Q: I am wondering about 4th Amendment rights.
I was stopped for not having on my selt belt. The officer asked for my license which I gave him. He then went to his car and ran my license. It came back expired by one month. He asked if I knew about it I said no and he handed me back my license. He then when to another officer and was speaking to him for about a minute and the officer brought out a k9. The other officer was in his car while this happened after the dog was done he came over and said the dog alerted. He had a third officer a female who had shown up frisk me and found nothing. About 5 minutes into the search he told me to call my ride as I could not drive the car. About 2 minutes after that he found drugs in the car. Is it all legal?
A:
Sounds like a standard fishing expedition and you need to get a lawyer to file a motion to suppress.
The cops are allowed to intercept folks if they have probable cause that a crime is occurring (seat belt) and then commonly use that as an entry point for additional investigation. It is a pretextural action and deserves to be fought. Get a LOCAL lawyer
1 user found this answer helpful
A:
While the 4th Amendment does not protect the sent that come from your vehicle, there are several other avenues to challenge the arrest. Was the stop valid? How long were you held at the scene while they waited on the K9 unit to arrive? Did the K9 actually provide an alert?
These are all questions that you should speak with an Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney about. Before your case proceeds any further, I would strongly recommend you find an attorney.
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