Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

Illegal stop/search and charge?

A friend has a school bus (legally registered as an rv conversion). We were going to a concert and had 2 bottles of alcohol on the bus. An unmarked van pulled the bus (for no apparent reason), and before we were completly stopped 3 cops were on the bus telling us to get off. They searched the bus and found the bottles (open but both were nearly full...maybe 3 shots missing total) so they gave all of us breathalyzers. 2 blew a clean (including the driver), one blew a .01, a .04 and I a .06 They charged me and the other 2 with underage possession of alcohol.It was at night (915ish) and the bus has tinted windows so it is nearly impossible to see inside from outside, so I cant see how they can claim they saw us doing anything on the bus let alone somthing to pull us over for. They also offered us all alternatives to come and try to buy alcohol for them so they could bust local stores. And the final kicker is that they wrote the law section as 4.1-304(attempting to sell to an underage person), not 4.1-305 (underage possession)on all of our summons. What should I do? Is there a chance it can all be thrown out?


Asked on 11/01/05, 12:15 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Re: Illegal stop/search and charge?

Sure, there's a chance it could "all be thrown out", if the officers had no credible probable cause for the stop. However, it's more likely that this might happen if you have competent criminal defense counsel endeavoring to make it so.

(The fact that the officer referenced Sec. 4.1-304 on the summons instead of Sec. 4.1-305 is of no consequence since the prosecutor can easily amend this at the start of the next hearing on the matter.)

Read more
Answered on 11/01/05, 3:54 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Criminal Law questions and answers in Virginia