A great advice to avoid being associated with a traffic stop drug bust is to avoid being pulled over at all with drugs on you. If you do end up in a traffic stop drug bust, stay relaxed, and think about these basic guidelines:
Do not try to run or escape
When you see the blue and red lights come on, you need to pull over as soon as possible, staying inside your vehicle at all times. You should do this in such a way that will be most likely to calm down a traffic enforcer looking to make a bust, making use of your turn signal to indicate any lane changes from left to right, and slowing down as necessary. Pull over as far to the right as possible to ensure that, when the enforcer comes up to your window, she or he will not need to worry about being hit by vehicles in the right lane.
You must never give an officer a good reason to charge you with evading arrest. Several times an arresting officer may typically pull you over for a traffic misbehavior, and right after you are given a ticket, allows you to go without added questioning. You may choose to go back to that place afterwards to make certain the police officer was saying the truth regarding how she or he examined your speed, observed your turn, or witnessed any other offense.
What to do after you stop
To get favor with the officer, you must show him or her a few other token courtesies. To reduce any preemptive fears an officer may keep, start by fully shutting off the engine, rolling down your window all the way, setting your hands on the steering wheel, and, if it is dark, switching on your interior light.
Wait for officer to provide you his directions. Do not go through your back pocket for your wallet and license, or search 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 fastest way to get searched because, for all the police officer knows, you might be reaching for a weapon The police officer may use safety as a need to search you if he or she believes you are carrying drugs or involved in other illegal activities.
This is the leading cause that authorities say as their reason for conducting a search without finding or detecting drugs. The police will mention that you made a “furtive movement and he was 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 consider 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 participating in illegal activities. Don’t talk first, especially starting off the conversation in a defensive or unfriendly manner. The officer will probably ask to see your license and vehicle registration. Don’t insist for the officer to quickly let you know 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.
As part of their 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 comply, like consenting to a search. The skeptical officer may be trying to appear open-minded in order to get admissions out of you, to use them against you in court if necessary. Don’t fall for this.
Decline consent to search you or your car
If police ask to search you, your motor vehicle, or other property, it means that they do not have a legal right to search. You should never believe that if you say yes, the officer will just assume you don’t have anything to hide and let you be. If you say yes to a search, then you are offering the officer “consent” and that is all he needs from you for a legal search. Typically, granting your consent to search will lead to the officer quickly and thoroughly searching your car, discovering the hidden drugs and then sending you off to jail.
Even when 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 fairly good shot that by the time the drug dog arrives or for a judge to sign a warrant, you will have been detained for an excessive amount of time– longer than the law permits, breaching your rights. With this case, the drugs found will be immediately thrown out by a judge at trial as evidence, making you win your case.
Do not admit to ANYTHING
You have heard it before in plenty of police drama shows: 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 senseless. The arresting police officer may act like your friend, but he or she 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 sympathize with your predicament, or try to get you to acknowledge guilt by making out like that it’s “no big deal.” On the contrary, this is a big deal! All the arresting officer is aiming to do is get you to confess guilt and create a case against you by letting him find the drugs.
Even when drugs are found, declaring they are yours does not support your case. Even when drugs are found in your car the burden is still on the police to forge an “affirmatively link” to you.
Get a competent lawyer
If your traffic stop results in the drugs being found and your eventual arrest, at this point, there is 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 to do, is to find a proficient lawyer. You must do this right away, as soon as you bond out of jail. Begin by seeing lawyers who will estimate you a reasonable fee, and also one that is competent in defending drug cases.
This is remarkably significant and could change your entire life. If you have been part of 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 attorney there is.
