What to Do During a Pennsylvania Traffic Stop, Full Breakdown

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This is the podcast you’re going to want to watch. If you’ve ever been stopped on a traffic stop and you’ve been sitting there going, how do I handle myself? What should I say? What shouldn’t I say, what should I be doing? And how should I react to the police? You want to have this knowledge before you’re there, wondering what you need to be doing or what you should be doing.

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So we’re going to unpack all of that today. In today’s Now We Defend podcast, it’s all about traffic stops, things that Pennsylvania drivers should know but maybe don’t know. Starting out with traffic stops, right? When you see those red and blue lights and you’re getting pulled over. So I think to start, first of all, it’s important to understand why you can even be pulled over.

00:01:04:15 – 00:01:46:27

Where do we even start with this? Why do those lights even come on behind you? So there’s really two, two ways in Pennsylvania that you can be stopped. The police either need to have reasonable suspicion or probable cause. And these are two very close things, but they are slightly different. So for reasonable suspicion, the police basically need specific and articulable facts, together with reasonable inferences that some sort of criminal activity is likely occurring, has occurred, or is about to occur more than a hunch, but they have some articulable facts that they can actually continue to investigate.

00:01:46:27 – 00:02:12:29

So really what this boils down to is a need to further investigate. But they have to be able to tell you why. So there’s different ways that can happen. And I’m going to unpack that in a little bit here. But the other one is probable cause. Probable cause is slightly higher than reasonable suspicion. This is where the police have facts and circumstances that are known to them, that warrant the officer to believe that a crime has occurred.

00:02:13:00 – 00:02:39:08

So this would be things like that are actually observable crimes speeding, running, a stop sign, failure to signal when turning, things like that. Equipment violations would probably fall into this category too. And that obviously, I think you all know a lot of times when people get pulled over for, you know, little equipment violations, a lot of times it leads to other things, like doing they want to get in the car.

00:02:39:09 – 00:03:01:06

We’re going to talk about consenting to searches and things like that later. Going back to reasonable suspicion. Basically this would be something that they need to further investigate. So this would be if they’re maybe suspecting you might be DUI. They see some swerving on the roadway, they see some tint on your window that they want to examine and maybe put the meter up to and get a reading on it.

00:03:01:08 – 00:03:19:07

Or they have a suspicion that you may be driving your vehicle under suspension. They’ve run the tag and it comes up with a suspended driver. So this would be where they pull you over and say, okay, we need to just investigate this a little further and that would be enough for them to do it. Bottom line, folks, it doesn’t take a lot, okay.

00:03:19:10 – 00:03:49:17

There’s a lot of different ways they can pull you over. They do need to be able to articulate some things, but it really, really doesn’t take a lot. I want to just give an example of a DUI case that we defended here at this firm that actually went up on appeal to the Supreme Court. This was a situation where an individual, I should say, first, the police had received a report that there was a vehicle accident involving a silver Chevy Tahoe.

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Okay. They didn’t they went to the scene where the accident happened. There was no no one was on the scene anymore. The vehicles had left. They knew they were dealing with a silver Chevy Tahoe. So they kind of were canvasing the area for any, like, vehicles. And the police ultimately did come up on a silver Chevy Tahoe.

00:04:12:05 – 00:04:34:19

Now, this was late at night, and the actual Tahoe itself was actually turned out to be a white Chevy Tahoe, not a silver Chevy Tahoe, but a light in color. And the police ended up stopping that vehicle. Now, it turns out this wasn’t the vehicle that was actually involved in the traffic accident, but they had already pulled the vehicle over.

00:04:34:21 – 00:04:55:17

They had reasonable suspicion that this vehicle may have been involved in the accident, and they wanted to investigate further. So they pulled the vehicle over. They went up to the window to check. And before they could really even look at the front of the vehicle to see if there was any damage, they interacted with the driver and they noticed the odor of alcohol, etc., etc..

00:04:55:18 – 00:05:33:05

Well, then they went and checked the front of the vehicle and they realized there was no damage. Now at this point you would be thinking, okay, maybe they’re assuaged that this vehicle was actually not the one involved in the vehicle accident, but they now have this odor of alcohol from the interaction that they’re having with the driver and the Supreme Court or the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which we appealed this to, because ultimately the individual was convicted and we appealed, that ultimately ruled in favor of the Commonwealth and said that they did have reasonable suspicion to pull that vehicle over in the first place, and then they were allowed to further investigate once they got that

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odor of alcohol, even though it technically wasn’t a vehicle in the accident. So that’s just an example of like reasonable suspicion and where that can lead to and what the police need to actually get you pulled over. So again, guys, it’s not a lot. I’m going to go through with Justin and Tim, who are here with me today.

00:05:50:13 – 00:06:08:07

Some common like illegal stops that we see, and then also some common legal stops that I think people think are illegal stops. So we’re going to jump into that. I’m going to kick it over to both you guys. How are you guys doing. We’re doing this actually like at like seven in the morning. So we’re all just like rolled out of bed.

00:06:08:08 – 00:06:28:29

Thanks a lot. Yeah, we were planning to do it yesterday, but some things came up at the office and we had to handle some meetings and we didn’t get to do it. So you’re getting us bright and early today. But in any event, why don’t we jump over to to you here, Justin, first walk me through a few, like, illegal stops, things that we see commonly that were like, wait a second and we start side I.

00:06:28:29 – 00:06:58:19

And now things we might want to challenge. Absolutely. So, some common illegal stops you have, you know, for DUIs, brief lane drifting, a momentary lapse or a momentary break from, you know, your lane if you touch the fog line or we’ll say the double yellow line or the the, you know, dotted white line, if it’s just a momentary lapse in that lane break, that is not going to be probable cause for a stop.

00:06:58:20 – 00:07:17:19

Yeah. And we see I mean, we do a ton of DUIs here. And I can tell you that when you see these vehicle stops, the police definitely need more than oh, he touched the yellow line. Because let’s be honest, guys, like when you’re when you’re driving normally and you’re stone sober, a lot of times you touch the line.

00:07:17:20 – 00:07:32:09

Yeah, that’s just like part of driving. Like when you go around turns like I noticed sometimes when I go around turns like you’ll you’ll nip the line a little bit or whatever. And the police can’t just whoop, whoop you and pull you over just because, just a momentary touch of the line or something. They need more than that.

00:07:32:11 – 00:07:49:21

I mean, they’re not going to be able to do it for that, but they can follow you if they’re seeing that and seeing you hit the line a number of times. And then, I mean, we definitely see a ton of cases where people do get pulled over for swerving. Yeah, but it’s more than just a momentary. Yeah, I think to like you just said, you know, in this morning it’s raining outside.

00:07:49:24 – 00:08:12:19

You know, the roads are a little bit wet. And I think about this all the time when I’m driving because I’ve had so many DUI cases where people get pulled over for swerving in and out of the lane, right, or even in their lane, even in just. Yeah, they’re not going back and forth. Yeah. But like I said, it’s rainy this morning and coming down to 83, you know, people are driving probably a little bit faster than they should be.

00:08:12:20 – 00:08:35:21

That’s actually that could be a reason to to stop you driving too fast for conditions. Yeah. That’s right. Driving too fast in the rain. Too fast conditions. Was the condition on the roadway. Yeah. So we say two before you go on. This is this is way more complicated even than just saying that they need more because like this this argument comes from a case that has, I think, largely been overruled.

00:08:35:24 – 00:09:00:26

So as defense attorneys, it’s really not probably the best tactic to be saying to be making the argument the traffic stop is no good because the violation was like a violation. That’s the language that was used in Gleason, because Gleason is is essentially gone. The Superior Court has, I think, muddied the water here because the statute that empowers traffic stops says that the requisite level of suspicion is reasonable suspicion.

00:09:00:26 – 00:09:22:14

But the superior courts have have said, well, there are some offenses that require probable cause. Yeah, because there is nothing left to investigate. So there is a divide in the cases about whether or not a certain motor vehicle code moving violation is enough in and of its own itself to give probable cause or whether it’s it triggers reasonable suspicion.

00:09:22:14 – 00:09:47:07

So you have to be careful because while we say that crossing the fog line or touching the fog line may not be enough, that’s it’s not that neat, though. In reality, with the law, it’s much more muddy than that because the Superior Court has made it kind of confusing, right? I, I agree with you there. And it is important to note that a lot of times when these cases come up, we actually have to go to court and challenge.

00:09:47:10 – 00:10:11:09

Yeah, because it is not black and white, right? Yeah, it is gray and we have to leave it up to a judge to decide. Was that in that situation enough. And I think something that’s that that is kind of successful potentially as a tactic that we use is if it was truly just like a momentary touching of the line, depending on how long after that the police have followed you and stopped you there, probable cause or suspicion may be stale at that point.

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So if it is truly one violation and they’re following you to see if they can stack violations on you, but they pull you over and you’re driving was really good after that initial thing, then our argument is their PC or their reasonable suspicion was stale. Right. And that actually kind of gets into another one that we were going to talk about, like following you for a long time to try to get something that is suspicious, you know, and, you know, we see that sometimes too, like you were just saying, Tim, you know, you got okay.

00:10:39:21 – 00:10:57:25

They see a do maybe one touch, two touches on a fog line or a little bit of weaving in your lane. And then they’re like, all right, I’m going to follow this guy until I have more because I want to pull this vehicle over. Yeah. And you can’t do that. I mean, and if you do, you’re going to get called to the table for it, because, I mean, that’s not how you’re supposed to be policing out there.

00:10:57:26 – 00:11:23:29

Now, does that happen on occasion? Yes. I wouldn’t say that happens with a ton of regularity, because a lot of times when they’re pulling people over, they really are having some issues on the roadway because they’re intoxicated. But the other big variable here, because we did have a law change recently, is that a momentary touching a fog line, very likely like this argument, very likely might have gone away altogether with the advent of advent of Paul Miller’s Law.

00:11:24:03 – 00:11:41:25

So if you have touched the fog line even momentarily, there is an argument that they now have reasonable suspicion to believe you’re on your phone. Yeah. So they could potentially pull you over to investigate if you’re using a phone. Yeah. And Tim, since you mentioned it, talk about Paul Miller’s Law a little bit because that that just went into effect.

00:11:41:25 – 00:12:00:08

And and guys, this is, this is actually something you all need to be aware of in Pennsylvania because I actually just had a case this week where somebody was pulled over for essentially being on their phone, and they don’t even have to show that you were specifically texting anymore, just have to show you were holding it, holding it, doing something on it.

00:12:00:09 – 00:12:24:26

You know, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you were doing. Right. It could have been as simple as there are captions like, if you if you’re on the phone with emergency services, that’s that’s the exception. But you’d be like calling 901. If you have your phone on a mountain, you’re using GPS. That is allowed as well. But like using your phone and hands free, you can make calls and stuff hands free, but having the phone in your hand is is reasonable suspicion.

00:12:24:26 – 00:12:52:19

And there was a case that went viral of a lady that had no hand or whatever I was just going to say and and to be honest with you, like that case, everybody latched on to that and talked about how ridiculous the officer was. But it I found some information to that. This woman deleted a bunch of videos on her social media accounts, where she was showing people how capable she was, where she could grab things and hold things with the the arm that didn’t have a hand.

00:12:52:21 – 00:13:13:18

So she was the beneficiary of kind of making an officer look foolish. But that doesn’t mean the officer did not see her with a phone in that in that arm. I think we all saw that video that was in. She played it up, I think. Yeah. Whether or not he saw anything is is a separate question. But again, the standard in Pennsylvania is reasonable suspicion.

