Mike Groaning
Member
[/b][/quote]Here is what you wrote:
"I would think that not allowing a search after you've been seen talking to a drug dealer is probable cause."
THAT is the statement you made which is out of step with the law. Being seen talking to someone with a history of dope use or even sales is NOT generally going to be sufficient to permit a search absent consent or some other lawful authority.
Could I have made the sentence any less definitive? Would it have helped if I clearly stated that my interpretation of the law is that this situation would provide probable cause? The last I checked, the law doesn't really take a stance on how it's interpreted. If that were the case, the legal system would be much easier for the vast majority of people, and lawyers probably would be a mostly unhappy bunch.
On the other hand, you are saying definitively that what has been stated to me, and what happened to the OP generally doesn't happen. You say it happens differently, but here we have a case where it didn't. Whether or not that makes sense to me has little to do with law.
Clearly, things are less definitive than you are making them sound or else what happened to me, and to a larger degree the OP --- those things wouldn't be happening. It would be great if what you are saying about the law were totally true, but what would be even greater is if police would subscribe to the same interpretation of the law that you are.
Have there been any cases we can look up, where evidence was thrown out for similar situations? If that is the case, I am questioning the realism depicted in the TV show COPS where this seems to happen quite a bit - most namely people being detained and searched for being in high drug activity areas.
I know what The Constitution says, but not how that has been interpreted and whittled down (some say corroded) over the years.
Unless the officer has something more than simply seeing the two together, yeah - it IS pretty open and shut, and a bad search. However, I suspect the officer is going to be able to articulate more than the fact the two were seen chatting.
If one of my officers based a non-consensual search on the simple verbal exchange between the two, I'd ream his tail for exposing himself and the department to civil liability and send him back for retraining on search and seizure issues.
- Carl
I think you are right here, and maybe that's the bottom line I'm looking at - the search takes a back seat to there being more to the situation than the OP is aware of.
Let me ask you this. How much are these situations... I dunno... regional or based on demographics? Do you think departments in areas with high crime and low income aren't as worried about a defendant pursuing a civil rights case, or maybe aren't attuned to the law themselves?