Q: If the police have a felony warrant to serve you, do they need probable cause to pull you over and arrest you.
The sheriff’s department follows me for 5 miles then 3 Sheriff’s Tahoes pull me over and says you have a felony warrant. I told him I don’t know what he is talking about and could I see a copy of it. He doesn’t have a copy and I said but, that is why 3 of you are pulling me over? He said you didn’t turn your blinker on until less than 100 feet before you got to the stop sign. I said tthat is not true I put my blinker on 250 yards before the stop sign and I want to see the video. He didn’t answer, cuffed me and took me to jail. He did not give me a ticket.
A:
No, police do not need probable cause to pull you over and arrest you if a felony warrant exists for your arrest. Probably the reason they followed you for 5 miles (how long did they follow you, about 5-7 minutes? )before pulling you over is they were in the process of trying to confirm the warrant's existence.
Police aren't required to physically carry around all of the warrants they might conceivably serve. There are literally tens of thousands of unserved warrants in the U.S. at any given time. The probable cause in your case presumably is contained in the affidavit sworn to before a judge or magistrate. You'll get an opportunity later on to challenge whether probable cause existed at the time the judge signed the felony warrant.
So even if police are pretty sure you have a felony warrant out for your arrest, they must first confirm that the warrant still exists before they can pull you over and make the arrest. For all they know, you are on your way home from the jail after being arrested yesterday and making bond already in the case. If they can't confirm the warrant, usually they don't make the arrest at that time.
Kiele Linroth Pace agrees with this answer
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