No, if he needs my consent to search, he has no probable cause. My right to be unmolested in my person and possesions is the foundation for my refusal. They can violate that without my consent, or they can search anyway if they have probable cause.familyman wrote:If the officer has probable cause, he does not have to have your conscent to search your property?Mithras61 wrote:I might have nothing to hide, but if he has to ask then he has no probable cause to search either. I voted no.
What is the purpose of my right to give or denie conscent if he can search for what ever they can think of on the spot. Your vehicle matches the description of a possible suspect in the area in another crime. You no way to determine if that is true.
Should you ask him what he is looking for?
He may (as was pointed out by CHL/LEO) ask anyway, but they will not have my consent. I will not move to stop the search (I'm not going to get into a fight or anything with a LEO - the side of the road is NOT the place to sort that stuff out), but I will refuse to give consent.
As far as the right to deny consent goes, its really simple. If they find anything and cannot provide prior probable cause, anything they find is inadmissable in court. If I grant consent, anything they find IS admissable, regardless of whether or not they had probable cause.
"Probable cause" is not "whatever they can think of on the spot" but rather a standard to which they must adhere. It is my understanding that they have to have reasons that they can clearly state to the court (I felt it was probably a good bet that there was something in the car won't do). The definition I found says "probable cause" is this:
There is a fairly full discussion at Wikipediaa combination of facts and circumstances which would warrant a person of reasonable caution and prudence to believe that a crime has been or is being committed and that the person to be arrested is guilty of such crime.