Q: Can a person who is a passenger be charged with eluding, wreckless driving with -deadly wepon ( car )?
My son got a ride from someone and was flying at high speed on freeway police gave chase. The guy driving took off and left them in the dirt. They pulled over in a field of a new motel the driver ran and my son was caught going back in the car to get his wallet. The car was a stolen vehicle. My son was not driving but they are charging him like he was the driver. Can they do that and make it stick?this is in Tennessee
A:
First, Tennessee law and Georgia have different laws, but it will generally be the same in both cases for a situation like this.
First, keep in mind that the amount of proof police need to arrest someone is much lower than is needed to actually convict someone in court. To arrest someone, the police only need "probable cause," which is a relatively low standard. Whether or not they have enough to convict your son remains to be seen.
I know you say that your son "got a ride" from someone, but respectfully-you were not actually there and so you don't know for sure what happened. You are relying on what your son told you; I don't know your son or your relationship with him, but if he did left out some details out about what happened because he was embarrassed or ashamed and didn't want to let his mother down--he wouldn't be the first son to do that. The police may have some evidence that your son was more involved than he admitted to you. Unless you have more information than you've offered- you can't really even be 100% sure he wasn't actually the driver, or that he didn't do something during the chase that would have lead the police to believe that he was more than just an innocent passenger. Regardless, those facts will come once the case gets to court and his lawyer can get a hold of the evidence and go over it.
Without the chance to actually look over the evidence, there's really no way any attorney could answer the question of
"can they make the charges stick?" Get him a good lawyer, and they should be able to give you an educated opinion on that question soon enough.
Good luck!
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