehicle, he can search the entire thing pursuant to the vehicle inventory. Courts look to whether there was probable cause for arrest, any arrest, even if the officer didn't subjectively intend to place the person under arrest at that time. If an arrest can be justified, an inventory of the vehicle can be justified....unless the original stop was pretext to begin with as the case may be here.

If he had stopped him for a non-arrestable offense, like speeding for example, then he would have had to develop probable cause to search since an inventory is not an option. That's not the case here though.