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You finish rolling a J and you stick it behind your ear. You go to the beach and you walk along the boardwalk. A cop then sees your J and knows exactly what it is. /end_scenario
Very few people still roll their own cigarettes and cops are obviously aware, but people still roll their cigs. Will you get in trouble for this or do they have no solid evidence to give you a ticket/detain you? Can you claim it is tobacco and then put it in your pocket and refuse consent to a search?
As an ex-cop are you for the legalization of marijuana? When you were still active if you saw someone who was obviously high or if you smelled the smoke did you let those people go as long as they were not doing anything that could potentially harm someone or themselves?
DBJ ever had any funny or strange experiences with people tripping on acid or mushrooms or other hallucinogens?
Not that I recall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shelldonahue
Sorry if this has been asked, but I doubt it.
Scenario:
You finish rolling a J and you stick it behind your ear. You go to the beach and you walk along the boardwalk. A cop then sees your J and knows exactly what it is. /end_scenario
Very few people still roll their own cigarettes and cops are obviously aware, but people still roll their cigs. Will you get in trouble for this or do they have no solid evidence to give you a ticket/detain you? Can you claim it is tobacco and then put it in your pocket and refuse consent to a search?
You likely will get in trouble for this. That falls under a reasonableness standard. Even if it's tobacco, I'm still not going to get in trouble, as long as the detention is brief and painless. Ex:
COP: Sir, Give me the joint.
GUY: No!
COP: Give it to me!
GUY: It's tobacco. -hands it to cop-
COP: -Smells it, hands it back- My apologies Sir.
The cops not getting in trouble for that because the detention was based on articulatable reasonable suspicion that a crime was occurring, and your search was based on the threat of imminent destruction of evidence. In that situation, if the search is done and it's weed, of course it's a citation or arrest depending on location. If its tobacco, the cops really not gonna get into trouble as his actions were entirely reasonable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shelldonahue
As an ex-cop are you for the legalization of marijuana? When you were still active if you saw someone who was obviously high or if you smelled the smoke did you let those people go as long as they were not doing anything that could potentially harm someone or themselves?
If they were driving, it was a DUI. Other than that, we'll just say I have sinus issues occasionally and sometimes my sense of smell isn't so great.
Several years ago, a buddy of mine got pulled over for speeding while taking his then gf to some event or function. They were running late because she, as usual, had taken too long to get ready and also blamed him for the traffic stop that was gonna make her even more late. At any rate, she was ragging incessantly on my buddy when the officer asked for his DL and registration and her bitching continued until the officer came back to the car. The officer must have felt some sympathy for him because he let my pal off with a warning, and then muttered something to the effect that, "You've been punished enough already."
So OP, this got me to thinking. Would my chances of getting only a warning be improved if I told the wife to start berating me when the officer approached the car?
Meaningless aside: My buddy finally dumped that gf when he realized that god had messed up her periods. She was in a good mood only five days a month.
Hey, first of all, thanks for all your responses in my current thread in OOT. Been reading this thread & find it very enjoyable & wish the times I've been arrested were with a police officer such as yourself, instead of the over-zealous, douchey blowhards that arrested me.
So want your opinions on my 2nd arrest for possession of marijuana. Kind of a long story, but feel like there was police misconduct involved. I was in Iowa when it occurred, where possesion of marijuana is not decriminalized. I was initially looking at 5 days. My attorney said I'd probably lose at trial, but luckily she got a plea bargain for 2 days, minus time served. I was guilty of possessing it, I'll admit that.
I was chilling one evening, smoking in my living room, before I had to work that night. After an hour or two after smoking, I hear a stern knock at my door. A very authoritative sounding knock. I wasn' t expecting anyone to drop by. I look in the peephole, and see a grip of cops. I had my weed and pipe out, so I stash it in my room. The knocking continues. I'm freaking out at this point. Did someone smell the weed & call the cops? I ruled that out, as I was a several times a day smoker, had lived there for several years & never had any problems. Didn't have new neighbors either.
So I'm still freaking though. I lived in a 2 br by myself & just hid in the room I didn't use for a couple minutes. I hear a cop say " we know you're in there, we heard you." So I answer the door and am greeted by 5 police officers. The one doing the knocking informs me that someone in the building had reported hearing gunshots. Now I lived in a fairly decent area. Parts of my city were infested with gang members from the Chicago area, but I lived in a lower-middle class area with a decent amount of college students.
So he asks me if I had been home all day & if I had heard anything. I tell them I had been home all day & heard nothing out of the ordinary. I have my door open about half way & am standing in between the door and the lead officer, with my arm on the door frame. He asks me if I live alone & I inform him I do. The fact that there was 5 police officers at my door & being afraid they might smell the lingering pot smoke got me to start acting fidgety. He asks why I appeared to be nervous. I tell him it's because I work overnights & had been up since the previous night.
