Possession charge from GA..I need advice SOON.

[Tool52]

My friends and I were driving to a Tool concert in GA from Fl taking I-75 up. About 30 mins from the damn concert a sheriff pulls me over when I asked him why I was pulled over he said it was for illegal tint and since he could clearly smell weed he searched the car, found the marijuana, and arrested ALL of us for possession.

My question is, since he said I was stopped for "Illegal tint" , wouldn't he have to prove either before or during the time I was pulled over that the tint on my car was in fact illegal. And I was doing like 15 over but he never said one word about speeding to me just the tint, and on my citations there are no laser speed device readings.

I know my police run-ins pretty well, and I know that every cop down here in Fl carries a tint tester and I have had mine tested before ; however this GA cop didn't test my tint. And since he never tested my tint {hence he can't prove its illegal} and he never clocked me going over the speed limit; my question is:

Wouldn't that make this an illegal stop?

 

[FlyingRon]

Actually, it's a valid stop, even if it had been Florida. He could stop you because your windows looked tinted. If while "measuring" your windows he smelled the weed you'd be in the same situation.

It's not the case that you have to be guilty of the reason for making the stop, just that the officer had reasonable cause to stop you for it.

By the way, the window tint law in Georgia are more stringent than Florida. The stanard is 32% rather than 15/28 for transmission and 20 versus 25% for reflection.