Can Police Have a Dog Sniff My Car Without My Permission? Can Police Search My Car without Permission Based on the “Alert” of a K-9 Unit? What if the Cops Said the Dog Alerted on My Car, but Then They Didn’t Find Any Drugs? What if the Cops Searched My …
View Larger Map Tooele County, Utah is a large, rural county 30 minutes west of Salt Lake City, with a couple small towns (Grantsville, Tooele), some mountains, salt flats, and one large, busy, east-west Highway (I-80). Like many places around the state and country, the local law enforcement folks in …
The internet these days is ripe with what I’m going to call Confrontationists and their videos. These videos feature a citizen (the Confrontationist) obstinately refusing to cooperate during an automobile stop at a DUI or immigration checkpoint. Checkpoints seem to work well because they’re predictable–at least on the short-term–and they …
Nothing to see here, just an officer and his attack dog about to have a nice, consensual conversation with this suspect. There’s this term you start hearing not long after starting law school: “Legal Fiction.” Basically, it describes something that the legal system accepts as true for convenience’s sake, despite the fact …
National Photo Company Collection. 1922. I’ve had several friends ask me about the ability of police to search their automobile when they get pulled over, no doubt worried about the cases of moonshine they keep stashed in the trunk or just curious about the extent of their constitutional rights. Confusion …