Then, without warning, he starts approaching at me. My natural instinct was to back up. Now all of a sudden, I have 5 police officers in my apartment. The lead officer never asked if he could enter my apartment. He asks me if they could do a quick visual inspection, to make sure no one else was in there. I agree, thinking that since there was a major crime reported & that I was acting nervous that they had probable cause, or at yhe very least, would get a warrant to search. A few minutes later, one of them asks me, "what is this?" while holding up a glass one hitter that I had forgotten was on top of my stereo.
So at this point, they ask me if I have anything else. I had a couple grams of weed, half an 1/8th of mushrooms and paraphernalia, inside a stocking hat in my closet. I lead them to this. I also had a ton of empty baggies in there as well. I turn over the hat, and a cop opens it up. The look on his face is like he just hit the lottery. I tell him those are empty bags on the top. They find the weed and pipes, but when they were going through the hat, I noticed they didn't find the mushrooms. The shrooms were rolled up in a baggie, but maybe they blended in with the shake encrusted bag.
Anyways, sorry for the long story. Couple questions:
Would you have arrested me in this situation or given me a warning & continued your search for the source of the gunshots? Why or why not?
My attorney said bc I never explicitly told them that they couldn't enter, that I would have a tough time getting the evidence thrown out. Do you agree with my attorney on this?
Did I have the right in this instance to refuse them to look around my apartment? Or would they have had probable cause to do so?
Funny thing is, when my attorney did discovery, she found out that the reported gunshot had actually been the buildings furnace backfiring.
Sounds familiar to your traffic stop. Why did you answer the door!? Youre not home, it doesnt matter what he heard. Theyll leave if they dont have a warrant or probable cause, neither of which was present. More of the same when youre inviting them into your home and through your possessions.
another good video here; all these videos by FlexYourRights are very good and tailor made for you, as most of your difficulties have seemed to arise as a result of you not flexing your rights.
Would you have arrested me in this situation or given me a warning & continued your search for the source of the gunshots? Why or why not?
No, I wouldn't. But that's just me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by abracadabrab
attorney said bc I never explicitly told them that they couldn't enter, that I would have a tough time getting the evidence thrown out. Do you agree with my attorney on this?
Yes, but it goes deeper than that. Relevant Supreme Court Ruling: US V Cephus. I'd strongly recommend reading the whole 11 page PDF, very interesting.
Cliffs:
Police driving down the road gets flagged down by an individual who tells him they just left an apartment, where Cephus is smoking weed with a 14 yo girl.
Police go to the residence, knocks on door.
Cephus opens the door, police smells weed, sees 14 year old. Asks for permission to come in.
Cephus attempts to slam the door in the cops face.
Cop kicks door in.
Below is the SCOTUS answer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by US v Cephas
the officer here confirmed
(1) that a man named Cephas indeed had an apartment at the address
reported by the informant; (2) that a young girl indeed was inside the
apartment; and (3) that marijuana, an illegal drug, indeed, was being
smoked in the apartment. See J.L., 529 U.S. at 272 (requiring that tip
not only reliably identify the person the tipster seeks to accuse, but
that the tip "be reliable in its assertion of illegality"). Here, the officer’s
corroboration of the tip’s particulars confirms that Sergeant Shapiro
had probable cause when Cephas attempted to shut his door.
Having concluded that officer Shapiro had probable cause to
believe contraband was inside the apartment, and that a felony might
well be taking place, we next address the question of whether his
decision to make a warrantless entry into the apartment—rather than
to wait and obtain a search warrant—was justified by exigent circumstances.
Our inquiry here is guided by United States v. Taylor, 650
F.2d 526 (4th Cir. 1981), which sets out several factors for analyzing
the question of exigent circumstances, including:
the degree of urgency involved and the amount of time necessary
to obtain a warrant; (2) the officer’s reasonable belief
that the contraband is about to be removed or destroyed; (3)
the possibility of danger to police guarding the site; (4)
information indicating the possessors of the contraband are
aware that the police are on their trail; (5) the ready destructibility
of the contraband.
Did I have the right in this instance to refuse them to look around my apartment? Or would they have had probable cause to do so?
You can always tell them no, but yes, in this case per Supreme Court precendent, they had probable cause. I'd recommend reading the whole opinion in US v Cephas. The version I posted is only 11 pages long and an interesting read.
Once you opened the door they likely had probable cause. Possibly even before you opened the door, depending on the strength of the odor.
This is also from US v Cephus, which is the part that would directly make it relevant to your scenario:
Quote:
Originally Posted by US v Cephus
Absent express orders from the person in possession against any possible trespass, there is no rule of private or public
conduct which makes it illegal per se, or a condemned violation
of the person’s right of privacy, for any one openly and
peaceably . . . to walk up the steps and knock on the front
door of any man’s "castle" with the honest intent of asking
questions of the occupant thereof—whether the questioner
be a pollster, a salesman, or an officer of the law.
The bolded is exactly what they were doing, correct?
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