00:13:13:21 – 00:13:34:28

Did he have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that what he saw was afraid. So I mean, in that scenario, I mean, I’m not sure how that case ended up. It was dismissed. Okay. I mean, but in that scenario, the police officer, the prosecution would at least have an argument there to say, hey, you know. Yes. After we saw that, we saw that she didn’t have a hand and maybe couldn’t have been holding the phone in that hand, however.

00:13:34:29 – 00:13:50:17

Right. Because he actually the cop actually said, I saw you holding it in your right hand. And that’s the other thing. That’s where the hand she was like, that’s what we tell our clients, right? We tell our clients like, don’t make statements, right. The guy talked himself into a corner. Did he? Yeah. He may or may not have seen it in the right hand.

00:13:50:18 – 00:14:08:26

Yeah, he probably saw it in the left hand. But then he just said like he went along with it. Like he was being cross-examined by the suspect, by the subject. But again, thinking about this guy’s like, technically there could have been an argument there for reasonable suspicion. And then when they stop, okay. It was it wasn’t correct. But that does that’s not the standard.

00:14:09:00 – 00:14:32:04

Right. The standard isn’t was were you 100% accurate. The standard was did you have reasonable suspicion. Right. It was like the accident example I gave. Right. Did you have reasonable suspicion that this vehicle might have been involved? And I think, you know, when it comes to traffic stops, just generally they’re like Tim said, you know, there’s a lot of case law out there about what requires reasonable suspicion and what requires probable cause.

00:14:32:06 – 00:14:55:18

When I was in the DA’s office, man, the amount of I say BS suppression that I had to deal with as the prosecutor that were filed by, you know, defense attorneys challenging probable cause or reasonable suspicion for the stop. Again, the case law is so vast that I think it’s pretty clear, even though it is a little bit muddy for certain things.

00:14:55:18 – 00:15:15:05

There’s a lot of case law out there that is very clear as to what is probable cause and what is reasonable suspicion. So, you know, when people come to us now as defense attorneys and we’re looking at those stops, having been in the DA’s office and having done all of those suppression, you know, we can pretty quickly identify, okay, does this person have an issue we can raise or not?

00:15:15:06 – 00:15:34:19

And most of the time it’s probably going to be a no. But if there is something out there, you know, the earlier we get involved and are able to look at that stop we get the video especially are so critical in these, if we can identify that issue early and deal with it, you know, file the suppression and fight it.

00:15:34:24 – 00:15:56:07

Yeah. And I’ll pretty much never file a Gleason challenge because like, like you said, having seen so many of them myself and having seen like I have, I actually have an outline that breaks down a lot of the cases that have been ruled on already and what the traffic offense is and what they say is the requisite level of suspicion, reasonable suspicion, probable cause and why.

00:15:56:09 – 00:16:15:24

Right. So I have a big list of motor vehicle code violations that the Superior Court goes either way on. And in doing all that research, like I said, my opinion is that the that Gleason is not good law anymore, but I can’t tell you how many times I saw defense attorneys file a motion and site to Gleason and remind people again, Gleason.

00:16:15:25 – 00:16:37:28

Gleason is is like the de minimis motor vehicle code violation. They essentially hold that that it had to be probable cause to initiate a traffic stop. And I believe it was after Gleason that the General Assembly changed the statute and made it abundantly clear that that reasonable suspicion is the is the is the the suspicion level, the requisite level of suspicion.

00:16:37:28 – 00:17:00:28

And then even since then, there has been a divergence in case law. But, you know, and guys, we’ve talked about the fact that like at this law firm, if we have an issue that is valid and real and challenging, we are absolutely going to file that, and we are absolutely going to litigate that to the nth degree. But we are not going to put forward motions that are like Justin said, BS.

00:17:01:00 – 00:17:21:26

Yeah. Because we just we’re not going to create a reputation here where we’re doing that because there are law firms and lawyers that do that. And what that ends up with is you’re not taken seriously and you have to have that level of respect from the other side that when you do file something, it’s a winnable argument and not against the woman with no hand not to speak ill of her.

00:17:21:26 – 00:17:43:10

But like I think all of us agree on how we would have handled that situation. We would not have advised our client to get, you know, find the officer while he’s on duty and confront him about this traffic stop. Yeah. What would have been information that we would have used to our advantage at the hearing, and we would have gotten probably the same result in a much more amicable way and a professional way.

00:17:43:12 – 00:18:04:04

We would not have turned it into a social media circus, I think to, you know, like like you said, tell if there’s an actual issue that we can raise that has merit because of how I think we all operate. And I really appreciated this when defense attorneys would do this when I was in the DA’s office, you know, we reach out to the prosecutor first before we file anything.

00:18:04:10 – 00:18:34:05

Oh, this is big. Yeah, yeah. So, like, we can potentially avoid actually having to litigate it if it’s a real meritorious or legitimate issue by just reaching out because, you know, like we talked about, we we try to have a good relationship with officers, the DA’s offices all through central PA. And I do think that in my experience, reaching out to people ahead of time before filing anything, hey, maybe we can work this out without me filing this motion or us having to litigate it.

00:18:34:06 – 00:18:54:29

You have a hearing, bring witnesses in, and I feel like a lot of the times that that ends up working out in our favor. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is this is practical advice. This is practical application of this. And Justin, you are absolutely right. Like we a lot of times will speak with the prosecutor before we even file that motion.

00:18:54:29 – 00:19:19:00

And if we agree that there’s an issue, a lot of times we don’t even need to file a motion. We can get a case dismissed. We can get issues resolved before even going into court. We’re not leaving it up to the hope and the whim of a judge. We’re agreeing as reasonable attorneys on an issue. Yeah. And like you said to, you know, there’s that level of respect and there are a lot of attorneys out there who will just file these motions to file these.

00:19:19:02 – 00:19:35:26

They don’t talk. They don’t talk to the other side. And then, you know, you you lose credibility as an attorney, not only with the DA’s office but with the judges. You know, I saw all the time as a prosecutor, there are certain, you know, defense attorneys that would do this all the time. And I’d have to, you know, go through that hearing, bring witnesses in.

00:19:35:26 – 00:19:51:09

But and, you know, that judge is walking into Corcoran. Here we go again. It’s the boy. Here we go. It’s the boy who cried wolf. Right? That’s what it is, right? I think, Tim, you recently had a case. I remember we were talking about it. Where you. I think it was you, Tim, that you you actually, you were talking to the Da.

00:19:51:12 – 00:20:16:20

You you drafted the motion, but you didn’t file it, but you sent it to the Da first and you said, here’s my issues. Here’s it. On paper, these are my legal arguments. And I’m pretty sure if I remember correctly, you actually got a favorable response. So I’ll tell you, I’ve done that three times in the last like two months where I’ve full on done research, drafted a full on motion, like put everything I had into this motion because I think it’s a legitimate issue.

00:20:16:20 – 00:20:39:07

And on one occasion, the Da read the motion before I filed it and and said, I agree with you, and I’m amending the charges the second time. I’m still kind of waiting to hear from the prosecutor because that prosecutor is looking into it. The third time the the prosecutor actually amended the plea offer and gave me a much more favorable plea offer for my client, which.

00:20:39:08 – 00:20:57:25

Oh, and I yeah, that’s that’s the case too. That’s the case I’m thinking of. And and when you say much more favorable, it was basically it went from felony to almost nothing. Yes. Based upon the research, they took restrictive probation off the table. They took a felony off the table based on the research. And so, like I’ve had three cases.

00:20:57:25 – 00:21:16:06

One of them the jury’s still out on. We don’t know what the prosecutor’s going to do with that information. But the other two we got we got favorable reviews. Again, I want to kind of stress here in those situations, guys, what Tim did there and this is frequent for all of us. Well, we’ll draft it. We’ll put it on paper.

00:21:16:06 – 00:21:40:14

But we don’t even file it yet. And we get the result we want with it without ever having to go to court. This is like when we were talking earlier. I think it’s in prior episodes about just the relationships that you have and just the way that we control the case. We’re not forcing it down the prosecutor’s throat, but we’re also giving them the knowledge to hang their hat on, to make the right decision that we want them to make for our client.

00:21:40:15 – 00:22:01:07

And people listening to that may think, well, you shouldn’t do that because you’re you’re showing your cards, but if you got to litigate it, you’re going to show it anyways. And that’s the point, is that you they are required to give to get notice. So they’re going to get notice. And depending on when the judge schedules the hearing on that motion, it could they could have 30, 45, 60 days to research the issue.

00:22:01:08 – 00:22:27:00

Yeah. So like I’m not surprising them. It’s totally TV. Ha ha. Surprise. Here’s my issue. That’s not real. Like the other side knows what is going on. And you know what is going on about what the other side is doing throughout the entire court case. There really is not any major surprise moments unless you have somebody on the stand and they’re testifying to something in a trial that randomly comes up, especially with seasoned prosecutors.

00:22:27:01 – 00:22:43:15

I mean, chances are they’ve seen the issue before. Yeah. So like a lot I mean, Justin, how many suppression did you do in the DA’s office just in the last year when you were there a lot? Yeah. I mean, like, there’s probably there’s probably very few issues you did not see at some form of in the last year.

00:22:43:15 – 00:23:03:29

And I mean, that was kind of on my experience to is that I saw a lot of stuff. I saw unique things. And those things, those things stand out to me. Yeah, yeah. The more you, you know, practice, the longer you practice, especially being in the DA’s office. I mean, there’s, you know, six, 700 cases active for each prosecutor at a time if, you know, around there.

00:23:04:02 – 00:23:23:27

So I would say at least on a weekly basis, there was at least one. And again, you know, once you start seeing some of these issues, a lot of them are repetitive and, you know, handling like, you know, you said there’s there’s some unique things that pop up, but when those unique things, unique things pop up, you’re going to remember them going forward.

00:23:23:28 – 00:23:48:02

Yeah. And I mean, guys, I know we all draw on our experiences, former prosecutors and what we liked when we were there and how we were willing to resolve cases and give plea offers. And I think we try to kind of emulate that as defense attorneys now, because we were in those shoes. We know what they wanted, and we were on that side receiving that and now were able to essentially put that together in a way that is most effective.

00:23:48:02 – 00:24:17:13

And there’s they’re receptive to because of that experience. So again, guys, we’re former prosecutors here. I mean, we that’s by design. That experience is invaluable to resolving cases favorably for our clients now as defense attorneys. All right. Let’s come back to traffic stops. Another thing I think that, you know, comes up a lot. Not a lot, but we see sometimes is where the police sometimes will pull someone over because they have, like, a hunch of something.

00:24:17:13 – 00:24:35:29

Or maybe they got, like, an anonymous tip, but they haven’t really seen anything on their own. The police cannot pull you over just to check things out, like they can’t do that. That is not reasonable suspicion. That is a hunch. If there is some sort of anonymous tip that comes in, the police are allowed to investigate that.

00:24:35:29 – 00:24:50:15

They’re allowed to kind of go out to the area, canvass it, check it out, and if they see something that kind of matches what might go along with that tip, they’re allowed to look at it. They’re allowed to watch it. They’re allowed to maybe follow you for a little bit, but they have to see something more observable to pull you over.

00:24:50:16 – 00:25:10:28

They can’t just pull you over on random tips on hunches that they might have things like that. So the other thing that this kind of bleeds into is if you’re in what we’ll call like a high crime area, the police cannot just stop you because you’re in a high crime area or you’re pulling out of a bar.

