unreasonable detention?

You probably had an Obama sticker on your car, and the "we are a Christian nation with family values" cop simply wanted to check your papers and make sure you weren't in the country illegally.

Maybe the way to make this an actually useful discussion is to ask the OP: Did the cop explain WHY he detained you for 45 minutes?

You probably had an Obama sticker on your car, and the "we are a Christian nation with family values" cop simply wanted to check your papers and make sure you weren't in the country illegally. Originally Posted by capone380

Years ago I drove a barely street-legal muscle car (a 2000 Cobra R). I was driving on a back country road near College Station. I drove through a small town maybe going a little fast. After I'd left the city limits, a cop pulled me over. He admitted that he stopped me because he wanted to check out my car. But the fucker gave me a speeding ticket anyway. I took a driver safety course and paid a little money to keep it off my record.

Now what acp would have done is file a complaint with IAD which, of course, would have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Then he would have asked for a trial. He would have used many hours and would have driven hundreds of miles to court. He would have done his non-lawyer Perry Mason routine in front of a jury and some baby prosecutor would have whipped his ass. He would have been convicted, paid a fine, and the moving violation would have gone on his record.

This is an example of what I often write about: There are criminals, and there are dumbass criminals.

as granpappy says "there's three sides to a story;yours,mine,and the truth"

i don't think the original poster has shared all of the details here.lot more to this story,i'm sure.

and shysterjon is sharing some valid advice, i've family members who practice law and not on t.v..lol

Like your experience shyster, they were following me. Dunno why. I am sure they detained me longer when I refused to answer questions about where I was coming from/going to etc. While I had nothing to hide, is that not my right to remain silent? They never explained the reason for the extended detention and I didn't ask as I promptly left upon signing the citation. I guess when I saw 5-6 units pull up in support and was asked to step out of the car and put my hands behind my back, it made me bow up a bit.

Who knows what was going on behind the scenes? It probably had nothing to do with you.

No, you didn't have to answer any questions. Cops often ask "Where are you going?" and "Where are you coming from?" to assess the person's demeanor and look for inconsistencies. They don't expect the person to say, "I'm going to Paula Pussy's incall to get a little la-di-da."

My default rule is STFU, but another rule is "Don't piss off the police." We had a thread recently about a guy whose neighbor called the police to complain about his barking dog. The police arrived, knocked on his door, he opened the door, but upon inquiry, refused to give his name, which led to him being arrested. Yeah, technically he didn't have to give his name but not doing so caused him to be charged with POTP (pissing off the police) (in effect, not literally). So Mr. Nameless had to go through all the time, trouble, and aggravation of defending the charge when just giving his name would have probably defused the situation.

When I'm pulled over, I answer the cop's demeanor-assessment questions but not his "CONFESS!" questions, like, "Is there any reason you were speeding today, sir?" A cop will understand if you don't confess. It may annoy him, but it just might cause him to let you go. Answering his demeanor-assessment questions may defuse the situation and cause him to send you on your way. Of course, don't say anything if you have a dead body in your trunk.

Maybe the way to make this an actually useful discussion is to ask the OP: Did the cop explain WHY he detained you for 45 minutes?

Years ago I drove a barely street-legal muscle car (a 2000 Cobra R). I was driving on a back country road near College Station. I drove through a small town maybe going a little fast. After I'd left the city limits, a cop pulled me over. He admitted that he stopped me because he wanted to check out my car. But the fucker gave me a speeding ticket anyway. I took a driver safety course and paid a little money to keep it off my record.

Now what acp would have done is file a complaint with IAD which, of course, would have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Then he would have asked for a trial. He would have used many hours and would have driven hundreds of miles to court. He would have done his non-lawyer Perry Mason routine in front of a jury and some baby prosecutor would have whipped his ass. He would have been convicted, paid a fine, and the moving violation would have gone on his record.

This is an example of what I often write about: There are criminals, and there are dumbass criminals. Originally Posted by ShysterJon

Thats fuckin poetic ya know it. I wouldn't have made complaint being it would have been a lawful stop and a righteous ticket for a hazardous moving violation. But being my record is clean he probably would have let me slide as a courtesy.

LE stopped me for a minor traffic infraction. I was then held for 45 min before being cited and sent on my way. Unreasonable? Originally Posted by jwhutch9

It depends on your State and local statues regarding how long a suspect can be held without being charged. Contact an attorney if you want the real answer. Avoid jailhouse lawyers.

It seems obvious that you or your car matched the description of someone they wanted to talk to since you stated in your last post they were following you. You don't get 5 or 6 cop cars at a traffic stop for no reason and by refusing to answer any questions it probably pissed them off. Not of be offensive to the OP but you should have put the part in about refusing to answer any questions in the first post as well as what the infraction was. I believe those are relevant facts. If you knew they were following you why did you give them a reason to pull you over? Or was that trumped up too like a following to close or failure to use a turn signal? Did you forget any other things like they brought a K9 unit over to sniff the car? Have you had run ins with them before to where you are on the "lets screw with this guy list"? If you are completely innocent of everything and they had no reason to do this just pay the fine and hope you just haven't made their shit list.

My Saturday evening is pretty lame, so I’ll jump in too.

Is a 45-minute traffic stop unreasonable? Probably not.

Did you have an out-of-state driver’s license? Was your license current with the correct address? Are you the owner of the car? Did you have proof of insurance? Are you on probation or parole?

Did you ask why is this taking so long? What did they say?

What was the citation?

well that is 4.5 minutes that I will never get back.

"I'm going to Paula Pussy's incall to get a little la-di-da." Originally Posted by ShysterJon

SJ, do have an address for Paula's?

The ticket was dismissed due to no witnesses for the prosecution. I doubt if it had anything to do with the nature of the stop, but I can think it so!

City of Dallas Municipal Court (aka Chaos Court) ?

Shyster is giving good advice. Listen up. BTW, 99.9% of the time, we all know why we are being pulled over. No need to BS with the officer. Just be polite and answer their questions. Be honest as well. I've gotten out of 3 tickets simply by being nice and honest (along with some professional courtesy thrown in as well). The one thing I've noticed when observing others being stopped by the police is that a lot of the times, cops are more apt to rely on caution. The reason a stop may take longer than normal is that the officer feels the need for back up. Also, each jurisdiction may have it's own protocols on how many officers need to be present, etc. One final piece of advice that I got in one of my pre-law classes was that if you feel you are being detained beyond a reasonable amount of time, politely ask the officer if you are free to leave or under arrest. If under arrest, immediately inform the officer you know your Miranda Rights and are invoking them. The basis for this advice is that often times police will detain people without placing them under arrest in order to get the individual to say or do something that gives them probable cause which is then admissible in court. Once a citizen let's the cops know he or she has knowledge of the law, the cop then has to make a decision on the spot. Do they have a reason to arrest you or not? If they did have a reason, they probably would have already read you your rights. Remember anything you say before being Mirandized is admissible. Once Miranda is on the table, the cops hands are pretty much tied.

I was stopped and detained on the side of the road in Arizona for over two hours. The reason for the delay, when the cop asked to search the vehicle I said fine as soon as you show me the warrant. We sat and waited for the K9 unit to show up to sniff the car. The cop told me we could have proceeded much faster if I would have just opened up the car for him. I told him just out of principle that wasn't going to happen. To this day I still consider it an illegal search, but what the hell he wasn't harassing anyone else in that time frame.