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As an owner/driver of a vehicle, you become responsible for anything inside the car as far as the police are concerned.

Not entirely true. Let's say I search your car (you have care, custody, and control of it) and you have a passenger sitting in the right front seat. While searching your car I find illegal drugs underneath the right front seat. Unless you own up and state that they are your drugs, I could charge the passenger with them depending on the totality of the circumstances.

Dudes, please repeat after me, "the Fourth Amendment is my friend!" A little free legal advice is in order here...if a cop ever has to ask you for your consent to search, he's already pre-determined that no exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement will allow for a lawful warrantless search. Common exceptions include the plain-view doctrine, the open-fields doctrine, "hot pursuit" situations, search incident to arrest doctrine, etc.

It's like I always tell my students, a cop's job is simple...i.e., "go find trouble and arrest bad guys." The old "consent search" trick is a sly tactic used by cops to induce a waiver of your Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable searches" and quickly acquire evidence. In my experience (I'm an attorney who currently teaches civil liberties and constitutional law by the way), the most common warrant exception occurs when folks foolishly give consent for the search! Even if you are squeaky-clean, NEVER give your consent, just say no and respectfully reiterate your constitutional right NOT to consent to governmental searches. Believe it or not, in a lot of circumstances, just saying no to the search will end the situation right there. I know that seems counter-intuitive but it's true. Only really suspicious circumstances will motivate the cop to "camp-out" and actually spend the time seeking a warrant in order to proceed with a justifiable search of your car. Logically speaking, how likely is it that he'll want to wait with you for an hour or so on the freeway while a judge is brought up to speed on the circumstances? That's right, sports fans, judges issue warrants not cops. What's more likely to happen (after you refuse the search) is that he'll finish writing you the speeding ticket, or whatever caused the stop, and then send you on your merry way!

"You don't mind if I take a real quick look in your car for contraband, do ya' son? You look like a nice guy, you don't have anything to hide... or do ya'?!"

Don't go for the okey doke dudes and don't get PUNKED, know your Constitution! Get familiar with that Bill of Rights...it's a good thing.

nitrogen wrote:A right unexercised is a right lost.

No consent given.

Nitrogen, you get the "gold star" today my friend! Well said.

Nothing good can come from such a search, but some bad unexpected things could happen.

A few weeks ago I was pulled over on a *bicycle* for running a stop sign. After being really hassled by the 3 officers who were all standing around me, I consented to a search just so they would back off and let me go - I had the same "I have nothing to hide attitude". I will never, ever do that again. It was probably one of the most humiliating incidents of my life - you absolute look/feel like you are going to jail. Moral of the story - whether it's your person or your car, do NOT give consent to search - you will regret it.

This subject comes up here every once in awhile but I don't recall anyone on this forum who ever had the occasion to refuse consent during a traffic stop.

If there is someone who refused I am interested how the LEO reacted.

Liberty wrote:Nothing good can come from such a search, but some bad unexpected things could happen.

+1

I will NEVER voluntarily give up my rights.

OK, so in a thread in another forum (http://jobrelatedstuff.com/forums/topic ... 8&t=283047)

A guy is asked if he has weapons, says YES, consents to search, has gun & ammo confiscated and is now looking at felony charges and large legal bills. Yet nothing he had was illegal, he is the victim of a LEO that is not familiar with law.

my reply was off topic. deleted.

Post deleted.

Mithras61 wrote:I might have nothing to hide, but if he has to ask then he has no probable cause to search either. I voted no.

If the officer has probable cause, he does not have to have your conscent to search your property?

What is the purpose of my right to give or denie conscent if he can search for what ever they can think of on the spot. Your vehicle matches the description of a possible suspect in the area in another crime. You no way to determine if that is true.

Should you ask him what he is looking for?

DELETED

I also would not consent to a search. who knows what vegetation they might find! could be mold from a nasty ol' hamburger, but they might bust ya for 'shrooms!

if a cop ever has to ask you for your consent to search, he's already pre-determined that no exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement will allow for a lawful warrantless search.

Not always true - quite often I will ask someone if it's OK to search their vehicle even though I've already made the decision to legally search it. I want to see what their reaction is and how they respond. Watching their response can sometimes save us lots of time.