00:25:11:00 – 00:25:31:12

Those would be the types of things that would not be enough to pull you over. They would need to have more to get you pulled over to the side of the road. Now let’s use the example of pulling out of a bar. Because I have a lot of cases. I see them where people leave a bar and they’re pulled over in a reasonable period of time after leaving that bar, and they think, oh, that cop just saw me leaving the bar.

00:25:31:12 – 00:25:50:19

And that’s why they pulled me over. And believe me, that might be part of their thinking, but they’re going to follow you for a little bit. And if they’re seeing the poor driving. So combination here, circumstances, right. Leaving a bar, swerving on the roadway, maybe not using a turn signal, whatever from the bar into your car or dropping your keys when you’re trying to unlock your car.

00:25:50:20 – 00:26:06:26

I think a big one too, is people especially, you know, if they think they’re intoxicated, they’re like, oh, well, I got to drive the speed limit and they’re driving like 20 miles under the, under the speed limit. Yeah. It’s like like people get pulled over for speeding. But you can also get pulled over for driving too slow. Yeah.

00:26:06:27 – 00:26:26:21

It’s that crime. Yeah. It’s like it’s a hazard impediment, isn’t it? I think it’s called there’s a vehicle code traffic violation for driving too slow in that you’re a hazard. Like on the roadway. Yeah, yeah. Well, imagine, you know, especially I mean, here in your county especially, there’s a ton of back roads. So if you’re driving, you know, say the speed limits 40 miles an hour, you’re driving 20 miles an hour, somebody comes around a corner.

00:26:26:22 – 00:26:42:15

There’s a lot of they can blast you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To be honest, I mean, if you’re if you’re driving under the speed limit or you’re driving and hogging the left lane and won’t get over, I hope the police do pull you over. To be honest, those police are doing God’s work. The left lane violations are, you know, just aggravating.

00:26:42:16 – 00:27:01:13

Terrible. Yeah. Okay. All right, well, let’s talk about there’s there’s kind of two common that I see a lot common legal vehicle stops that people think are illegal. And what I mean by that is they come to the office and like, hey, I got pulled over because of this reason and there’s no way that’s allowed, right? Okay. Well, actually it is.

00:27:01:13 – 00:27:21:24

Yeah. So a common one is being pulled over for driving under suspension. Okay. And I want you guys, if you’re here in York, Pennsylvania or you’re here locally in different counties around this area. I want you to think about when you’re riding out on the roadway. How many times have you seen a police officer sitting on the median of a roadway, just sitting there?

00:27:21:24 – 00:27:44:07

And what he’s doing and what his vehicle is doing is he’s observing traffic and his vehicle a lot of times has an automatic plate reader on it that is pulling every plate that comes by his vehicle, you know, as he goes, as they go by, and every time one of those vehicles comes up with a suspended driver associated with it, he gets that pulled up right on his screen, and that’s enough to then go pull you over.

00:27:44:07 – 00:28:04:09

It used to actually be that they then had to go up, and they had to confirm that it looked like the driver and things like that, but that actually got changed in the case law. Now it’s literally enough for them to say that vehicle is associated or registered to a suspended driver. That is not an illegal stop. They can stop you for that.

00:28:04:12 – 00:28:30:07

The evidence is actually been inverted. So whereas they would have needed to look for something corroborating that it might have been you. Now all that’s required is the absence of evidence that it’s not the person who’s suspended. So like I always used to joke with officers, like if my tag was suspended and I’m the registered owner, what if it like, I’m wearing, I wear like a dress and a wig, you know, like like you can see now that like, that doesn’t look like the guy that’s suspended, so.

00:28:30:09 – 00:28:50:29

Well, now you can’t pull over the vehicle. But yeah, that’s something that’s kind of interesting because people will think like, well, you know, they can’t pull me over. They didn’t know it was me. Well, they don’t have to know. It’s they don’t it’s they don’t, they don’t. Okay. Another one I see frequently is that you can’t be stopped for tint.

00:28:51:01 – 00:29:09:02

You can and the officer can be wrong about the the tent, actually. And a lot of times they’ll use meters. And this is where we get into reasonable suspicion and probable cause. You know that a crime may be being committed there. They’re allowed to stop you for that and then further investigate and determine if it is illegal tint on the vehicle.

00:29:09:02 – 00:29:30:14

So for those of you that have tint on your front windows or God forbid, your windshield, which we occasionally see, you’re very likely going to be pulled over if that is the case. I mean, I see it a good amount here in York, Pennsylvania, and, you know, it does lead to other things a lot of times because, you know, DUI that come from is is.

00:29:30:17 – 00:29:47:12

Yeah. And just guns in the car, drugs in the car. That’s what I was going to say to going along with driving under suspension is the idea of warrants. So like if the registered owner has warrants out, they can also pull the vehicle over for to check and see if that person is in the car. They can do warrant checks.

00:29:47:12 – 00:30:07:04

And right. I’ve told people and this is maybe a little bit mean to say, but I think it’s true, is that driving under suspension has kind of become an IQ test, because it used to be like to your point that they had the police actually had to take the initiative and do some investigating. If they were behind you at a red light, they actually had to take the initiative to type your plate into their computer.

00:30:07:04 – 00:30:27:02

And and it would have to come back. Now, most of the newer cars, if not all of them, have automatic plate readers installed in them, and the officer doesn’t have to do anything. If you pass a police car, your license plate is is dinging thing in the system. In their vehicle there is an issue and now the officer does not have to do anything.

00:30:27:05 – 00:30:48:08

You’ve just put yourself right into the officer’s lap. Right? I want to take a moment, guys, and talk about driving under suspension itself like the crime. Yeah, we actually see this a lot. We have a lot of people we represent on these charges. So there’s a few things to understand with driving under suspension. And I’m just going to run it back here to myself.

00:30:48:10 – 00:31:17:07

Unpack this a second. So there’s kind of like two types of driving under suspension. There’s driving under suspension regular and then there’s driving under suspension, DUI related. What that means is that your license is suspended because of a DUI in your past. Now, here’s where a lot of people don’t realize how this works. If you have served your DUI suspension, let’s say you got a DUI in 2020.

00:31:17:08 – 00:31:39:01

Okay, we’re sitting here today in 2026. You got a DUI in 2020, and your license got suspended for 12 months. And you served that 12 month suspension in full. Didn’t get a single violation, but you did not restore your driver’s license. You didn’t pay the little $100 fee or whatever it is to PennDOT to get your license restored.

00:31:39:03 – 00:32:02:19

You are still suspended because of a prior DUI, so you could be sitting here today in 2026 and get pulled over and you’re getting pulled over for driving under suspension, DUI related, which is a mandatory jail sentence. And all you had to do to avoid that was just pay that restoration fee to PennDOT and get your license and your driving privilege restored.

00:32:02:21 – 00:32:20:11

Please hear me on this. I see this so much and good people go to jail because they literally did not restore their license and pay that little fee. We were talking about it in the permit to carry case cases that we were talking about. It’s a little fee. Just pay it so you can avoid the mess and be responsible about your daily affairs.

00:32:20:11 – 00:32:57:08

So whenever we have cases that are driving under suspension, it is very important that you prepare those for court because there are ways, even though it’s mandatory, to avoid the jail sentence, if the judge will allow you to, if you prepare how to do that, how to present that to the judge. One of the most important things that I do, and I think we all do here, when we have a driving under suspension case where the person our client is facing a mandatory jail sentence, we do a lot of focusing on how we’re going to present that to the judge, to demonstrate to the court that this person recognizes what they did was wrong, and

00:32:57:08 – 00:33:17:06

they are not going to continue to thumb their nose at the court and the law and keep doing this. Have a plan. What is your plan? To not be driving until you restore your license? That is very important to be able to present to the court. The other thing is, if you are eligible to get your license restored and you just haven’t yet, get your records, argue that to the court.

00:33:17:06 – 00:33:39:20

Because if you’re really close to getting your license restored, you can literally go into court and argue to the judge, hey, judge, I didn’t realize this. I made this mistake. Yeah, it might have been a silly, dumb mistake. I didn’t pay my restoration fee, but I’m really on the cusp. And the courts know that indirectly, you’re going to get another license suspension if you get convicted of that driving under suspension.

00:33:39:20 – 00:34:03:00

So a lot of times you can argue to avoid that conviction, not get suspended for another year merely by saying, listen, I’m taking the steps to restore my license now. Or maybe you’ve already done it before you go into court. So having your records and being knowledgeable about that is also very important. The last thing I’m going to mention about driving under suspension 1543 A is driving under suspension regular.

00:34:03:00 – 00:34:19:26

If you get to six or more of those, that also carries a mandatory jail sentence. We see that pretty frequently as well. All right guys, so sorry, I didn’t mean to hog it there, but I did want to unpack that a little bit because we see those cases a lot. And people you know, frequently contacting us about that.

00:34:19:27 – 00:34:37:18

Okay. Let’s talk about what you’re actually required to do. So at a vehicle. Stop. So this guy’s public service announcement here, when you are stopped on the side of the road, what are you required to do and what are you not required to do? Okay. Because I see people all the time that say, well, if I don’t comply, my license is going to be suspended.

00:34:37:18 – 00:34:53:26

I got to say everything. I got to respond, I got to do this. You do not need to do a lot, but you do have to do some things. Tim, what do you need to do on a traffic stop? You. I mean, the short answer is you must obey lawful commands. So I mean, that obviously carries a lot with it.

00:34:53:27 – 00:35:23:14

You must produce documentation of your your license, your insurance in Pennsylvania, and vehicle registration, depending on what they pulled you over for. You may also have to comply with certain other other documents or something like let’s say. I think an example of this would be that you your vehicle is not currently registered like you just bought it. I think for that particular offense in the motor vehicle code, I think there’s ten days you have to update the registration, right?

00:35:23:15 – 00:35:42:17

So if you are pulled over for a lack of registration in that case, but you produce, you may have to produce the bill of sale or whatever to show that I’m within that ten day grace period. The officer then understands they’re not going to cite you for that because you’ve hit a safe harbor. So you have to produce those documentations upon request.

00:35:42:19 – 00:36:00:28

You must accurately identify yourself. We see, especially with a lot of sovereign citizen people, they refuse to identify themselves. They refuse to even roll their windows down. They think that it’s enough that they can just hold their ID up to the window. None of that is correct. You have to. You have to surrender those documents so that they can be investigated.

00:36:00:29 – 00:36:27:04

Right. So guys, it’s two things you get pulled over, as Tim was just saying, you got to do two things. You have to provide your documentation. That’s your license, your registration, your insurance. And you have to identify yourself. Okay. If you do those two things, you’ve done what you have to do in most situations. Now, if there are further lawful commands that are given to you by the police, and I don’t want you to figure out if they’re lawful on the side of the road, I want to be the one to fix that.

00:36:27:04 – 00:36:47:16

If the police are not acting lawfully, that’s where you call me or these guys and we fix it for you. But again, it’s two things provide your documentation and identify yourself. If you do those two things, you’re good. Other than that, you don’t have to be the nicest guy on the side of the road. You don’t want to be rude.

00:36:47:17 – 00:37:08:20

You don’t want to be kicking and screaming and spitting and yelling and creating a scene. But you don’t have to incriminate yourself. So, Justin, let’s talk about that a little bit. What don’t you have to do on the side of the road when the police are asking you all sorts of things? Well, you do not need to answer every single question.

00:37:08:21 – 00:37:39:02

Yeah, I think that’s the biggest one. Like you said, you know, identify yourself, produce the documents. But, you know, police are inherently investigative officers, right? So they’re they’re they’re trying to investigate crimes or potential crimes. And part of that is they ask a lot of questions, like you said, you know, don’t be rude, be polite. But, you know, they can ask normal questions like if if we were all just sitting here talking, where are you coming from?

