How to Survive a Traffic Stop Drug Bust

The most effective advice to prevent being engaged in a traffic stop drug bust is to avoid being pulled over in the first place with drugs on you. If you do end up in a traffic stop drug bust, stay relaxed, and keep in mind these essential concepts:

Never ever try to run or escape

When you see the blue and red lights come on, you should pull over as soon as possible, staying inside your car at all times. You should certainly pull over in a way that will make an angry or disrupted traffic enforcer relaxed, using your turn signal to be a sign of any lane changes from left to right, and slowing down quite quickly. Pull over as far to the right as possible to ensure that, when the enforcer comes near your window, she or he won’t have to worry about being hit by motor vehicles in the right lane.

You should never present the officer a good cause to charge you with evading arrest. Several times an arresting officer may generally pull you over for a traffic violation, and after you are given a ticket, permit you to go without further interrogating. You may wish to return to that place afterward making certain the police officer was saying the truth with regards to how he or she assessed your speed, observed your turn, or observed another offense.

Right after you stop

For you to receive favor with the police officer, you must show him or her a few other token courtesies. To lessen any preemptive fears, an officer may keep, begin by completely switching off the engine, rolling down your window all the way, setting your hands on the steering wheel and, if it’s dark, switching on your interior lamp.

Wait for the officer to give instructions. Never start searching through your back pocket for your wallet and license, or searching through your glove compartment for your registration. You must also refrain from keeping your hands in your pockets or reaching under the seat. This is most likely the quickest way to get searched because, for all the police officer knows, you could be reaching for a handgun or trying to hide something. The policeman may use safety as a need to search you if she or he believes you are having drugs or taken part in other prohibited activities.

This is the leading cause that authorities list as their reason for carrying out a search without seeing or detecting drugs. The authorities will mention that you made a “furtive movement and they were worried you might have a weapon.” Except if there is a video recording, it is your word against the officer and 9.5 times out of 10, a prosecutor, judge, or jury will side with the police officer over the accused.

Be polite to the officer

If you communicate in the right manner to an officer and show courtesy, then you have a much better possibility of him or her not suspecting that you are engaged in illegal activities. Don’t speak first, especially starting the conversation in a defensive or unwelcoming manner. The officer will probably ask to see your license and vehicle registration. Don’t insist that the officer quickly tell you why you were stopped. Just simply reply “okay” or “sure,” then hand over the documents. Be diplomatic and well-mannered; however, this does not mean disclosing all the contents of your car or person when asked. Chances are that if you never tell him there is a pound of marijuana in the trunk, he will never have an excuse to look for it.

While in police training, traffic cops learn to decide, before leaving their vehicle, whether they’re going to give a ticket or just a warning. Some may act as though they still haven’t made up their minds and are going to let you off only if you’ll work together, like consenting to a search. The police officer may be trying to appear open-minded in order to extract admissions out of you, to use them against you in court if necessary. Don’t fall for this.

Refuse consent to search you or your car

If the police ask to search you, your car, or other property, it indicates that they do not have a legal right to search. You must never think that if you say yes, the officer will just assume you have nothing to hide and leave you alone. If you say yes to a search, then you are offering the officer “consent” and that is all he needs for a legal search. Most of the time, giving your consent to search will result in the officer promptly and completely searching your car, finding the hidden drugs, afterward carting you off to jail.

Even though the police threaten to get a drug dog or a warrant, always tell them “no” to a search. If you do so, there is a good possibility that by the time the drug dog gets there or for a judge to sign a warrant, you will have been confined for an unreasonable amount of time– longer than the law permits, breaching your rights. In this case, the drugs found will be quickly thrown out by a judge at trial as evidence, resulting in you succeeding your case.

Do not admit to ANYTHING

You have heard it before in plenty of police dramas: your right to remain silent. Use this advice. The corollary of Miranda warnings is that the prosecution can not use a suspect’s silence as evidence of guilt in a court of law– otherwise the warnings would be useless. The arresting police officer may act like your buddy, but she or he is never going to like you so much that they throw away the drugs and let you go.

In most cases, police will try to appear “understanding” of your situation, or try to get you to acknowledge guilt by making out like that it’s “no big deal.” However, this is a huge deal! All the arresting officer is aiming to do is get you to admit guilt and establish a case against you by allowing him find the drugs.

Even though drugs are found, admitting they are yours does not support your case. Even though drugs are discovered in your car the burden is still on the police to forge an “affirmatively link” to you.

Employ a great attorney

If your traffic stop results in the drugs being found and your eventual arrest, at this point, there is definitely nothing that you can do or say that will help make the cop change his mind. The only thing left to do, and conceivably the most important thing is to find a competent lawyer. You must do this promptly when you bond out of jail. Start-off by putting up some appointments with lawyers who will estimate you a reasonable fee, and also one that is proficient in backing up drug cases.

This is extremely significant and could change your entire life. If you have been involved in a traffic stop drug bust, and your future is at stake, we hope you will give yourself the best fighting chance and call the best drug lawyer there is.

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