Video – Attorney Regina Tsombanakis Explains Police Search Procedures In A DUI Arrest

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

“So, when you say, search the car, let me ask the question, is it what they can see visually from outside the car, or can they go in the trunk and open the glove box, everything?”

Regina Tsombanakis– Criminal Defense Attorney – Broward County, FL

“They, usually it’s two ways, will ask for consent to search the car. A lot of people give them consent because they figure, they can’t. That’s one of the ways when they don’t have actual cause. Actual cause… let’s say, you get arrested for the DUI. Then they search your car prior to towing it, and it’s called an inventory search. If they find drugs or contraband or anything you shouldn’t have, you will get charged for that.

Those are the…and then if they stop you and say, ‘oh, I think I smell narcotics. I need to search the car’. Then they get you out and they can search your car, whether they find narcotics or not, they still have searched your car. They don’t find anything, and they just don’t leave you alone. So, it’s a public hazard… so they can search your car, if they think they smell narcotics. Not so much alcohol, because alcohol is something you drink, it’s not really something you have with you. You’re already drunk.

So, they’re stopping versus they may not know you’re under the influence of something, but they suppose. So, they say, ‘let me search your car? Do you have any drugs or alcohol?’ ‘No officer, of course not.’ Of course, he does. He forgot about the weed he had. And then you can’t do anything about that, because it’s a legal search. He asked you, you said yes.”