He can't say the officer violated his privacy he was asked to pop the hood and did, officers are very much allowed to ask to inspect and once you give them permissions they are legally entitled to look, OP fucked up by not knowing his right to refuse the cop looking under the hood, drawing un-needed attention with his missing front plate and (his visible radar detector? I assume that's what he meant when he said the cop saw his radar, unless OP fucked up his sentence structure)

But yeah if you are driving illegal mods for the area you are in then try to be as low key as possible (that involves no blatantly visible infractions like no front plate)

That makes no sense to me, if it is really as you say then you should have fought it and won easily, I've had similar shit happen to me (for greenstuff) and I just laughed at the cop, he was being a giant **** until he found my fully highlighted penal code then started to refer to me as Sir as he knew he was fucked from then on. I then proceeded to a non guilty plea bargain(paper statement) with what had happened and case was dropped before even making it to court.

The day I let an asshole powertripping cop take advantage of me is the day after the day of my death, not all cops are bad but the ones that are need to be put back in their place.

Wraith is an idiot (I kid but his statement was idiotic) and does not understand how laws work apparently, it wasn't an illegal search as OP agreed to let the cop search his vehicle (Cop: sir I'm gonna want to look under your hood for modifications. OP: ok go ahead / OP has now agreed to the search meaning it is lawful; now if OP had said he does not consent and the cop proceeded to pop the hood anyways then there would be ground for illegal/abusive search).

Same thing with you home if you agree to let the officer perform the search he then has your consent and nothing illegal about it (only exception is if he coerced or threatened the OP to search, I.E. If you don't let me search your car I'll have it towed and you thrown in jail, etc.)

Officers are by all means allowed to ask to inspect/search if you then agree it is your own undoing should they find something that could be held against you in a court of law

This and this... Op says it clearly: next thing I know he asked me to pop my hood (ask, therefore implying OP then agreed and that the search was indeed legal and lawful).

Sucks for him but people really need a better understanding of laws that concern them (still baffles me that they don't teach that kind of thing in school instead of useless things like advanced calculus which only 1% of the people will end up needing whereas everyone should be aware of their rights and how to defend/uphold them):word:

good luck with that in West Covina ... The worst place to be pulled over. The judges always listen to the cops over the civilians. I've lost another case there for headlights and the fucking cop said I drove a 1500 Chevy and I clarified that to the judge and he still said didnt matter...

But the whole time ... I said no because I refused for illegal search and seizures. They still took me out of the car and cuffed me...

The bar for probable cause for CARB stuff isn't that high...

They can just say: exhaust smelled strong on idle. sounds loud/wrong. could see muffler was different.

When there's so many other things you can modify on your car, I don't understand why people are drawn towards the illegal ones. Unless you are timetrialing or in a race group or something, then just trailer your car in.



edit: it doesn't even fall under probable cause. the bar isn't even that high. you basically can't refuse.
http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96096

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1.../d2/c4/a1/2804

Well sorry that happened to you buddy but it's one thing to claim something in court and another to be able to formulate it where it can't be refuted with legal arguments. Sadly I agree it's not necessarily what arguments you bring to the table but how well you are able to formulate it and how well you can pick apart other arguments that they make against you (something I excel at doing, I always try to attack the cop's and attorney's credibility flip there words around, if they leave place for interpretation lead them to walk into the wrong interpretation).

Had a case once where I got the credibility of the officer dismissed simply by finding small absences of details and the way they had worded their statement (one of those was about how I had an unbalanced step/measure[was in French so it was actually demarche] while waiting for an elevator which I refuted that I couldn't have a unbalanced step while standing still. Also said he saw the top of my car belt meaning

I didn't have it buckled to which my response was a photo of my car where it's missing the little button that prevents the belt from dropping meaning my belt is always on the ground if not buckled and therefore office could never have seen it, never said whether or not I had it on just demolished his statement without addressing whether it was on or not)

Basically you try to make them walk into a trap, create a hypothetical situation that will help confirm your statement and destroy his. I.e. So sir you state you saw the top of the buckle hanging off the side of my red sentra? Correct, could you then explain why in this photo there is clearly a ford E-450 with no windows blocking your field of view from my car? huh..huh Could you also explain how you could've seen the buckle in this photo when clearly the belt, buickled or not would not be visible to you outside the car? huh well... And can you confirm 100% that there were no other red vehicles similar to mine in the same time lapse and that the information you relayed to your partner was not vague enough for him to mistake my red car for another? Well I'm pretty sure but I can't be a 100% since... Well then sir you agree there is a possibility that you may have inadvertently stopped the wrong vehicle, etc.

What were you plea bargaining for? A lesser charge? You don't plea bargain for a not guilty you simply plead not guilty.
You just laughed at the cop while he was searching your car?

I was a criminal charge, again I'm French so may have lost some words in translation :). What I meant is I sent a written statement and that was enough for it to be dismissed (also had photos of blue wrist from the handcuffs).

I didn't exactly laugh at the cop but I did laugh at the statements he was making and what he was implying. Just kept repeating to him after every sentence that was he was doing was considered an abusive search and that none of the findings he would make would be admissible in court, which they were not as they were obtained by abused of authority and failure to comply with my human rights as described in the Canadian Charter of Human Rights.

Nah, no need. Just look out the plane window as you descend into the LA region, you can clearly see a layer of smog every time you fly in.

Makes for beautiful sunsets, though. Everything is absurdly red or purple in the summertime.

-alex

What had happened is he pulled me over in a parking lot because I had just parked there. Worst is I parked there because I didn't want to text while driving(obey the law) and I was texting one of my good friend (was waiting for him to come back to his place so I could go there) to tell him if he had been drinking to let me know and I would be on my way to pick him up as I didn't want him to drive under the influence.

Apparently in his head that means I was there to smoke up while waiting for someone to come buy so I could sell him stuff (social/age based profiling I guess was only 25 at the time)

Quelle excuse pour la recherche? Etait il une odeur ou quelque chose a voir?
Grammer and spelling probably suck but...

Canada law and California law are not the same.

In regards to what Jsimon?

basic human rights are the same and they prime over any other laws meaning don't care where you are in the US or Canada but the right to privacy still applies as does abuse of authority and other things of that nature. The process is different and the fine points may also be different.