Has Anyone Ever had an LEO Attempt to Talk Them into Consenting to Search?
Many of these replies are witty and amusing.
But in almost 16 years as a part time LEO, I have never seen an officer attempt to coerce someone into giving consent to search. I have never heard "Are you hiding anything?" or "If there's nothing there, why won't you let me look?"
The rules are: Make a legitimate stop for a legitimate violation of the IVC (Illinois Vehicle Code), conduct your enforcement action (citation, written warning, etc.), make the driver aware that the stop has ended ("Sir, here is your written warning for driving with one headlight, you are free to go, drive carefully.). Then ask for consent to search; "By the way, we've had a lot of problems around here with people carrying illegal drugs, you don't have anything you aren't supposed to have, marijuana, cocaine, Mac-10s, small nuclear devices on you, do you?" To which they will usually reply; "No!" "Would you mind if I looked just to make sure?" If the answer is yes they would mind, you then have two choices, thank the subject and leave, or if you do have strong suspicions and no probable cause, you can detain the subject for a few minutes while a K9 is brought in to walk around the vehicle. If the K9 "hits" you have probable cause to search and you may continue with the enforcement action. If not you must let the subject go. You can't detain them very long while waiting for the K9 either.
These are the rules in Illinois. I can't speak for other jurisdictions. Here any attempt to coerce consent to search could make the entire action illegal. Policy here is that the subject must have been made aware that the traffic enforcement action is over and he/she is free to go BEFORE asking for consent to search.
Criminal patrol techniques like this keep us all safe and solve a lot of crimes. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. Some officers and even some entire departments have abused this as part of fighting the "war on drugs". Let's make them adopt fair, consistant policies. No officer I know, asks for consent to search on every stop he/she makes.
Policing a free society is a very difficult job, you always walk a narrow line between your job which requires you to keep society safe and the Bill of Rights that protects everyone from unreasonable intrusions by the government. Many of you have posted that you'd never been asked for consent to search. The most likely reason is that you never set off the officer's "sixth sense" or BS meter. Basically, after some time on the job, and with some formal training in certain indicators, you just sense that something is not as it seems with the subject of your traffic stop. Well, the 4th Amendment rightfully makes no provisions for the "sixth sense" of a police officer. The courts given us guidelines like those I work under that allows society to benefit from the experience and instincts of it's police officers, but does not permit them to trample the rights of other citizens.
I know some of you will find even those rules too broad. It's not easy, it's a fine line to walk, and individual officers and even whole departments sometimes step across. Let's sanction those who can't work within the guidlines they are given, but let's not cover the whole profession with this broad brush of being gestapo and police state like.
Jeff