00:37:39:03 – 00:37:55:23

Do you know I stopped you? Do you know where you are? Have you been drinking? And people just. I think it’s just human nature to want to answer those questions. You don’t have to. And what you do and you’re incriminating. Yeah. People think like, oh, I’m having a conversation over coffee here. Yeah. I’ll just I’ll just answer all your questions.

00:37:55:23 – 00:38:14:03

You don’t have to do that. The common one. The normal one. Do you know why I stopped you? You don’t have to answer that question. And think about that. If you answer that question, anything you’re going to say is probably going to incriminate you. Yeah. Okay. Do you know why I stopped you? Yes, officer. I was going ten miles over the speed limit.

00:38:14:08 – 00:38:43:00

I’m sorry. It’s the liar. Liar. Right. So, I mean, there’s really nothing you can say in response to that question. That is. Right. Yeah. And it’s a benign question. It kind of feels benign. You see it on movies and TV and all the time, but it’s not don’t have diarrhea of the mouth. Yeah. I mean you could make jokes about like to answer that question as we see some people do because I’ve seen some clips that are kind of funny, but like you, you don’t know what kind of day the officers have, and you don’t know if the officer is somebody that has a good sense of humor to begin with.

00:38:43:08 – 00:39:03:18

So like or what? Stop he just came from and what was he hyped up? What’s going on? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So again, the other some other things you don’t have to do. You don’t. We talked about this in our DUI episode. You don’t have to do field sobriety testing. That is actually voluntary. You do not have to do portable breath testing.

00:39:03:18 – 00:39:22:25

That is also voluntary. Both of those things are actually giving the police evidence against you in a possible DUI. You don’t have to answer questions. Where are you coming from? Oh, I was just down the street at the bar. I was drinking at my house. Were you drinking? I smell alcohol, you know. Is anything like that? You don’t have to answer any of those questions.

00:39:22:25 – 00:39:41:29

Now, we aren’t advocating that you, you know, yell at the cop. How dare you question me? Don’t don’t be a sovereign citizen. Like like we were just talking about. But at the same time, you don’t have to answer the questions. Easy answer. Cops asked you a question. I don’t answer questions, officer. I’ll give you documents. I don’t answer questions.

00:39:42:00 – 00:39:56:20

Be polite. Smile, and then that’s it. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to kind of cut them off at the knees a little bit in the sense that, you know, that’s going to they’re going to see what this is. Yeah. They’re probably not going to be happy about it. But that’s you’re right. You don’t have to answer those questions.

00:39:56:21 – 00:40:16:27

Now this is different from if you’re being arrested for a DUI and whether or not you should or have to give a blood sample that is different. You should and probably do need to give a blood sample under implied consent. There is some strategy behind refusing that, but it’s a whole mess if you don’t give blood. That is different and we are not necessarily advocating for that.

00:40:16:27 – 00:40:36:10

And we have we saw in some engagement on our videos talking about that where people once again, even though we covered it in the video, acting like there’s a Fifth Amendment right to withhold your blood or withhold your license or something like that, it’s not that’s not true. Yeah. It’s those are non testimonial things. You have to produce those.

00:40:36:11 – 00:40:59:07

Those are not subject to Fifth Amendment protections. Yeah. So like that’s what the law says. You can listen to somebody online that says read the Constitution. I don’t have to give blood or you know, you can take the right answer. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, I think we probably gave enough on that. So let’s talk about whether the police can make you get out of the vehicle.

00:40:59:11 – 00:41:29:08

Right. And the short answer to that is yes, the police can make you get out of the vehicle on a traffic stop. So just an unpack that for me a little bit. Yeah. So the US Supreme Court PA versus Mims, essentially officers can ask you out of the vehicle and you have to comply with that. And again that’s I think especially in videos online, you know, you all you always see people fighting with officers.

00:41:29:08 – 00:41:50:29

And you know I’m not getting out of the car. You can’t get out. Yeah. Why why what I do. Well even if they don’t have any suspicion that you’re committing a crime, they can order you out of the vehicle. Most of the time, it’s going to be for officer safety. And again, the way I think society is right at this moment and how it’s been over the last few years.

00:41:51:00 – 00:42:28:06

You know, a lot of people do not trust the police or, you know, think ill of the police. However, officer safety is is real. You know, we’ve seen a lot of things recently, especially here in your county, absolutely, that have led to, you know, very, very dangerous and deadly situations for police. So by being combative in that situation, like you’re putting that officer on high alert and I can tell you, if I was a police officer and, you know, thinking about my safety and I had ordered someone out of the car and they start getting combative or their, you know, furtive movements, they’re moving around like that’s scary.

00:42:28:07 – 00:42:48:26

Yeah. So, you know, if the police ask you to step out of the car, step out of the car. Yeah. Let me say this. Do not be combative with the police on scene. Do not argue with the police on scene if you think they’re doing something wrong, that is our job. Let us fix that later. You are not going to win that on the side of the road.

00:42:48:26 – 00:43:10:24

And all you are doing there is you are heightening the police officer’s fear and concern for officer safety. And you’re probably putting yourself in a very, very dangerous situation. Do not argue with them. Do not be combative with them, listen to commands and comply. And at that point, if there’s something that was done wrong and we can suppress it all later, by all means we’re doing that.

00:43:10:24 – 00:43:33:29

But you don’t want to figure out you’re not suppressing something on the side of the roadway. You are not going to win that. Be a decent person and just comply with that. So and if I may just real quick on this point, because this was something I think we I wanted to mention when we did the use of force episode, but this is, I think, an appropriate time to slide it in based on what we’re saying is that you do not have a right to resist officers.

00:43:33:29 – 00:44:03:15

So what that means, the implication of that is that resisting arrest is a charge that you can you can get convicted of. And that is something that requires the Commonwealth to prove that the arrest was lawful. But if you assault an officer that does not require any proof that the initial stop was lawful. So what that means is, even if you’re the subject of an unlawful arrest or unlawful seizure and you attack the officer in self-defense, you are going to be convicted of a felony charge.

00:44:03:15 – 00:44:23:13

You can be convicted because our courts have said that is an independent tree. It doesn’t come from the poison fruit of the bad stop or the bad arrest. You’ve now planted a new tree, and you are liable for all the crimes that you commit in the act of attacking or, you know, resisting the officer that way to that extreme.

00:44:23:13 – 00:44:43:02

So do not think you have a right to protect yourself against officers in the performance of their duty. You don’t. Yeah, that’s and that is so big because so many people get themselves in these situations where maybe they’re not even initially trying to like get to that point, but they go down that tree, they go down that path and they commit to it.

00:44:43:03 – 00:45:02:15

Maybe they’re impaired, maybe they’re on on the influence and they’re making bad decisions. And that leads to a situation where they’re now being combative or even physically engaging with an officer on the side of the road can always comply. Yeah, you can always comply. Always be a decent person. I can’t imagine you getting to a point where you’re actually reaching for an officer’s weapon.

00:45:02:16 – 00:45:24:09

Oh my God, you know what I mean. We see that all the time. Like, you know what you think about the initial stop for you to get to that point you have you have crossed again. You’ve crossed a line at that point. And I hope you guys heard Tim there, because even if you could go back to the original stop and have an attorney look at it later and go, you know what, that was illegal and look to suppress that stop.

00:45:24:09 – 00:45:44:25

If you’ve done what he just said, that’s out the window, that doesn’t matter anymore. You’re still going down for a felony crime for what you did after the fact. Don’t even find yourself in that situation. Don’t even be there. Okay, so at the end of the day, guys, on this point the police can order you out of the vehicle.

00:45:44:25 – 00:46:07:20

They do not have to have any more reasonable suspicion of a crime. Other than that original traffic violation. Now practical thing here, guys. Usually cops are not ordering you out of the car if they’re pulling you over for, like, a speeding ticket or something like that. But they can. And if they do comply, don’t be doing furtive movements and things you shouldn’t be doing and scaring them, okay?

00:46:07:21 – 00:46:27:02

Because then it’s going to go into the nth degree, but comply. And you know, we’ll fix it later. So that one’s pretty easy. The other thing I want to talk about is passengers. So guys, back to all three of us here. Passengers themselves. You know guys, can passengers be ordered out of the vehicle just like a driver? Yep.

00:46:27:03 – 00:46:51:16

Okay. Yeah, that’s another case. US Supreme Court case. I believe Maryland versus Wilson that determined that passengers can also, just like a driver, be ordered out of the vehicle and do need to comply. And everything we just talked about is the same as it relates to a passenger as it would to a driver. Now, when can an officer not just order you out of a vehicle arbitrarily?

00:46:51:16 – 00:47:12:09

So this is kind of limited, but the only times that really happens is if he’s extending this vehicle stop kind of indefinitely and really just running down a lot of random rabbit holes. And oh, and now I want to investigate this and this. There isn’t really a lot of extra reasonable suspicion or PC. Yeah, he can’t just indefinitely extend that traffic stop.

00:47:12:09 – 00:47:40:01

I mean, you have rights to not be held and detained on the side of the road forever while he does whatever the heck he wants to do, but he can investigate things if he does have reasonable suspicion of, you know, certain crimes being committed. And again, as we said before, it doesn’t take a lot. So the only other thing I kind of see sometimes is that the officer cannot use the order to exit as a pretext for some unrelated investigation.

00:47:40:01 – 00:47:58:27

So if you’re pulled over for speeding and there’s no other evidence of anything else that the officer can see smell here, etc., he can’t just order you out of the car and say, okay, now I want to investigate other things that I, you know, I want to look in the vehicle more. I want to look under the vehicle.

00:47:58:27 – 00:48:24:22

I want to get you out and start questioning you about all these things that don’t have anything to do with why you were stopped. I want to do a pat down, you know. Right. That would be a pretext to to do other investigations that are that are not allowed. Right. So okay, Tim, tell me a little bit about once you’re actually asked out of the vehicle and the police officer kind of escalate that a little bit and they start doing other things like a pat down, like, when does that come into play for real?

00:48:24:23 – 00:48:44:06

Well, so I mean, we we hear officers say on the side of the road because again, they’re dealing with argumentative people. And we’ll hear people say things like, well, Pennsylvania versus Mims, I can order you out of the car for any reason, but you’ve done a good job of summarizing that there are limitations on that. Generally, it has to be tied to some articulable safety concern.

00:48:44:06 – 00:49:11:02

So if they’re ordering you out of the vehicle, they may have some safety concern in their mind. I think our Superior Court and the US Supreme Court have said that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for officers. So since Mims, the law has kind of assumed there is a there’s almost always a safety concern. So when they get you out of the car, understand that they are they are going to ask you for a consent search of your person or a consent pat down.

00:49:11:02 – 00:49:29:28

They’re going to ask you to pat you down or search you. You don’t necessarily have to give consent, but for a Terry frisk, depending on what their suspicion is, they might be able to just do a pat down. And that pat down is limited to just a pat down. They can’t go into your pockets or run things unless they feel something that they know is incriminating.

00:49:29:28 – 00:49:52:08

Like if they felt the obvious outline of a gun, they are allowed now to go in and retrieve the gun. They can do that. So they’re allowed to do that pat down that they need reasonable suspicion. They need an articulate concern for their own safety to trigger the Terry frisk unless they ask for your consent. And very often when they have you step out, they will ask your consent.

00:49:52:10 – 00:50:11:16

Yeah. So again guys, they can do these Terry frisk and things. And really if they they do need some reasonable suspicion that they may believe that you are armed and dangerous. But at the end of the day, they can do these types of risks on you on the side of the road. And don’t, don’t, don’t resist them. Don’t let them do it.

