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InvisibleSimplepowa
In Pursuit of Knowledge


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 4,310
Trouble in Transit: What to do if police stop you on the way to a music festival
    #19236685 - 12/06/13 01:50 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

December 4, 2013 by The Festival Lawyer Leave a Comment

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When Phish played at Outside Lands a few years back, I happened to run into a very cool group of their fans waiting for the shuttle bus. They told me they were from New York and were following the band across the country. We talked about how followers of the band really tried to welcome newer fans and teach them some of the traditions and ideals of being a “Phan”. They ended by telling me a few “war stories” from different tours they had followed.

I love people who are this passionate about music. So this article is for all you Phans, Bassheads, Pretty Lights Family members, DMB and Widespread Panic followers and all you other “festies” who are going to be logging serious miles as you travel to your next show or festival.

Or to put it another way — Here is what to do if the police stop you ON YOUR WAY to a music festival.

Come-Back-with-a-Warrent

TRAVEL TIP #1: At your home you are a “King in a Castle”

Wait, if I’m writing an article about travel issues, then why am I starting with your rights when the police come to your house?

Because the question of what rights you have at a particular location (like whether the police need a warrant or what’s considered an “unreasonable search”) often depends on how much the location is like a home. The law calls this a “reasonable expectation of privacy”.

Your privacy rights are at their strongest when you are in your own home. In fact this tradition is so strong it is sometimes called the “Castle Doctrine”. This come from the English Common Law phrase “An Englishman’s home is his castle.” (English Common Law is sort of the “Old School” or “Vinyl” version of American law.)

You probably already know that the police must get a search warrant before they are allowed to search your home unless there is some kind of legal exception like “exigent circumstances”.

What you also need to know is that one of the other most common exceptions where the police don’t need a search warrant is when the owner gives consent or permission for the cops to search the house.

Cops actually kind of hate getting search warrants. It’s a little bit of a pain for them to do as a practical matter and they aren’t keen on running their probable cause by a Judge. So cops will often try to avoid the need for a search warrant by doing what they call a “Knock and Talk”.

Like the trailer for a new Jennifer Aniston comedy, a “Knock and Talk” seems like it would be a lot more fun that it actually ends up being. A “Knock and Talk” involves the cops knocking at your door and asking, “Say, if you don’t have anything to hide, how about we come into your house and take a look around?”

In other words, like vampires, cops can only come into your home (without a warrant) if you invite them in.

Okay, as the Arctic Monkeys song says, “Perhaps vampires is a bit strong,” but you get the point — If an officer wants to search your home you should assume you are a suspect in a criminal investigation. Act accordingly. Remain silent and ask for a lawyer. The only thing you should say is:

“Officer, I can’t let you inside without a search warrant.”

Don’t worry if you can’t remember this phrase, you can get a doormat to remind you.

Fear-and-Loathing2

TRAVEL TIP #2: Hotel Room Searches

“Our hotel room looked like the site of some disastrous zoological experiment involving whiskey and gorillas.” –Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I recently had some folks tweet me to say that they were staying at a hotel for a concert and cops were basically going up and down the hallways of the hotel banging on doors and saying “Police, open up” and randomly searching rooms. They asked what rights they had in that situation.

The legal issue here is…you guessed it…whether you have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in your hotel room.

To determine if you have a “reasonable expectation of privacy”, the law asks questions like:

    Are you there lawfully?
    Is it private property?
    Do you have any ownership rights there?
    Can you eject people from the location?
    Can you yell “Hey you kids get off my goddamn lawn!?”

(Hint — one of the prongs of this test was really just a joke to see if you are still paying attention.)

Generally, if you are using your hotel room in an ordinary way, then you have a limited right to privacy in that room. In other words, police will usually need to get a search warrant.

On the other hand, if the hotel believes that you are using your room for illegal activity, then hotel management has the right to enter and search your room without your permission.

Importantly, the manager of the hotel can’t give the police permission to search your room. But there are all kinds of other ways cops can search without getting a warrant. For example, if you open the door and people are openly using drugs in “plain view” of the cops, they can probably search. Or if they do a “knock and talk” and someone else in your room says “come in” they can probably search.

Bottom line: Don’t use your hotel room like Dr. Gonzo (i.e. openly engaging in illegal activity). Tell the folks staying in your room to be cool and not to give anyone permission to come into the room. Don’t consent to any searches and don’t be tricked into thinking that management can somehow give the police permission to search your room.

Even though it’s not your actual house, you still have a right to be free from harassment and random searches of your room without a warrant. Just like Borat when he entered his hotel room and found a chair, you too are a “King in your Castle” in your hotel room.

