Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

Re: officer assistance

To paraphrase our former President, it depends on what the meaning of the word "assistance" is.

You do not have to answer any questions except, pretty much name, rank and serial number, so to speak; but you do have to provide your license and registration or other I.D., if requested. And you do have to follow instructions, such as, submitting to a "pat down" for weapons or submitting to arrest if told you are under arrest.

You emphatically do NOT have to submit voluntarily to a search of your car or home. My philosophy is: always require the officer to obtain a search warrant.

Here's why. I have never used drugs in my life, have no interest in drugs, would dispose of them immediately if any wound up innocently (my innocence, obviously) in my car or home. But, if I were stopped by a cop, I already know I don't have any drugs but I don't know if HE has any drugs to plant on me. Therefore, I would never voluntarily submit to a search.

If a search warrant is obtained and drugs are planted, I have to deal with that then. But I don't have to help them do it and neither do you.

Paranoid? Maybe, in practically every case since practically every cop IS honest. (My own son is a cop, incidentally, and I am a former prosecutor.) But it ain't paranoia if you meet some cop who really IS after you.