00:50:11:16 – 00:50:36:17

If they did it improperly again, we said it. We will take care of it. So understand too that when you step out of the vehicle, I mean, you’ve also opened the door to the vehicle. So the really seasoned smart officers are going to take that opportunity to, to look in your vehicle. They’re going to see because obviously, you know, when they initially interact with you, all they see is just the driver’s side window and very limited view of inside.

00:50:36:17 – 00:51:01:04

But once you open that door, they are now going to get a glimpse into the door pockets, the your seat, how you were sitting. If you’re if there’s anything in your lap or under the seat, they may in the floorboards, they may be able to see that. And so that’s another thing that that officers are looking for. If you’re refusing to get out of the vehicle, it escalates their their posture because they’re realizing there might be something in the vehicle you are hiding.

00:51:01:06 – 00:51:23:27

And and they, you know, you’re caught if you have to open the door and get out. So now the officer begins to escalate, right? Yeah. And guys, the officers do have the authority. They are allowed to control movement at the scene. For as Tim was just saying, and unpacking officer safety reasons. So there’s multiple people involved. If there’s multiple occupants they can separate the occupants.

00:51:23:27 – 00:51:52:15

They can move people around. They can do those types of things to control the scene. They can call other officers to the scene. So another thing I kind of wanted to hit on here was when we regularly see orders to exit the vehicle guys. So when this type of thing happens, this is usually in a DUI stop. There are other ways if they’re having like plain view of drugs and other types of, you know, things in the vehicle that are illegal, like guns and things like that.

00:51:52:15 – 00:52:10:19

But a lot of times where we regularly see an order to exit the vehicle, this is going to be in a DUI stop where they’re asking you to get out because they’re going to perform roadway test field sobriety tests with you, and then they want to, you know, order you out to be able to do that. Now, again, we’re not required to do field sobriety testing.

00:52:10:21 – 00:52:42:18

You are not required to do portable breath testing. Should you maybe should you be compliant and reasonable? Maybe. And there’s ways we fix those cases later ARD and things like that. But again, you don’t have to. I want to talk a little bit about the plain view doctrine. The plain view doctrine. If the police are hold up on you and they come up to your window and they see in plain view something that is obviously illegal, this would be a joint in the ashtray, a gun in the passenger seat, or things that maybe aren’t obviously illegal but are concerning.

00:52:42:18 – 00:53:07:10

They are allowed to then investigate those things further. That’s the plain view doctrine. Here’s another thing, guys. I want you to all know when you are being pulled over, this whole episode is all about what you should do when you’re being pulled over, when you are being pulled over. What? Tim. Justin, what should you definitely not do as you’re pulling your vehicle over to the other side of the road?

00:53:07:11 – 00:53:26:12

Shouldn’t switch seats, right? Yeah, you definitely don’t pull the switch arou because if you switch seats, the officer is totally going to see that. How easy is it to see when he’s got his headlights on your vehicle? If you’re switching in that vehicle seat right as you’re pulling over, that actually happens. I think a lot more than people may think.

00:53:26:18 – 00:53:45:18

I know in the DA’s office, I probably had at least 10 to 15 DUIs in the few years that I was there where people switch seats. Yeah. And it’s so obvious, like you said, like it’s on video. There’s a motor vehicle recording, especially if it’s at night. They have, you know, probably their high beams on at that point.

00:53:45:18 – 00:54:05:19

They have the extra light on the side of the car. And you can see the car like moving. You can see people like, oh it’s rocking. Yeah. It’s totally rock. Cannot a single judge I think in the Commonwealth that’s going to look at that and be like, yeah, I don’t believe that person was driving. Yeah. And let’s be let’s also remember that they have video.

00:54:05:20 – 00:54:22:07

Right. So let’s just roll it back and watch you switch seats in the window. You know. So guys don’t don’t do that I mean that that is so clear usually that it’s almost comical when we see that because again we get to all watch it on video, look at it and chuckle and go, oh my gosh, did this really happen?

00:54:22:08 – 00:54:39:29

Like, you know, that’s silly. And usually the cops, they see it and they know what happened before they even come up to the car. So don’t switch seats. The other thing is don’t do all these sorts of like furtive movements. Don’t be like reaching into the back seat, reaching into the glove box. You know, we talked about how you have to get your documents, right.

00:54:40:00 – 00:54:57:06

Okay. You can do that either slowly or wait until they’re up to the car and tell the officer, hey, my documents are in my glove box. Are you okay? If I retrieve it, the officer might say to you. Do you have anything else in your glove box I should be aware of? No, officer, I don’t. What they’re really asking you is, do you have a gun in there that I need to be concerned about?

00:54:57:07 – 00:55:12:00

But that way he has eyes on you. He can see what you’re doing. You’re not reaching all over the vehicle. Because when you’re reaching all over the vehicle, what do they think you’re doing? Yeah, you’re stashing something. You’re hiding something. You’re pulling something out. You’re getting ready for him to walk up on you. You know, it puts him in fear.

00:55:12:00 – 00:55:32:19

And I’ve had I’ve seen cases where. So I mean, we all know. Where do you keep your registration and insurance? In your car. Yeah. Club box. Right. So when an officer asks for your registration and insurance and the driver is refusing to open the glove box, the officer knows there’s something in the glove box in there. And I’ve.

00:55:32:19 – 00:55:49:24

I’ve seen it’s hilarious on the body cam for the case that I’m thinking of. The officer was like, well, why don’t you check the glove box? And the person’s like, nah, it’s not in there, I don’t have. I’ll just take the driving without registration. I get right, like I know it’s not in there, right? And they’re like, yeah, but why don’t you check though?

00:55:49:26 – 00:56:06:12

Because like, it might be in there or the classic it’s not my car. Yeah, yeah. It’s not my car. Okay. I don’t know what’s in here. I’m not going to give consent to search. It’s not my car. I don’t know, like, you know. Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that you know exactly what is in this vehicle, but, you know, you’re going to have that.

00:56:06:12 – 00:56:29:06

And if you find yourself in that situation where, you know, you know, there’s something in the vehicle, you’re guaranteed to get ordered out. Well, at that point, right? I mean, like remain cool, calm, collected if you can. I mean, well again, probably they’re going to find it. But at the same time, like if you’re being super obvious that you don’t want them in the vehicle, you’re basically telling them you need to search this vehicle.

00:56:29:09 – 00:56:48:26

Search my vehicle. You have can. It’s going to be hard to suppress that because you’re you’re building so much PC and reasonable suspicion for them by acting the way you’re acting. And in cases where people switch seats, you have now guaranteed like what you thought was going to avoid a DUI investigation has now triggered a larger investigation. Oh, totally.

00:56:48:26 – 00:57:03:27

Yeah. So, like, you are getting ordered out of the vehicle because you’re going to get you’re going to be investigated. We usually do see that in DUI cases because the driver is totally DUI and we know the passenger probably isn’t or maybe isn’t as drunk or whatever. And they said, oh, they’re talking about it before they get pulled over.

00:57:03:27 – 00:57:15:27

And they might take a little bit of time. That’s the other thing. They usually take a little bit more time to pull over, because they’re coming up with their plan as they’re pulling over. And the cops see all that, too, you know, and this is the type of thing that you just just don’t do it like it’s stupid.

00:57:15:28 – 00:57:36:27

It’s a case. One time it was in a minivan where it was a DUI. They pulled the minivan over, the occupants switched in the front seat, and there were also a bunch of stolen guns in the van. So like this. There were, like, 3 or 4 people in the car. I mean, this was just a comedy of errors because you’ve got the two front seat passenger switching, they’re ordered out.

00:57:36:28 – 00:58:00:22

There’s a DUI investigation happening at the same time as there’s an investigation into, like, the other person. Why? Why are you switching with why are you engaged in this behavior? There’s like false ID going on. And then the other occupant of the vehicle is tossing stuff out of the vehicle, thinking he’s being slick. And so it’s like, yeah, in that scenario, like what might have been just a DUI stop right now, it’s turned into, okay, well, now we got all this stuff going on.

00:58:00:24 – 00:58:17:18

We’re looking in the car more. We’re going to look and search the car and all that. Okay. Well, I mean that brings up kind of the next point I wanted to talk about a little bit, but passenger rights. Right. So let’s say you’re like a passenger in a vehicle that gets pulled over. You do have certain rights, but you also have certain requirements.

00:58:17:19 – 00:58:40:27

Yeah. So Justin, tell me about like if you’re a passenger in a vehicle, what are you actually required to do? Yeah. You have to identify yourself. Usually name and date of birth. There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy as a passenger and a vehicle in the sense of, you know, your identity, right? Because the police are going to probably won’t run a warrant check to make sure you don’t have any warrants.

00:58:40:29 – 00:59:03:21

PA specifically does not require every passenger to produce a driver’s license or I.D., but you do have to identify yourself. Additionally, again, just on that point, you are right about that. But why would you not give them your license? Like like, yeah, I mean, I can think of one. I don’t have one. Right? There are. But if you’re a passenger, it doesn’t matter.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:18:03

They’re going to ask you for name, date of birth and social at that point. Right. Don’t get your brother’s or your uncle’s or your dad’s right. And just catch a false I.D. charge, dude. And this. This happens so much, right? You’re getting pulled over something, and then you make it worse, and you add charges by giving a false I.D..

00:59:18:08 – 00:59:34:26

They are going to figure you out. Like you’re not going to get away with that. I can’t I can’t think of a single time I had someone like, contact me and be like. Ha ha, I got away with this and someone else is getting charged. Nor, on the flip side of it, ever seen someone come into my office and go, yeah, I got ID’d on this, like DUI stop.

00:59:34:26 – 00:59:53:23

And I wasn’t even there. Like, I don’t know anything about that did happen to me. I was going to say, I actually saw that I’ve had two cases. That’s like super interesting. Tell me about mother one. It was a his brother. He gave his brother’s information and so a family member would DUI. Did they look alike? The brothers kind of actually.

00:59:53:25 – 01:00:12:14

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like it was similar enough. But yeah, he gave, like, all of his brother’s information and they ended up charging him. And then the brother showed up to the police station because he got the summit’s in the mail or like, the complaint, and he’s like, this wasn’t me. And they ended up like pulling the video and they’re like, oh, yeah, that’s not you, right?

01:00:12:15 – 01:00:25:16

And they’re like, do you know who that is? He’s like, that’s my younger brother. I actually do remember you telling me about this case. And yeah, that is kind of it’s a that’s like a one off though. It’s pretty unique. We don’t see it a lot. But in that one they figured it out anyway. Yeah. And then what did they do in that case.

01:00:25:16 – 01:00:48:12

How did they resolve it. Like. Well they ended up with drawing the charges against that guy and charging brother. Yeah. Additionally with false. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I had two cases like that in Dauphin. I think the one case, they were twin brothers and the like. Yeah. And so what happened was the not guilty brother lived in another state and kept getting picked up on a warrant because this dude kept giving his brother’s name.

01:00:48:13 – 01:01:11:22

Yeah. So he did it multiple times. Multiple times. The brother, actually, I think, was arrested, like, once or twice. And then it got to a point where local police were aware of the ongoing situation. And so they it was this weird situation now where you’ve got they know that this guy is not the guy they’re looking for, and so they’re just not picking him up, which is obviously dangerous because they’re identical twins.

01:01:11:22 – 01:01:27:12

That could be the guy you were looking for. Who knows? And I saw another case where a woman gave her mother’s name. And on her rap sheet, there was a there were criminal entries for her name where she had given her proper identification. But then the entry that we were charging her with was under her mother’s name.