Jay-Z_opt

TRAVEL TIP #3: Car Stops…Or maybe Jay-Z actually had 100 problems.

People constantly ask me what to do if the police stop their car. Although I love the song and I think Jay-Z is a genius, people are also constantly misquoting his song “99 problems” for one of the biggest legal myths out there.

The second verse of the song is fictional, but based on a true story. The cops want to search his car (loaded with cocaine), he refuses, they wait for drug-sniffing dogs that never show up, and Mr. Carter gets away with it. During this conversation, Jay-Z says:

“Well, my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk and the back, and I know my rights so you gon’ need a warrant for that.”

The good thing the narrator does in this song, and something YOU should always do, is refuse to give the police consent to search his car. Specifically, he tells the officer “No, I don’t consent to any search.”

But unlike what the song suggests, the police never needed a warrant in the first place. The courts have declared that there is an “automobile exception” to the normal requirement of a search warrant. That’s because cars are very mobile and can easily be moved to destroy evidence. Also, cars are highly regulated and usually in a public place. Cars in public places without privacy rights = no “reasonable expectation of privacy”.

Police must still have some facts or evidence to believe you are involved in criminal activity (probable cause) or they can’t search the car. This could be the sight or smell of contraband or a weapon in plain view.

Although not nearly as catchy, the legally correct phrasing of that verse should have been “I know my rights so you gon’ need probable cause for that.”

By the way, Jay-Z wrote in his book that the “bitch” in question is not an unpleasant woman but a drug-sniffing dog. The “100th” problem would have been the cop using a “bitch” (drug dog) to search his car.

If so, he’s lucky the year “was 94” when his “trunk was raw”. That’s because after that, in a case called Illinois v. Caballes, the Supreme Court ruled that the 4th Amendment doesn’t EVEN APPLY to the use of drug sniffing dogs during car stops. So, if cops have you legally stopped they can freely use a dog to search.

I’ve got a whole future project I’m working on that is going to cover your rights in a car stop in a lot more detail. But here is an excellent summary from the folks at Flex Your Rights which gives you plenty of information about how to handle yourself if the police stop your car.

[...] - Read the rest of the article by following the link, lots of image and stuff

http://showbams.com/2013/12/04/trouble-in-transit-what-to-do-if-police-stop-you-on-the-way-to-a-music-festival/


--------------------
Carl Sagan - "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."

---

Robert Pirsig - "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."

---

Brian Cox - "[One] problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense."


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Offlineempty space
the void

Registered: 12/19/12
Posts: 1,120
Last seen: 6 years, 10 months
Re: Trouble in Transit: What to do if police stop you on the way to a music festival [Re: Simplepowa]
    #19239271 - 12/07/13 12:52 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Other than the painfully corny pop references, this was a very informative article. :thumbup:


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Invisiblevandago
 User Gallery


Registered: 07/07/04
Posts: 20,917
Loc: .
Re: Trouble in Transit: What to do if police stop you on the way to a music festival [Re: empty space]
    #19239542 - 12/07/13 04:35 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

I had my hotel room searched in arkansas once, strictly because we had beards, dreadlocks, and grateful dead shirts on.

Two shroomerites were actually with me...luckily nothing was out in plain view, and I knew where I stood with my rights.  I let the manager poke his head in the room to verify there was no drugs in plain site, then promptly told him I would file harassment charges if he persisted to search my room....

I ended up calling corporate and reporting them....so their owner actually drove to the hotel to have me and my friend searched in his office, where he told us we immediatly seemed like scum over our shirts and beards....He asked me to turn out my pockets and empty my bag....which I did and I was completely clean....


It ended up with him forcing someone I was with to go to the hospital, or he was going to call the cops ( he thought she was dopesick, but she was really just sick ).  If there hadn't actually been drugs in the room I would've told him to shove his bigot cock up his own ass, but I had to comply.....and ended up at a walmart clinic.


You gotta really stay on your toes on the road.


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InvisibleJvells
Unity
 User Gallery


Registered: 11/05/09
Posts: 3,031
Loc: East coast Flag
Re: Trouble in Transit: What to do if police stop you on the way to a music festival [Re: empty space]
    #19242526 - 12/07/13 08:38 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

empty space said:
Other than the painfully corny pop references, this was a very informative article. :thumbup:




To determine if you have a “reasonable expectation of privacy”, the law asks questions like:

    Are you there lawfully?
    Is it private property?
    Do you have any ownership rights there?
    Can you eject people from the location?
    Can you yell “Hey you kids get off my goddamn lawn!?”

(Hint — one of the prongs of this test was really just a joke to see if you are still paying attention.)



like really? lololllll


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