Cops remove license plate in order to obtain probable cause

If you don't have probable cause just fabricate it, say drug enforcers and some TX prosecutors
Speaking of informants, on the Texas prosecutors' user forum a self-identified DEA agent named Bill sought to justify a traffic stop where drugs were found using probable cause agents had overtly fabricated. They didn't want to admit in court they were acting an a possibly unreliable informant, so took the liberty of manufacturing probable cause for a traffic stop by stealing the front license plate from the car the suspect was driving. Here's his story:

I have a federal prosecutor who has some questions with this. Maybe some DA's can shed some light. The federal AUSA [Assistant US Attorney] just has some legal concerns, he is trying to do the right thing and is working with us. In any event, here it is:

An informant gets called to run a load of dope. Fine. He provides the load vehicle, which is driven away to the stash house by a criminal load driver. Prior to the load driver picking up the car, law enforcement removes the front plate, on purpose, so that marked patrol units, working with narcotics task force, will have PC to stop the car. Narcotics task force supervisors and police patrol supervisors discuss this gameplan and everyone agrees it will be fine.

Load gets loaded. Vehicle gets stopped, upon observation by Texas peace officers who witness first hand that the vehicle is in violation of traffic law, with no front plate. Drugs are in plain view thru the glass, and driver consents to search. Drugs seized. Driver arrested. Case expanded on. Everyone high-fives each other.

AUSA feels that the fact that law enforcement "created" the PC, that some issues may come up down the road, such as at discovery. AUSA is also concerned that he may have to "reveal" that this PC was pre-orchestrated to the defense and that an informant was really involved.

We explain the concept of "wall-off" and how PC did legally exist to make the stop, created by us or not.

(As an aside, UC agents use deception and dupery all the time to buy dope. Is the PC for those arrests "bad" because of such tactics?....etc etc)

Can someone share their insight and quote some case law so that I may talk my AUSA? Any "interdiction" experts or similar is helpful also.

quote:
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502.404. OPERATION OF VEHICLE WITHOUT LICENSE PLATE OR REGISTRATION INSIGNIA. (a) A person commits an offense if the person operates on a public highway during a registration period a passenger car or commercial motor vehicle that does not display two license plates, at the front and rear of the vehicle, that have been:.......

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The code states "does not display" it does not say "if removed by law enforcement, this section is not in force" etc etc language

Again, the AUSA is a good guy but might benefit from some additional info from the field on this.

By the way, we could be 100% wrong on this too...

any info is appreciated however
Keep in mind, according to this passage, not just the DEA but an unnamed narcotics task force and also local police "discuss[ed] this gameplan and everyone agree[d] it will be fine." In other words, this kind of skullduggery, to those officers and their agencies, anyway, is just business as usual.

To their credit, several prosecutors said it did not pass the smell test. One ADA declared "The ONLY reason why they stopped the vehicle was because it was TAMPERED with by law enforcement officers! All that dope is fruit of the poisonous tree and you will be lucky if the prep doesn't turn around and sue you guys for violating his civil rights!!"

But I was astonished to see others suggest the scenario was okay, including an ADA from LaGrange who declared:

I don't see a problem with taking the plate off. Law enforcement will often hand the defendant the drugs and then arrest him for possession. The question is did the defendant operate the vehicle without the front license plate.
Damn! Just take off the license plate off then pull him over for not having it? Or more astonishing, hand them dope and then arrest them for possession? No, no entrapment there, huh? A regular commenter, Jimbeaux, suggested, "Why don't you just cut the brake lines and arrest him when he goes through a stop sign?" No kidding!

Here's my question: Why isn't the officer charged with theft of the license plate? No one suggested such a thing on the prosecutors string, but you have to wonder. And why would it be worth police engaging in all this mendacity to keep their informant from being scrutinized in court? Maybe because the informant is more culpable than his handlers are letting on. My guess: there's a lot more backstory to this informant's involvement than meets the eye.



http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2007/07/fabricated-probable-cause-just-fine-for.html

What do ya'll think on something like this? If they're setting him up with a car to run a load with, and know they'll be busting the guy, is it cool to just remove the car's plates before he takes the load?

In Texas, the cops just do whatever they want. The driver consented to the search, so there really isn't anything they can do.

My mdvice to all:
Never consent to a search ever, even if you don't have anything to hide, try to keep your windows rolled up when the stop you. Lock your doors if they ask you to step out.

Of course, they may search anyway, and say that you did give them consent, or they had reason. As the way the law is now, the feds can actually pretty much do anything at all.. They don't need a warrant, they don't have to grant you any rights, can search anything without permission, etc. And I would imagine that as invasive as the law has gotten in the US, in Texas, its probably worse.

Mulberryman, what do you think of the issue of them purposely removing the front license plate from the vehicle before he was gonna grab a load, solely so they could use that as probable cause to pull him over? He still drove a car w/o a front license plate, although they created that scenario unbeknownst to him, so do you think that should be valid probable cause?