01:01:27:12 – 01:01:51:26

So that got attached to her rap sheet as an alias. So like she was identified as her mother and and it’s that’s unfortunate because now her mother, like I tested it because I had access to Janet at the time, I would run both of their rap sheets and they were identical. Oh, for mom and for daughter. So her mom was getting screwed because of the way the daughter was, because she provided the the biometric data for her mom.

01:01:52:03 – 01:02:19:22

And so unfortunately, like, if you looked up mom’s name and social security number, it’s pulling daughter’s rap sheet. But an employer may not be savvy enough to know that. Yeah, because it has her. Can a passenger like a driver refused to answer questions? Aside from ID, who are you? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Same exact. Right? Yeah. Okay. Justin, can a passenger leave the scene?

01:02:19:23 – 01:02:34:26

No. Okay, no. And, dude, we see this sometimes, like, you can’t get pulled over and you just get out of the car and, like, run into the cornfield, like, I mean, I’m. I’m sure we’ve all seen that. Yeah, we’ve seen it. I’m not saying that it hasn’t happened, but you can’t do that. No, you can’t do that. You.

01:02:34:27 – 01:03:02:28

And why like officer safety. Yeah. Also again you have to identify yourself. They have to identify you in essentially a traffic stop is it’s a seizure. Right. So once the the vehicle is, is pulled over until that traffic stop is complete, you’re technically facing a seizure. Right. So police are permitted to exercise reasonable control over the scene again for officer safety.

01:03:03:00 – 01:03:33:03

So if you’re a passenger in a vehicle that’s pulled over and say the officers, you know, running the registration, whatever, say they even come up to the car, get the driver’s information. If at some point then after the stop, the pastor gets out of the vehicle or multiple passengers get out of the vehicle, like Tim said, it’s going to you’re just escalating the situation and creating a number of issues not only for yourself, but for the officer, for the driver, potentially, you know, just be compliant.

01:03:33:04 – 01:03:51:17

Don’t, don’t, don’t run. Right. I will say this too, if you are a pastor or a driver in a vehicle and you have warrants that the officer can take you on, let him take you. Because if you get out and run, not only are you then going to have to deal with the warrant, you’re going to have new charges.

01:03:51:18 – 01:04:10:13

Yeah. And what does that charge you’re going to be like fly to avoid, evade arrest on foot, resisting. Usually those three kind of fall hand in hand. Right. So not only are you getting arrested for the warrant and the charges that you have in relation to that other case, you’re now stacking more and more charges on yourself just because you decided to run and they are going to chase you.

01:04:10:15 – 01:04:26:04

Well in the in the thing with that too, especially, you know, flight to avoid or evading arrest on foot. A judge is going to look at that and say, well, how am I going to trust you’re going to show up to court if you’re running from the police? Oh, when they’re setting your bail. Yeah. So say you had a warrant.

01:04:26:09 – 01:04:52:25

And so many times I saw this in the DA’s office. People had the people that get warrants, for the most part, are on, I’ll say, dumb charges or minimal charges, like small amounts of marijuana paraphernalia, possession, controlled substance, like, how about you didn’t pay your traffic ticket? You have a traffic warrant. It’s that easy. And by the way, if you get a warrant for a traffic ticket and you haven’t paid a fine, you know what they do when they pick you up on that.

01:04:52:26 – 01:05:11:10

You pay your fine or you go on a payment plan and they let you go right away. It is not worth running for something like that. Most of those, they’re not taking you to jail. I have seen some cases. They’re not. They’ll take you to jail. But like they’re most of the time they’re going to say, hey, you have a warrant out of this jurisdiction, you need to call them and they’ll even they’ll even let you go.

01:05:11:11 – 01:05:28:04

They’ll just remind you that you have a warrant. But if you’ve then accelerated it to running away, and they can’t serve those warrants on you during certain times of the day, just by definition they’re not allowed. Well, if they pull you over, though, in a vehicle, I think certain times of day they can’t serve a traffic warrant. When you say sir, they can remind you of it.

01:05:28:06 – 01:05:50:22

But I mean, like cuff you and take you to jail. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. I think well, I know here in your county specifically, and I’m not sure about all the local jurisdictions, how they handle it, but at least, you know, if people come to court here in York, like, say you have a case of the Court of Common Pleas and you have traffic warrants, the sheriffs are going to remind you that unless it is over $1,000, if it’s over $1,000, they are taking you in.

01:05:50:23 – 01:06:06:29

Yeah, you’re gonna have to deal with it. But when they take you in, yeah, they take you down to the sheriff’s department. And then you’re literally released that day after you see a judge on video and just set up your payment plan. Yeah, absolutely. So you’re literally there’s no sense in fighting that you’re getting out. Yeah. Just don’t run and make it worse because then you’re not getting out.

01:06:07:00 – 01:06:26:16

And I know at least here in your county, a lot of the judges are not sympathetic whatsoever to people that run. Yeah. And I think also like you lose that that credibility, like you just said, they’re not sympathetic. But then you’re also really literally giving them consciousness of guilt. Yeah. Like you’re saying I know I’m guilty of something here, like.

01:06:26:17 – 01:06:41:26

Or I know exactly what I’m guilty of and I’m running because of that. Yeah. Flight, you know, and that gets to come in as evidence like, don’t do that. You know, let us if there’s a problem, if you think there’s a problem and you’re going to solve it by running away, let us fix it later. I mean, please just don’t run.

01:06:41:27 – 01:07:05:07

Don’t, don’t. And the other thing that happens sometimes people run, you get tased if it gets really hairy and you’re pulling out weapons while you’re running it, you can get shot. Like it’s really scary. Like, just don’t accelerate it to that point. We can definitely fix that later. Okay. Well, as it relates to to passengers, I think there’s kind of one more thing I want to touch on with you guys.

01:07:05:09 – 01:07:32:04

We’ll go back to all three of us here. Passengers themselves can be searched, just like drivers can be searched. But it’s not an automatic right. And there are some limitations to this. I know, Tim, we were talking about this as it relates to like, you know, if, for instance, the driver allows consent to the officer to search the vehicle, does that mean that the automatically that consent transfers to then search the passenger who’s in the vehicle?

01:07:32:05 – 01:07:57:01

Nope. No. And why not? Because there’s there’s separate searches. And this is where the like we there’s a concept in the law here that you can’t assert the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of somebody else. Right. So if you’re the owner of the vehicle is the passenger and they give consent to search the vehicle, you are not going to be able to challenge the lawfulness of that search, most likely.

01:07:57:02 – 01:08:15:27

And there may be some some chances where you can. But if the owner of the vehicle separate from you gives consent, you’re probably not going to have grounds to challenge it. If the owner of the vehicle or your passenger makes an incriminating statement, you’re not going to be able to have that statement suppressed on their behalf. They have to assert that, right?

01:08:15:29 – 01:08:34:24

Not you. So when you’ve got multiple people in the vehicle, one of them having greater ownership rights than the other, that person is going to be the one that the police are going to saying, hey, can I search the vehicle? And if they grant consent, you might kind of be stuck with that. So that’s that’s kind of a weird dynamic.

01:08:34:25 – 01:08:53:19

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really kind of comes down to just, again, competing rights that are in the vehicle. But you don’t by being a passenger, you’re not giving up rights. If the driver is consenting to certain things, they kind of only in your in your person, in your person. Right. The driver has the authority to consent to search the vehicle.

01:08:53:19 – 01:09:13:12

But that doesn’t mean that you’re automatically surrendering your rights to your person, right? Just because you’re in that vehicle. You know, likewise. I mean, I think we’ve all seen this before. How about your you’re the passenger in the vehicle, but you’re also the owner of the vehicle, right? You’re not you’re just not driving it. And so maybe maybe your wife’s driving it or something, right.

01:09:13:14 – 01:09:29:21

You as the passenger, can actually consent over the driver at that point to search the vehicle. Right. And that that happens sometimes, too. Yeah, that’s what I was alluding to. But but you’re right, like the privacy rights that you have in your person, those are separate because the search of your person is distinct from the search of the car.

01:09:29:22 – 01:09:50:14

Right. And the search of the passenger would be distinct from the search. Those are all they would require separate, reasonable suspicion or probable cause in order to do those things or consent. Right. Okay. Well, I want to now talk about consent to search. I mean, we see this a lot on vehicle stops where the police will know literally in very calm ways.

01:09:50:14 – 01:10:14:20

Just ask, hey, I’d like consent to search your vehicle. Or can I search your vehicle? Do you mind if I search the vehicle? Things like that. And these are things that are said a lot of ways by officers, very benignly, very calmly, almost like it’s normal conversation. And, you know, sometimes if you’re kind of waffling on it, they’ll even say things like, listen, if you have nothing to hide here, it shouldn’t really matter.

01:10:14:20 – 01:10:33:07

It’s going to be quick. Nothing major here. I’m just looking for some consent to search. And the answer to that is you do not have to consent to a search merely because you are pulled over by a police officer. If they do ask you out of the vehicle, you do have to do that, but you don’t have to consent to allow them to search your vehicle.

01:10:33:07 – 01:10:57:23

And many times you shouldn’t. That is exercising your privacy rights. And you do have privacy rights now. They are more limited in a vehicle than they are in like your home, but you don’t have to consent to that search. So, we’ll ask Justin here how if you’re going to decline a vehicle search by an officer, how should you do that in a way that is most effective?

01:10:57:26 – 01:11:21:01

Officer I do not consent to any searches and say nothing else. Yes. Don’t say why. Why do you want to search my vehicle? Or. You know I don’t have anything. Just say I do not consent to any searches, right? Right. Absolutely. So, guys, the name of the game, when you’re declining a search is. Be polite, be brief and be non explanatory.

01:11:21:02 – 01:11:48:04

You do not have to explain why you’re not consenting to a search of your vehicle. You don’t have to say, oh well I’m not consenting officer, just because I don’t consent to searches and I don’t have anything to hide. There’s nothing here you’re going to find anyway. Because when you start those other paths down that road, that is going to get into a dialog with the officer, that might ultimately result in you consenting to a search that you don’t even realize you’re going to end up consenting to once you consent.

01:11:48:05 – 01:12:06:05

I mean it it is very difficult to challenge that search. There are ways we could do it. We could say the consent has been coerced. And there’s you know, there are definitely situations where that works. But once you give consent, I mean, that that really does limit your ability to challenge you’ve, you’ve you’ve handcuffed yourself. Yeah. Yeah guys.

01:12:06:05 – 01:12:25:26

So things not to say when not consenting I don’t have anything illegal in the car. So I don’t really think searching is really necessary here. Why are you asking me that? Like don’t get into like a dialog or a debate with the officer as to whether or not it’s real or should happen. Other things not to say. You know, I’d rather not, officer.

01:12:25:29 – 01:12:43:29

I don’t know why we really need to do that. I’m not sure. Like, come on again, you’re creating a dialog where you’re going to go back and forth and you’re probably going to end up consenting. So just don’t do that. Just be clean. Definitely do not argue with the police officer about this. Again, we’ve said this over and over.

01:12:44:02 – 01:13:04:29

You are not going to debate and litigate your traffic stop or a search on the side of the road. That is our job as the lawyer. Okay? That doesn’t mean you have to consent. Okay? But be polite, be brief and be non explanatory. Officer. I do not consent to searches officer I do not consent to searches officer I do not consent to searches.

