Hypothetical situation. Person A and friends go out at night on a college campus with some weed in a backpack to smoke up. They sit on a bench somewhere by the woods, pack a pipe, and smoke up. They finish up, put the weed and pipe in the backpack, put the pack on the ground, and just chill out. Then a cop comes up and starts bothering them, and eventually asks if he can search the bag. Each person in the group denies that the bag is theirs and each refuses consent to a search the bag (after all, it's not his). What can the cop do here? If no one is claiming the bag, no one gives consent to search the bag, and he can't determine whose bag it is, can he search the bag? If so, and he finds the weed, can he charge all of the guys with possession? How would this play out? Just curious. Thanks!!!
If nobody is claiming it, he'll probably search it. Cops tend to assume that consent exists until you make it abundantly clear that it does not. It's not a backpack parking zone, he'll say he checked a suspicious bag for identification. If there's weed, and your proximity to it makes it obvious that it's yours, he'll probably either charge the closest one, the person who seemed like a ringleader or the legal brains of the operation, or everybody. Obviously if there's ID in the bag, that person will be charged in the long run, even if not right away. If you have a notebook with a name or something in it, the jig is up. You give up the right to control the bag and refuse search, but you don't gain any freedom from your obvious association with it. If nobody says anything but a reasonable person would assume that the bag belongs to one of you, you're probably all getting charged.
I'd say everyone would get charged. I got pulled over when I was 18 or 19 and someone in my car had some pot that they stashed under the seat (once we got pulled over...that motherfucker!) The short story is that my GF was with us and the cop said either someone claimed it or all of us go to jail. I claimed it and then beat the charge in court. If my GF hadn't have been with us I probably would have let those guys go down with me (or just told the cops who it belonged to since they obviously didn't care if I got into trouble for them....which I could have done either way.)
they will probably threaten to charge everyone if one doesn't "man up". you might not get convicted on the charges tho. i would imagine that the case might get thrown out in the situation that everyone gets charged for the same sack of weed .. or they could charge you all with possession or marijuana and organized crime.
everyone goes to jail if nobody wants to claim it depends on the cop. some will arrest the person closest to the dope. e.g. if its found in right rear of vehicle the person sitting there goes to jail
Why is a city police officer policing the college campus? Most campus's have their own security/police, so unless there was already a crime being investigated, the police most likely wouldn't even be there. plus it all depends on what state you are in and the state's laws. I'm in California and in a scenario such as that the cop most likely wouldn't do anything except maybe enforce the school's policy about weed on campus. But it wouldn't be cost effective for the cop to hassle them because possession of an ounce or less is a simple infraction, fine not to exceed $100, no jail time, nothing on your permanent record, it's like getting a ticket for spitting on the sidewalk, although I think the fines for spitting would be more than $100. So him just stopping and taking the time to search the backpack will have already burned any $$$$ to be recouped by the city/state unless he got lucky and the boys had a few pounds in the backpack, then it would be worth the cops time. So in what state does this unlikely, hypothetical scenario take place?
Here in freedom-loving texas, campus police are legit peace officers and are under the local PD dispatch, doing normal stuff as "agency assists" and campus stuff on their own. And what with the freedom and all, they'll take as many hours of sitting around and grilling people as they need to arrest as many people as they can, if there's any possibility of weed anywhere.
???? for some reason I thought you lived in California. Get yur ass outta Texas... Get yur ass outta Texas... Get yur ass outta Texas... Get yur ass outta Texas... (imagine Arnold telling you that)
I think your chances of getting searched in that scenario are extremely low unless the cop saw you smoking weed before he approached you.
Family here, great scenery/outdoors area, great roads, no california emissions fascism (I could NOT drive my car there), residency established here, and I want to fix texas, not leave it. If we're going to make our 2019 pot legalization projection, we need liberals to stick around - it's a state with a LOT of liberal sentiment, just badly gerrymandered and with a nasty law enforcement culture - but it can be fixed. Texas MUST be fixed, because it's a conservative pace-setter in washington. When you fix a problem in texas, it gets a lot easier to handle elsewhere - when you have a problem in texas (for example, re-writing the textbooks) it effects lots of places and people.
so reducing pollution is a bad thing? Thanks, but I will keep my emissions fascism along with my medical marijuana and impending legalization (2016 we hope) and generally less oppressive culture all around. don't know why, I always thought you lived somewhere north of L.A. :dizzy2:
Reducing pollution is great, but starting with industry would be a lot greater than requiring my old worn car to do things it can't. California has already screwed up legalization repeatedly - not just for california, but for all of us, with the bullshit that "stoners against prop19" type stuff spawned. You even think it will happen in 2016? As you fail things more times, passing it gets less likely, it's easier to paint it as something that's been tried and that everyone knows failed, where tried, so they voted to keep that in colorado, or some shit like that.
