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Originally Posted by Cory
Wait, so say I get stopped by the cops at a checkpoint for drunk drivers on a saturday night. They think they smell booze on my breath, and Im acting drunk, and the car smells like alcohol, so they ask me to get out and search the car.
Now they don't find any alcohol, but they find a few bricks of cocaine. They can't prosecute me for the cocaine? The hell they can't
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Depending on the situation, no, they cannot.
We were talking about this the other day in law class, and in last year's Mock Trial competition, this was the crux of the case.
They think they smell booze on your breath, and you're acting drunk, and the car smells like alcohol, they can do a plain view search of your car, and even arrest you for driving while intoxicated, but they can't search the rest of your car unless you give them your consent.
If they search it anyway, anything they find cannot be used against you in a court of law.
If they detain you and wake up a judge to get a warrant signed--unlikely--then they have to specify exactly what they are looking for. If their warrant said they were searching for illegal firearms, and they found cocaine, you could not be prosecuted for the cocaine because it was found in an illegal search. It was not specified in the warrant, and you did not give consent.
--Petey