01:13:04:29 – 01:13:23:21

Something I’ve seen before. That’s very funny. And we would laugh about this. But you do see, it is like the officer will just say very simply, without much preamble, do you mind if I search the vehicle and the person might say something like, there’s no guns in there. Oh, no. Like out themselves right away. Like I don’t have any drugs or anything in there.

01:13:23:22 – 01:13:39:06

Like. And the officer’s like, I didn’t, I didn’t say anything about drugs or whatever. And you just said you just brought that into the discussion. Guess what? Now, when you deny consent, that statement is going in the application for the warrant. Yeah. And the judge is going to look at that and be like, yeah, I think that’s probable cause.

01:13:39:08 – 01:13:55:03

Yeah. I mean, you literally mentioned the first buddy. Yeah. So yeah, don’t don’t do that either. All right. So again and that kind of gets to like okay, if you do deny consent that doesn’t mean they’re absolutely not getting in your vehicle. And many times then they’re going to say okay well now we’re going to go ahead and we’re going to apply for a warrant.

01:13:55:03 – 01:14:12:21

We’re going to we’re going to hold you here on scene. And while we get the warrant, or we’re going to impound the vehicle and get a warrant and search it at that point. And there have actually been some recent case law changes on this that I want to touch on a little bit. So again, I mean, you know, if you if you refuse the consent, it might end there.

01:14:12:21 – 01:14:33:25

But if police believe that they have reasonable suspicion, probable cause, specifically probable cause to get a warrant to actually search, they can do that. And they very likely at least the current case law says they’re probably going to hold you there on the side of the road for a while while they go get a judge, draft a warrant.

01:14:33:25 – 01:14:54:00

They’re probably going to bring more police out to secure the scene there, then going to go ahead and look for the warrant. If they get the warrant, they do have to have PC or probable cause within the four corners of that warrant. And that’s where a lot of times we can do suppression and challenge things. If it’s not correctly written within the four corners of the actual warrant affidavit.

01:14:54:03 – 01:15:22:07

But again, if they get the warrant and they present you with the warrant, don’t fight them on it. Don’t, you know, be combative, let them search the vehicle. If something was done and properly, we will fix it later. So short answer can police search your car without your permission? Yes, in some limited circumstances. Right. Okay. So, guys. Tim, what are those circumstances that a police can search your vehicle without your consent?

01:15:22:07 – 01:15:47:29

We said the warrant. Okay, so obviously, if they get the warrant, they can search your vehicle. What other ways could they possibly search your vehicle without a warrant and without consent? Yeah. So there would need to be a warrant exception. And there’s a bunch of very well delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement. A lot of people don’t remember this, but in the Fourth Amendment, there’s a pretty important word that people don’t don’t want to acknowledge is there.

01:15:47:29 – 01:16:19:24

And that’s unreasonable. So the the right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. So there’s a lot of case law out there talking about what is a reasonable warrantless seizure or search. Some examples of that would be if they inevitable discovery independent source exigent circumstances like like community caretaking functions. Securing inherently dangerous materials would also be to prevent the destruction of evidence.

01:16:19:27 – 01:16:46:16

Right. And what you’re really talking about there is exigency, right? Right. So they have to have really probable cause plus some sort of exigency, some special reason to go in and take care of it now. Right. Like it’s kind of an emergency. Right. And that’s what exigency means is it’s something is there that is you know, there could be destruction of that evidence if they don’t do it right now, maybe there’s potential injury that could be caused to somebody if they don’t do it right now.

01:16:46:18 – 01:17:05:23

A very obvious example of this would be somebody is screaming in your trunk, okay. Like that’s exigency. They’re going to look in the trunk and they’re not going to wait to get a warrant for that. I mean, that’s an obvious, clear example, but it could be other things too. But the other two that I cited like inevitable discovery independent source, those are actually legal doctrines that are Warren exceptions.

01:17:05:23 – 01:17:33:06

And they don’t require exigency for those particular situations. So they require other things, legal concepts that must be stitched together to trigger that particular doctrine. And we don’t need to go into that now. But there are it’s pretty limited. Yeah. There’s constitutional law on that subject. Okay. All right. Here’s something we see a lot. The police come up to your vehicle after pulling you over and they smell marijuana.

01:17:33:06 – 01:17:54:05

And in Pennsylvania, this law has actually waffled a lot over the last few years. And I will say it used to be the police were literally allowed to search your car if they smelled weed. That used to be the law. That is not the law anymore. And that that changed a lot with medical marijuana cards and things like that.

01:17:54:05 – 01:18:15:29

That came out in Pennsylvania. And again, we did a whole episode on, on on that, you know, recently. But Justin, I kind of want to kick it over to you that that odor of marijuana alone, like, what does that do that could lead to them searching your vehicle alone? It’s not enough. But what does it do? Well, usually the first question they’re going to ask you is, do you have a medical marijuana card?

01:18:15:29 – 01:18:37:19

You say, no, basically PC. Yeah, right. I mean, why does it smell like marijuana then? Yeah, but it doesn’t mean they can search without a warrant. They still have to then use that as PC to get the warrant. Like what I was saying earlier is that they could before they could search without a warrant if they smelled marijuana, which was crazy to me.

01:18:37:20 – 01:18:56:12

Like, that was like nuts. I was I couldn’t believe that that was a law for as long as it was, but luckily it did change and rightfully it changed. And now they do actually need that PC. They need to have more. They have to get a warrant. Right? Yeah. So okay, I want to talk a little bit about inventory searches.

01:18:56:17 – 01:19:21:20

Right. So this is actually a way that they can search your vehicle without a warrant. Yes. Okay. Tell me about inventory searches. So inventory searches. So say they are going to impound or tow your vehicle. Usually it’s impound, but they will do an inventory search to essentially determine what what’s in the vehicle as far as your property. They log it catalog it.

01:19:21:20 – 01:19:45:00

That way you know if there’s anything missing when it’s returned or, you know, anything they find is evidence, it’s logged. I will say the inventory search. My understanding of it is, you know, they can go through the whole car and just log what they find. However, if they start doing an inventory search and I know the state police do this a lot, they have an inventory search policy.

01:19:45:00 – 01:20:18:13

They’ll start, you know, again going through the vehicle if they find anything illegal or a firearm, drugs, etc. they’ll usually stop that inventory, search and go get a search warrant right after they find that. And that’s just, you know, airing on the side of caution. But yeah. And would you agree with the point of the inventory search technically is to protect both the driver, the owner of the vehicle and their property, you know, and also the police and the tow truck driver from a unreasonable or lying essentially by the driver saying, oh, I had ten gold bars in my trunk and they’re gone.

01:20:18:14 – 01:20:35:02

Absolutely. Like what happened? Well, that’s why they do the inventory. But to do inventory searching, you can’t just do it on a whim. You have to have. There’s rules around this. Tell us about paying things that. So it has to be a lawful impoundment, meaning the police have to have a lawful reason to tow or and pound the vehicle.

01:20:35:04 – 01:20:58:26

And then it requires a, we’ll say, a standardized written inventory search policy. Like I was just saying, the state police have one, York City has one. So within the department. Within the department. Yeah. And so that policy essentially lays out what the procedure is. So limits officer discretion. It’s routinely done. And there’s a defined scope contained in the policy.

01:20:58:27 – 01:21:17:13

Okay. The last point I’ll say on this guy’s is when it comes to searches, they if they’re going to search your vehicle, whether you give them consent, they get a warrant, whatever. They’re essentially allowed to search the entire vehicle as long as within the scope of the consent or the warrant. Okay. And this includes containers in the vehicle as well.

01:21:17:13 – 01:21:35:19

So this is things like backpacks, purses, you know, etc. depending on what they’re looking for if it could reasonably be in that container. So guys I mean a lot of times they’re looking for small things drugs, guns, things that can be very small. And they’re pretty much going to get into almost every part of the vehicle, including hiding places.

01:21:35:19 – 01:21:55:14

Every once in a while, we see someone who’s got a little Jimmy rigged, like hiding place in a vehicle that they can rip off door panels and stuff like that if they think that exists. So all right, one other kind of more final thing I want to go over here is we’ve been seeing this a lot more with the, you know, cell phones with cameras and everything.

01:21:55:15 – 01:22:14:13

I mean, can you record a police officer on a traffic stop? Tim, I’m going to kick it to you for that. Tell us about that. Not secretly. Yes. Not secret can in Pennsylvania, we’re we’re a. You know what? No, I shouldn’t have even said it, because I always get this wrong. We’re we’re a two party consent state, I believe.

01:22:14:20 – 01:22:40:28

I think. Oh, you’re talking about wiretap laws, things like that. If you’re secretly recording someone audio their audio communication, that’s a violation. You’re intercepting communication. Then before we get into this specific question, let me just unpack wiretap real quick. You are not allowed to record another person without their knowledge consent. Like Tim just said, you cannot secretly record somebody that is a violation of the Pennsylvania wiretapping law.

01:22:40:28 – 01:23:06:28

Now, there are some ways that law enforcement can do this, but they have to get court orders and things like that. But as a normal citizen in society, you cannot do that without, you know, making it apparent. And their body cams are expressly carved out of that statute as an exception. Yeah. I mean, they’re obvious, right? And that’s the thinking behind it, is that you can generally see that they’re recording you, but even if you were not aware of it, that is an exception to the Wiretap Act.

01:23:07:03 – 01:23:26:05

Yeah. And then the dash cams and everything, because those all have audio and they have microphones on their person. You can record the stop, but you can’t do it secretly. Right. So you can hold up your phone and you can record the stop openly. Right. And why is that? I mean, Pennsylvania has actually recognized a right essentially to do that in these types of traffic stop situations.

01:23:26:05 – 01:23:47:09

And again, guys, I am not saying you should do this. This obviously would create a situation where you’re probably going to be having a different type of interaction with the police officer. What I’m telling you is what the law is and that you can do it openly, but the question of whether you can and whether you should is a whole different discussion.

01:23:47:09 – 01:24:03:14

So guide yourself accordingly. Don’t make it worse on yourself if you don’t have to. Good example you get them pulled over for a speeding ticket. Why are you going to pull your phone out and start recording the cop? Like what’s the point? Well, I mean, you could theoretically be doing it to ensure the posterity of the recording, right?

01:24:03:14 – 01:24:19:09

Because we have seen cases where body cam is not preserved for some reason, technical glitch or what, I guess. But again, you are creating a situation where that traffic stops probably going to go a bit differently, right? You might have had a cop there who was just going to give you a warning, and now you’re doing that and you’re going to create this hostility situation.

01:24:19:13 – 01:24:49:03

You know, I’ve never seen a case where we could seriously, credibly, even remotely say that the body cam had been doctored. I’ve never seen that. Oh, in the police officer body cam because body cam mvr the way that it’s preserved in their system, the officer really doesn’t have any interaction with it, apart from checking a box in the system to say like, I’m saving it and exporting it it those are maintained on a cloud storage system or whatever, through through watch guard or axon or whatever.

01:24:49:05 – 01:25:23:18

The officer does not have the ability to alter that recording unless you’re seriously arguing that they have downloaded it and that they have put it through some kind of editing software, changed it, and then given it back to evidence, and then that’s what evidence is given. But that that I mean, we don’t really we don’t see that. So guys, again, on these wiretap discussion and recording police on the side of the road, Pennsylvania courts have essentially recognized that an officer performing his official duties on a traffic stop does not have the same expectation of privacy in those interactions that someone would in, like, a private setting.

01:25:23:18 – 01:25:41:11

So that’s why you are able to record them again, practical considerations, should you? Well, I mean that’s we’ll leave that up to you. But you are permitted to do that by Pennsylvania law. We have people who think they’re doing it because they’re they’re being smart and, and like, oh, I’m going to show the police. And I’ve got recording to show everything they did.

