Arrest, Search, Seizure, Warrant Search siezure & probable cause SERIOUS

[styles]

Officer comes to the car im driving after me pulling in a parking lot at a hotel.
Blocks me in.
Asks what IM doin,Im waitin for someone.
You have a drivers liscense?
I give my liscense but kinda try to hide the huge amount of money in my wallat ,I think he may have got suspiscious about the angle I held it at."i would of"
But....
He goes on saying my liscense is fake.Step out of the car.
I ask why.
He says shut up
I go to take my keys,he yells and says dont touch them.
When i get out he handcuffs me.
I ask why.
He says ur makin me nervous,is there anything in the car?
I said like what?
Anything illegal?
NO!
He starts tearing thru the car.I said why are you doing that?What is the problem?
Shut up,stand here.
He pulls my keys out and unlocks the glovebox to find a boxcutter among other basic tools.And asks whats this for?
I said general purposes...?ther tools
after 20 minutes,he gets his k9.
Backup comes and wont let me whatch whats going on.
20 min later the dogs finds something somewhere,hes fighting with the handler and wont release the drugs but eventually does.

This leads to a more serious search of the car for hours in which they claim to find a much larger quanity of illegal substance somewhere.

I was never read any miranda at any point.
I was handled by 3 different teams of dt and a uniform k9

They kept the car which was not my car.

The cop kept saying someone called on me saying theres a suspiscious car in the lot,but I was not there 3 minutes.

unfortunatly the county Im in wont give discovery until indicted.

People did witness this.
The police car had a cam."i think,I hope" Cause.......He kept putting stuff on HIS HOOD CLOSE TO HIS WINDSHIELD. U think he got a cam?

I believe this is a prime example of illegal,but I dont know what lies,if any,theyre going to tell.

 

[mightymoose]

It doesn't sound like Miranda was an issue, at least in the parts that you relate here. If you were later questioned after drugs were found in the vehicle then Miranda certainly would apply.
The most glaring issue here is the reason for the search. Perhaps the officer had a legitimate reason to search the vehicle that you are not aware of. If your license was in fact fake then that may have been enough justification to get into the car.
The best thing you could have done here was to get those keys and lock the car when you got out... regardless of what he said.
The officer probably had information that there were drugs in the car, but still needs a legitimate reason to search it. You will have to wait and see how things develop, but certainly lawyer up and raise the question of a violation of 4th Amendment rights.

 

[styles]

I did lawyer up.

My liscense is in fact legitimate.

I think the facts are,he thought I was hiding something illegal from him in my wallat. Its the first thing he darted to.
When I went to take my keys,he thought I was trying to take off.
Im driving a car not registered to me. He had a feeling...But thats it

Even if some one did call about someone else looking suspiscious in the parking lot,that doesnt give him reasonable cause to come question me and do what he did in response to the way I acted,Or the what he "thought"

There was no reason for him to think"beyond"me acting weird w/my wallat,that anything else may have been in my car.

I did everything I could.I tried to pull my keys,,believe me!

Im a white middle age man,driving a luxary car. Not looking like the average"profiling victim" .
I was told narc squad flop every male who pull into hotel lots alone.

He never ran my liscense.



ps. If I had taken my keys,he would have instantly brought the k9 and did a walk around,which would have gave him REAL probable cause to search.
If k9 hits its as good as a search warrant,the fact he did it backwards actually helped....No?

 

[mightymoose]

If you took the keys and secured the car when you got out then they still would have had to obtain a search warrant if the K9 hit on the car. Also, not all K9's, in fact only a few of them, are certified as drug sniffers. Sometimes they will use any available K9 to bluff.

Anyway, you have legitimate concerns. You will have to find out how the officer's report was written and then challenge the discrepancies.

 

[styles]

I didnt mention 2u the vehicle wasnt registered to me.

My lawyer believes we have a 20% of winning the suppresion on grounds that it was a bad search.

Its hard having to wait for the reports.

It seems that a GREAT majority of cases are no probable cause and that JUSTICE isnt adhered to until it gets to the highest of courts.Thats my greatest fear!
Thanks for the advice Moose

 

[mightymoose]

It doesn't really matter that the vehicle wasn't registered to you. You were the driver in possession and responsible for the vehicle.

From the post above, everything seems good up until he starts searching the car. It is possible that you consented to the search without realizing it... police can be tricky this way... but there are some bad apples out there too.

Using your keys to unlock the glovebox is a significant issue, especially if you maintain that you did not consent to the search.

If he had you detained for 20 minutes and had not yet found a violation, you may be able to argue that a false arrest was made. He can't detain you for the sole purpose of allowing him time to dig and find something to bust you for.

As I said, the police will have to justify the reason for detaining you and bringing the dog, and will also have to show that the dog is certified to search for drugs. Unless you were in a big city, the chances of the dog being a drug dog are slim.

Again, Miranda is not an issue unless they questioned you about the what they found after you had been handcuffed and held in custody.

I think any competent lawyer will be able to pick this apart and raise significant issues that will make this go away... but that really depends on how accurate your account of events is.