Hacker News Reader

Comment by pbourke | Hacker News Reader

> The lesson here is clear: do not cooperate with the police. They are not your friend, they are not trustworthy, and they will hurt you, badly, and suffer no consequences.

Would that have changed the outcome in this case?

View on HN

Hard to say, but he voluntarily informed the police he had a large amount of money with him in the car during a routine traffic stop.

We know for sure that this cooperation led to the money being seized. We can't know if staying silent would have led to a different outcome.

According to the article, the officer directly asked him if he had a large amount of US currency in the car. There's no way to weasel out of answering that kind of direct question if you've already been cooperative with other questions. It's possible, though uncertain, that he might have kept his money by categorically refusing to talk from the start of the stop.

With state cops you are allowed to lie under many circumstances (exceptions: identification, under oath, on reports and forms).

He could have just straight up lied, or interpreted the question in a way favorable to him (I thought you meant millions, not less than $100k).

He cooperated at all points and was doing nothing wrong. The logical conclusion is that being truthful and cooperative is not going to keep you out of trouble.

"This doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the traffic stop, so respectfully I'm going to exercise my fifth amendment rights on principle".

Your statement is wrong. You are allowed to stop answering questions at any time and request legal council.

If you suddenly clam up when they get to a specific question, they're probably going to be able to guess the answer.

That's why the statement at the top of this thread is

> The lesson here is clear: do not cooperate with the police

Suddenly clamming up is a problem, doing so less suddenly is not (I'm elsewhere in this thread roughly advocating for clamming up about anything not directly related to the traffic stop)

Clamming up when a patrol officer goes off script means nothing more than you know that he knows that you know he's off script.

In the US, that doesn't mean anything legally speaking. They might know then that this means you have a lot of cash on you, but that's not probably cause for a search. They still have to get permission or a warrant to search.

I don’t know about probable cause for a search, but legally speaking, clamming up to a specific question, as opposed to explicitly invoking the 5th amendment right, currently means something in trial, as ruled in Salinas v. Texas.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-246

I don’t see how telling the officer you have $87k is probable cause for a search, anyway.

Isn't it a probable cause to search your car, since it's the car and the cash that has broken the law, and has no rights to privacy?

No.

First, it is not illegal to have a car or cash.

Second, in the US at least the government does recognize a limited right to privacy in the form of the 4th amendment which spies to States as well. An officer cannot search you, your car or your home without a warrant from a judge or a tangible reason to believe you are committing a crime.

Or if you agree to a search!

> the officer directly asked him if he had a large amount of US currency in the car.

That’s a very specific question. Did the officer already know the answer?

I think they ask everyone that question so they can take the money. It's a very profitable question when the cops get to keep the money

> officer directly asked him if he had a large amount of US currency

That reminds me of something I think I read. Is there are companies that specialize in identifying motorists that are carrying large amounts of cash. They make money by selling that info to the police.

Can you put more info on this? :)

The correct way to handle this during a routine stop is to inform the officer that you do not answer questions. In the US, you are not required to answer any questions.

Also, the police have a limited time to conduct the stop. Once they give you back your license, you can immediately leave regardless of what the officer requests that you do. The stop is over at that point, and they cannot legally detain you any longer.

Just a few days ago, I made the mistake of telling the police how much cash I had with me after they stopped the taxi I was sitting in (a few hundred euros). This happened in the middle of the night in a foreign country (France), so I didn't dare to disobey their orders. They took the cash and drove away. It turned out they were not real officers, but only dressed up as such for the purpose of robbing gullible tourists...

The taxi could have been in on it -- its a trick that is normally used in poorer countries but looks like its reached the EU.

I had this same thing happen to me in NYC, outside JFK airport. Not limited to poorer countries at all.

But remember, folks, rideshare services are unregulated and potentially unsafe.

Over here (Uruguay), rideshare services are way more reliable for tourists.

I have family from the countryside, and while they're not robbed outright, they're driven on the most inefficient way that drives up the meter.

Tourists can pay up to 100 dollars for a trip from the airport for example (legally if morally questionable).

A similar trip on a rideshare is less than half, but they're banned from the airport.

Plus, taxi drivers are unionized and are terrible drivers, while rideshare drivers are regularly kicked out if they give substandard service.

The same situation in many developing countries around the world. The local taxi cartels have been using lobbying and outright violence to keep ride-sharing services away / banned.

NYC is poorer country, in a lot of people's cases.

Did you go to the police?

That sounds like an instance of the old saying, "Got a problem? Call the police. Now you have two problems."

There was no probable cause to search the car, so possibly. It is possible that the police would have used their drug dog to manufacture probable cause anyway.

I suspect there are some missing details. Why was the original stopping officer following him for so long looking for an excuse to pull him over?

They need probable cause to bring in a dog. He should have refused to allow them to search his vehicle or answer any of their questions.

> They need probable cause to bring in a dog.

AFAIK this is only true in a very limited set of local jurisdictions.

The use of drug dogs to manufacture probable cause is pretty well documented.

My understanding of US law (which could be wrong) is that they need probable cause everywhere in the US if it's going to extend the duration of the stop.

You have to explicitly ask to leave, and they'll ask you to get out of the car anyway as soon as you say you don't consent to a search. Depending on how long it takes the dogs to arrive you could argue about it in court, but good luck.

>They need probable cause to bring in a dog.

Cops have lots of practice with the rights words to say about the person's driving, behavior, appearance, and so on. Or the right things to see. Like a ziploc bag, even if there's sandwich crumbs in it. Or ashes, "residue" (i.e. brown spots on anything), etc. Or constricted pupils, even though it's sunny outside and therefore expected.

My favorite one I saw was Krispy Kreme leftovers being "meth". https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/16/558147669...

Yep. I had a cop tell me he would use anything hanging from a rearview mirror as a pretense for a traffic stop.

Know the law if you want to avoid being harassed by bad factions of it.

(That is to say: hanging things from the rearview, legally speaking, is against law in many jurisdictions — and distracting, for many humans!)

Technically, they only need probable cause if they don't have the dogs with them.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-police-use-dogs-...

He still should not have cooperated, of course. Any extra effort you force the cops to go through gives you some protection.

"I smelled marijuana".

In many rural areas the police harrassing out of towners is normal

Reply on news.ycombinator.com