01:25:41:12 – 01:25:54:16

Well, yeah, but it shows exactly what the body cam shows. Yeah. And a lot of times what we see is when they bring that into us, then we also get the body cam and then they’re literally just mirror images of what was happening. Or they’re saying like, oh, like, look, this is a thing that happened and I can prove it.

01:25:54:16 – 01:26:14:00

And then you watch the recordings and you’re like, that didn’t happen. And they’re like, oh yeah, I guess I was mistaken. So all right, well, if you are going to record, you know, keep your hands visible, you can even announce or tell the officer, officer, I am recording this. Leave your phone in a stable position. And guys, still, you got to comply with legal commands.

01:26:14:02 – 01:26:32:04

Do not create a scene, don’t become combative or get things to go haywire because you’re demanding to record in a certain way, or you want to get a certain angle of what’s going on. You can’t just move around the scene willy nilly like you’re recording some movie or something like that. That’s not what we’re indicating you can do here.

01:26:32:07 – 01:26:47:28

All right. So let’s I think this kind of kind of brings us to the end. I did want to just go over a few kind of traffic stop myths that we see and kind of everyone believes. And I think we kind of practically went over this and a lot of what we discussed today. But I just want to highlight a few of these points.

01:26:47:28 – 01:27:14:29

So Justin, I’m going to kind of kick it over to you here. Give me a few traffic stop myths, some things that people think but aren’t actually accurate. Oh man. There’s so many out there. Some of the ones that we’ve talked about, you know, just being polite does not equate that they won’t want to search your car or that they’re not going to talk to you and try to be polite with you, and you’re going to start talking and all that.

01:27:15:06 – 01:27:32:16

If you were if I refuse sobriety test, they can’t arrest me. Or oh, this is an even better one for sobriety test, I passed them. Oh dude, I passed all the tests. And I know we talked about this in the deposed. They’re not pass fail. They’re looking for clues of impairment. That’s that’s what they’re looking. Preach on that for a moment, please.

01:27:32:18 – 01:27:54:28

Yeah. Field sobriety testing is not pass fail. You can’t pass them. You can’t fail them. What? Again? You said it. What are they looking for there for clues of impairment. Yeah. They’re divided attention tests. So they’re determining. Can this person do multiple things at once? Can they focus on standing in a certain position while also listening to the instructions and then complete?

01:27:54:29 – 01:28:15:09

You know, the test is instructed, which most people, if they’re intoxicated, can’t. If I refuse consent, the police cannot search my vehicle. Yes they can. They can get a warrant. Police can search anytime they smell marijuana. We know that that is no longer the law here in a well, marijuana alone. But again that’s odor of marijuana alone, nothing else.

01:28:15:09 – 01:28:35:16

So again, if you start making statements again 99% of the time, the cases I see where an officer walks up to the car and they smell marijuana. First question do you have a medical marijuana card most people know? And again, PC, a passenger in the vehicle can just get out and walk away. You know that’s not true.

01:28:35:18 – 01:28:56:20

Police can automatically search a passenger if they find drugs, guns, etc. in the car. Again, not true. Right? We talked about passenger rights is separate from vehicle rights of the driver. No you can’t record the police. Technically here in Pennsylvania you can. Should you again use your own judgment on that I would suggest it’s it’s not worth it.

01:28:56:20 – 01:29:19:18

Yeah. And then I would say the last one here is I have to answer questions to avoid looking suspicious. You do not say they look more suspicious. Yeah. Usually you’re creating suspicion by answering questions. And what you’re literally saying. All right, I want to just wrap this up, guys. What are the five, would you say biggest mistakes that people make during traffic stops?

01:29:19:18 – 01:29:42:01

And I’ll start this off. The number one biggest mistake is talking too much. You do not have to volunteer incriminating information about yourself, about the circumstances. People think that they’re literally going to like, talk themselves out of this whole problem and they say things thinking they’re going to talk themselves out of it or things are going to go better.

01:29:42:01 – 01:30:07:24

And instead they’re literally providing evidence and incriminating information about themselves. That’s just making the police’s day. It’s making their case. You do not have to talk. You don’t have to answer every question. If you don’t answer questions, they’re not going to suspend your license or anything like that. You have the right to remain silent. Other than, of course, identifying yourself and providing your documents, the officer asks you, where are you coming from?

01:30:07:24 – 01:30:27:12

Where are you headed? Have you had anything to drink tonight? Do you have anything illegal in this vehicle? I smell marijuana, what’s going on with that? You don’t have to respond to any of that, officer. I don’t answer questions. Leave it at that. Okay, the common examples that I see that really get people in trouble. We mentioned this in our DUI episode.

01:30:27:17 – 01:30:45:01

How have you been drinking the night? Yeah, but I only had two beers. It’s the two beer rule slash statement that people think is going to get them out of a vehicle. Stop. You have literally just told the officer that you have been drinking. You are getting out and doing fields. You’re getting given your blood, you’re getting a DUI.

01:30:45:03 – 01:31:06:05

Don’t even say anything. You don’t have to tell them I only had two beers. It’s not getting you out of a vehicle. Stop. The officer never, ever says, oh, only two beers. Have a nice day and they walk away. That never happens. It’s never going to happen. That literally is going to get them to then to go. Now we’re doing a full view as the officers concerned it you saying you had two beers is the same as you saying you had a whole 30 rack.

01:31:06:05 – 01:31:38:01

Yeah, it’s the same thing, right. It’s an admission used in the 60s anymore. Yeah. Right. Right. So okay, so that’s an obvious one. One with marijuana, we see a officer says, hey, you know, I smell marijuana. Yeah, but I smoked earlier. Yeah. And it’s probably you can still smell it because that. Well, again, you just told the cop you smoked weed and we said in our DUI episode, you know, marijuana stays in your system for quite a long while when it comes to how you metabolize it in your bloodstream, you’re literally admitting to having it in your system, and you’re going to end up getting a DUI and going through that full investigation.

01:31:38:07 – 01:32:00:14

Don’t say anything. You don’t have to answer those questions. It’s okay to do that. All right, Tim, tell me about number two. What would be another kind of five biggest mistakes that people make during traffic stops consenting to the search, I think and we we talked about earlier, when you consent, you aren’t making it impossible to challenge the search, but you’re making it very difficult at that point.

01:32:00:15 – 01:32:24:12

Yeah, we would have we essentially the only recourse is either they exceeded the scope of your consent or they coerced your consent. And those are both pretty high bars to clear. Yeah. Okay. Justin, back to you. Number three five biggest mistakes. Yes. Failing to understand the difference between field sobriety testing and chemical testing. People just assume that they’re the same thing.

01:32:24:13 – 01:32:47:08

They’re not. They’re different. The field sobriety tests are again the roadside examination. And they are voluntary, meaning you do not have to participate in them. You can decline to perform them. Chemical testing, which is the blood test. Or we are closely Lancaster County. I know Lancaster County does a lot of breath tests. Yes, but they do it at the station.

01:32:47:09 – 01:33:25:09

Yes. It’s not the portable breath test on scene where we’re not talking about a portable breath test or the pbht! We’re talking about an actual machine that’s calibrated. But that’s implied consent. So you have to consent to those if you do not consent to the blood or the breath test that carries a license suspension automatically. Because, again, like we talked about in the DUI, Pennsylvania, by driving on the roadway with the driver’s license, whether you are from Pennsylvania or have a Pennsylvania driver’s license or not, by driving, it’s implied that you will consent to a request for chemical search of your blood.

01:33:25:10 – 01:33:44:04

And if you refuse a breath test, it is automatic. Highest tier. They do not need to go get a warrant. Yeah, that is one difference between breath test and blood. Yeah, that’s actually an interesting point. I do think that’s worth noting. Thanks for doing that, Tim. All right. I’ll take it back to myself here for number four. Arguing on the side of the roadway with the cops is another big mistake that we see people make.

01:33:44:10 – 01:34:01:01

Here’s another public service announcement. The cops do not have to tell you in Pennsylvania why they pulled you over. Do not get into a situation where you were pulled over, and you immediately look at the cop and go, why’d you pull me over, officer, you got to answer that question. Tell me why you pulled me over. All you’re doing there is you’re being combative.

01:34:01:02 – 01:34:20:19

He does not need to tell you why he pulled you over. The roadside is rarely the place to litigate a constitutional issue about the vehicle stop. In fact, when I said rarely, I’m going to say never. It is never the place to do that. We do that later through the lawyer. Don’t start kicking and screaming and yelling and spitting and arguing with the cop.

01:34:20:19 – 01:34:39:28

It’s not worth it. Don’t refuse lawful commands or instructions. Even if you think they’re unlawful. We will figure that out later. Do not physically resist. Do not debate with the cops on the scene. That is not your role in this circumstance. That is literally why lawyers exist. That’s why we have jobs. That’s why we do this the way we do.

01:34:39:28 – 01:35:06:26

And we fix these things later for our clients. So comply. Be nice. Call us afterwards and we’ll get it fixed for you. Tim. Last one to you. Five biggest mistakes people make. What would you say the number five is? I mean, I in my opinion, I think it’s not maintaining your car in the first place because the biggest I think the best defense for against traffic stops is abiding by the rules of the road.

01:35:06:26 – 01:35:21:12

If you’re driving around and we’re not giving advice on how to break the law here, but if you’re if you’re riding with a key of Coke in your car and a bunch of illegal guns. Why are you. Why are you riding with an expired tag? Or why are you riding with no inspection? Why do you have tinted out windows on your car?

01:35:21:13 – 01:35:39:10

You have now drawn the attention to your vehicle, and that’s counterintuitive for some people because they think, well, I’m tending my windows because I want privacy. Well, but you’re actually drawing a lot of scrutiny. I would argue you actually have less privacy at that point, because the cops can pull you over just on suspicion that the tint is too much.

01:35:39:10 – 01:36:01:25

So maintain your car, keep it roadworthy, keep up with the inspection, keep up with the registration. Inspect your car periodically. Make sure that taillights and brake lights are now. Make sure that it’s actually you know you’re not going to get the police to pull you over in the first place. Because to stop all this stuff that happens downstream from the traffic stop, just stop the traffic stop.

01:36:01:27 – 01:36:24:14

Yeah. Don’t don’t be driving like an idiot either. Very good. All right, well, guys, I hope this helps you in traffic stops whenever, though. You see those red and blue lights in the back of your rear view mirror? How to conduct yourself. Let’s look at this. Look at this podcast. You’ll have your questions answered before you ever find yourself in that circumstance.

01:36:24:16 – 01:36:46:12

I’ll leave you with this thought. The people who get themselves into the most trouble during traffic stops usually aren’t the ones who know too little law. They’re the ones who start talking and exclaiming and volunteering information. We set it over and over in this episode. You’d have to do what you have to do, but you don’t have to do more than that.

01:36:46:14 – 01:37:08:20

The less evidence that you create on the side of that road, the more options I have later to fix this for you. Don’t create more evidence. That’s going to put me in a pigeonholed position that I can’t do anything to help you give me the best ammunition that I can have to fix this for you. Thanks so much for listening to our podcast on traffic Stops today.

01:37:08:22 – 01:37:33:18

This is Now We Defend podcast here at Kearney Law. We say it every episode. Please check us out on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, LinkedIn. Like us. Subscribe and interact with us. We’ve gotten a ton of questions in our last few episodes, and I love that we’ve been responding to those. We’re interacting with people. We’ve actually had people calling our office, and we’ve talked to him on the phone about different topics.

01:37:33:20 – 01:37:38:11

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