Arrest, Search, Seizure, Warrant seems illegal?

[josh14]

I have a feeling that this search is illegal, please give me feedback on why it is or isnt legal..............So I arrive in the parking lot of a restaurant to meet my friends and get directions to a party, I get out of my car walk over to my friends cars. I then talked with one of my buddies sitting in the bed of a truck, and then lean in the window of my other friends grand prix to get directions. As I'm leaning in the window a cop rolls by. He asks what we were doing and we both told him that we were waiting for some friends of ours, he then gets out searchs us and finds $20 bucks worth of pot on me, as well as $800 in cash. He finds nothing on my friends, no money at all, nor any pot. However, they are charging me with intent to distibute class D. How can that be legal to search me because he saw "the suspect lean into a car and make upper body movements?"

 

[NYClex]

ever seen a cop show starring drug dealers? What do they do?:

They carry the stuff and bundles of cash, lean casually into the window of a car and do their dealing.


That's what happened here. This is called "suspicious conduct" and it gives the officer probable cause to suspect criminal activity and therefore a right to search. Especially if this is an area of high occurrence of drug dealing.

Of course your attorney will try to fight that and you might be lucky, but don't hold your breath.

 

[josh14]

Yes, that gives the cop probable cause. However, that is not enough to perform a full search. HE is allowed to conduct a frisk of my outer clothing but only for weapons. In the supreme court case of dickerson vs. minnesota, a man was found to have crack on him during a stop and frisk. However, the evidence was supressed based on the fact that the cops only had the authority to look for weapons. I would think the cops need more than suspiicious activity to search you. Otherwise, and biggot cop could search every black kid he saw just because he thinks black kids are suspicious. I don't know, still seems like bullshit to me.