Of course its not probable cause, but in practice they don't really need probable cause anymore... This kind of thing is probably very common. In Detroit, they don't even care about the big time dealers anymore. If they bust the big timers then they won't be able to bust 10 more middlemen next month. In California, they have one police force that is paid only by civil asset forfeture. The law enforcement industry is now entirely based on legalized corruption in this country.

Why isn't it probable cause? He knowingly got into that car, shouldn't it be his responsibility to verify his car was in proper legal working order before driving? If it wasn't probable cause, does that mean the cops committed a crime by removing it in the first place?

It's crooked police work. Cops can't create pc in order to search for other evidence or crimes. That goes against the whole concept of pc.

As for the comparison to cops doing reverse stings, well that's completely different. In reverse stings the cops don't fabricate anything to search the suspects. The suspect solicited the uc cop to purchase drugs.

bingalpaws said:

Why isn't it probable cause? He knowingly got into that car, shouldn't it be his responsibility to verify his car was in proper legal working order before driving?

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ARE YOU FOR REAL?!

"why can't the cops plant heroin in your car and then arrest you for possesion, its your responsibility to make sure you're not driving with contraband"

The police created the condition here that lead to the arrest, if anyone else had done this it would have been theft and probably some kind of state tampering charge.

This whole situation is fucked up, but I'm not surprised its coming out of Texas.
Corruption in that state and cover up runs rampant.

All these stories about what cops, agents, and whoever can do is getting pretty out of hand. I wonder what it's going to take to get this shit straightened out in the US.

kevz said:

All these stories about what cops, agents, and whoever can do is getting pretty out of hand. I wonder what it's going to take to get this shit straightened out in the US.

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nothing short of a comet striking the earth (or some other collosal disaster), I'm afraid, the people in the US have become so completely and utterly complacent. 40% didn't vote in 04, and of the 60% that did (and thats a "good" voter turnout), 51% voted for to continue on the path of complete retardation toward authoritarian bureacracy. Add that up: 70% like being sheep.

cops will do whatever they want....end of story.

it happens all the time, and if you are lucky, you get a good lawyer and get it thrown out. either way you still loose your drugs and $...its loose loose

i was pulled over with my old dope dealer and a friend of mine last year. the cops saw my friend and i pull into a parking lot to pick our dealer up. they followed us for a minute then pulled us over and struck. there were unmarked cars, a pick up truck and a mini van.

when we asked why we got pulled over, they didnt say anything. they pulled us all out of the car right away and went right for the black guy in the car...cause of course he HAS to be the dealer...

the cops were suspicious and wanted to pull us over, so they did....the police fucking suck balls. i watch cops on TV sometimes and it makes me so pissed how they treat ppl. i love to see cops get guns pulled on them....to see the fear in their eyes...

dont get me wrong, im not for killing of cops, or anyone for that matter. but so many of these cops now a days think they are fucking superman....they get turned out from the academy like an assembly line. its not like in the old days when the cops worked the beat and knew the community, and the community knew them.

a friend of mine who used to sell pills was renting an appt from a cop. his landlord was a vetern cop and a total asshole...well one day this asshole cop decided to go into my friends appt with out my friends permission. he thought my friend was gone cause his car wasnt there but his fiance had it for the day...

to make a long story short, he hears someone in his appt and thinks its a burglar so he comes out with his HK 45 loaded and ready to go. he said when he walked out and had his gun on the cop, he saw a look of terror in his eyes he will never forget.

that next week the DEA raided his appt...i wonder why that happened...the dickhead cop just happened to see a bag of pills on the table....

garuda said:

ARE YOU FOR REAL?!

"why can't the cops plant heroin in your car and then arrest you for possesion, its your responsibility to make sure you're not driving with contraband"

The police created the condition here that lead to the arrest, if anyone else had done this it would have been theft and probably some kind of state tampering charge.

This whole situation is fucked up, but I'm not surprised its coming out of Texas.
Corruption in that state and cover up runs rampant.

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You're comparing that to planting heroin in someone's car. Unless I misread the story, this wasn't the suspect's car - this was a car designed to go make a drug run. The narc was conspiring with the police, and they were waiting for this guy to make a run. I don't believe it was the suspect's car that he was pulled over in, but rather a 'company car' (lol) so to speak.

hey med cab

what?

^ yeeesssss?

lol okay I get it.

mulberryman said:

In Texas, the cops just do whatever they want.

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I think you mean "in america"..........no wait, that's not right either........"on earth?" yeah that ones about right

thats a funny name

bingalpaws said:

You're comparing that to planting heroin in someone's car. Unless I misread the story, this wasn't the suspect's car - this was a car designed to go make a drug run. The narc was conspiring with the police, and they were waiting for this guy to make a run. I don't believe it was the suspect's car that he was pulled over in, but rather a 'company car' (lol) so to speak.

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Ah I was the one that misread it as the suspects car then, hmm if it wasn't his car that does make it a little tricky.
I would hope though that police cannot create the probable cause they use, it is too open for abuse.

I have a friend from Towson... are all pepole from there geniuses?