Minnesota civil rights laws regarding legal search and seizure, MN criminal code

Minnesota Viewed 751 times. Posted about 1 year ago in Civil Rights

Legal search: Friend pulled over for going 74mph in 70 mph zone. Officer said friends eyes looked glazed and asked if friend was smoking marijuana. Friend said no so officer took friend back to his car while he ran license and did paper work. Officer had dog in car and said dog detects drugs and proceeded to search car. Found small amt. of marijuana and paraphenalia. Is this a legal search?

Answers (2)

Nicholas John Perone

This attorney is licensed in Texas. Posted about 1 year ago.

Hello, I'm not a MN lawyer, so I can't answer your question. However, you can read attorneys' opinions about other situations where people have questioned car searches here: http://www.avvo.com/search/answer_search?q=search+car&loc=#has_answers_b=true

Thomas C Gallagher

This attorney is licensed in Minnesota. Posted about 1 year ago.

Yes, the advice is retain a good lawyer to help avoid a guilty plea, conviction, and suspension of drivers license. If a driver violates a traffic law, generally police can legally stop the driver to issue a citation or warning. If there are no facts or circumstances to justify prolonging the detention beyond what it should take to write a ticket or warning, then the stop may be deemed illegal by a court following a defense motion. Dog searches can be challenged on various grounds as well. More information would be needed to better analyze whether the search was illegal. Only the lawyer handling it would be in a polsition to form a good opinion on that.

FFI: http://www.liberty-lawyer.com/drugcrimecharges.html or call me.