Recently I was hired to defend a young man who was charged with one felony count of possession of marijuana. The entire amount seized by the police was 34.5 grams – just enough to be considered a felony by Mississippi law. According to a witness in the vehicle, the officer explained why he pulled my client over: “You have an out of county tag, and you were driving through this neighborhood late at night.”
Here at Coxwell & Associates, we hear many different versions of traffic stops when we work cases, but I had never heard a witness say something to this effect. I advised them that when we receive the discovery in this case we would be able to determine exactly why the officer pulled my client over that night. If we had the facts on our side, a suppression hearing may be our best route.
A few months later after my client was indicted and arraigned, we requested all of the evidence the State had against my client. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as the local rules regarding discovery, basically demands the prosecution furnish to the defendant this evidence. Everyone has the right to confront those who have evidence against them, and a good criminal defense attorney will search through the evidence to understand exactly what the state intends to prove at trial. In this case, the report actually stated exactly what the witness had told me. My client was “guilty” of driving at night with an out of county tag, so in the mind of the officer, he could conduct a traffic stop and then search the vehicle without my client’s consent. The United States Supreme Court and even the Mississippi Supreme Court begs to differ with the officer on this issue.