Challenging a traffic stop may be complicated. Because of Interstate 70 (I-70), the state of Kansas has pursued an extreme volume of drug cases involving the transportation of drugs by motor vehicles, and although you may really feel helpless, there are actually several and effective ways to challenge traffic stops. This is primarily true in the latest circumstance of I-70, as Kansas State Patrol, and other law enforcement agencies, anxiously stop countless vehicles, making innumerable problems and constitutional transgressions along the road.
Challenging a Traffic Stop: Justifiable Suspicion
Challenging a traffic stop primarily initiates by attacking the core of the proof that you owned marijuana, cocaine or any other unauthorized narcotic. But, if drugs were discovered in your automobile, there are still many ways to fight the charge, usually on the grounds of whether the stop and search were constitutionally permitted by the Fourth Amendment.
An officer must first have a credible suspicion that you were or were about to break the law, which means that one could challenge the officer’s conclusion that a traffic violation was certainly committed. Many times officers stop a vehicle on fictitious reasons: GPS device on a windshield, unsafe following distance, illegal lane usage, speeding 1 or 2 miles per hour over the speed limit, etc. Upon stopping the automobile, the officer actually has no right to order you from the car, and if you were commanded to do so, you may be able to have the evidence of drug possession excluded because of this unconstitutional act. The officer should have merely issued you a ticket, and allowed you to leave. At times, officers will direct the driver to get out of the vehicle and wait while a “warning” is being released; the right time to begin questioning that person about drugs and other illegal activity.
Challenging a Traffic Stop: Probable Reason
This procedure is used to search for one evidence of criminal activity, often calling in the drug-sniffing canine, to push you into a consent or to have plausible cause to search the vehicle. You should never ever say yes to the search of your automobile, even though it does not have contraband. Make the police develop sufficient validation of potential reason. If you say yes to a search then your attorney can not contend the probable cause defense later in court when you are going up against drug transportation charges.
Challenging a traffic stop will be a lot easier to fight for if there was no possible reason for a search. Then there is a true chance that the evidence obtained could be excluded.
If you have been profiled and targeted by the Kansas authorities, and they have found drugs in your vehicle, consult a criminal defense lawyer as early as possible.
