Marijuana Crimes

Under the Fourth Amendment to the constitution, all American citizens are protected against “unreasonable search and seizure.” While the definition of “unreasonable” is rooted primarily in case law, police can be held to some consistent standards in court.

In order for a search to be legal, the police must have probable cause to search you or your vehicle, and they must use that probable cause to obtain a search warrant. Based on the Fourth Amendment, probable cause is anything that leads the officer to believe the following:

• That it is reasonable to believe that a crime was committed by an individual.

• That a crime was committed in the location where a search has been requested.

• The location to be searched contains detectable evidence that a crime has been committed there.

In other words, things like red eyes, a roach clip on the ground, marijuana odor or even a digital scale can constitute probable cause. If a police officer is suspicious, but lacks any obvious probable cause, they can still call in a K9 unit to sniff the car and obtain a search warrant.

However, according to the Supreme Court ruling in Rodriguez v. United States, the police cannot extend a traffic stop beyond the time required for citation without probable cause. This means that even with a positive read from a drug dog, if your traffic stop was delayed for an unreasonable amount of time with no probable cause beyond the cop’s suspicion, their search may be thrown out!