Dorm Room Bust...Illegal Search?

[thousandwattwizard]

Alright everyone, here's the deal. I've been lurking on this site for a long while and this is my first post so here it goes:

I go to LSU and live in a dorm on campus with a roommate, a friend from high school. This past week i was at work as usual when i get a call from my roommate telling me that he and his girlfriend were busted in our room smoking and that i "had to come or else the police would remove me from my job by force".

Well, as i arrive i am taken to the room with 3 officers and no other students as witnesses. They forced me to open all my desk drawers, closets, etc. and give up my "stash", consisting of under a gram, 3 or 4 pipes and a vape.

I understand that in a dorm room setting, the campus police have the right to enter rooms that they believe illegal activity is being conducted in, but should i have even been involved? I had nothing in plain sight of the officers, and the whole reason they called is because my student ID card was laying on my desk, and when the sergeant saw it, he recognized me from a previous (illegal) terry stop off campus.

Is this harassment? Also, i wasn't read my rights until i had been searched, put in a cop car, and held in a cell for over half an hour. Only when they wanted to question me did they read me my rights, almost an hour after the incident had begun!

I will probably be expelled, as the school can technically do what they wish with me, but i want to bust these cops so bad. Theyre campus patrol and have some serious chips on their collective shoulder.

Any help would be appreciated, and i DO have a lawyer working on the case, just thought I'd see what some of you experienced heads have to say.

Love, my Lord-

Will

[netdog]

I doubt they violated anything, I don't believe they can force you to open anything, sounds like they played you to me. If they get you to open a drawer, it' because they can't legally search it and they are tricking you to get around the fact they have no warrant.

Doesn't stop them from going and getting a warrant and searching whatever they want, or maybe getting campus security to do so, but it's not wise to ever open anything for a cop, your door, your car, your trunk, your backpack, anything... If they have a legal right to search they won't ask, they'll just open it.

Just politely say no, and answer no questions without a lawyer present, no questions at all. Respectfully and calmly say no.

[thousandwattwizard]

Well, its unfortunately a little late for that, around here cops look for a reason to bust heads and usually get away with it, i wasn't looking to get beat down by 3 cops with no witnesses. Thanks very much for the reply though netdog.

[FakeBoobsRule]

If the housing agreement gives them the right to search it doesn't seem like it is going to matter if it was in plain sight or not. If they had a right to come in and search the judge will probably allow everything from that point on. You might find some mistake but it sounds like an uphill battle. If they had a right to search but shouldn't have forced you to show them things then you might have an agrument but you might still face inevitable discovery, that they had the right to search and had you not shown them everything they would have found it eventually.

The Miranda rights normally wouldn't be that big of a deal as they don't have to read them to you until they start questioning you, not when they arrest you. However, I would consider that when they called you and told you to leave work or else they will remove you that once you arrived and met with the police you were in custody. Problem is that came from your roommate not them so good luck with that testimony. See, you can be in custody without being under arrest and some judges want the rights read then. You could say that since your freedom to come and go as you please was now under police control (a basic definition of custody), you should have been read your rights before they made you show them the things and incriminate yourself. Remember this phrase "In my mind I felt I was not free to leave and that I was under their control."

You may have some chances to toss the search but it's going to be hard and they still might get it in as inevitable discovery.

[thousandwattwizard]

Sigh, i figured this was the case. Does anyone know about the harassment deal? It seems pretty wrong that an officer can arrest me for seeing my picture and automatically assuming that i was in possession of cannabis again. Technically he was right :S4: but legally was he? Live and learn i suppose...

[netdog]

Practically speaking, make sure your lawyer is good if you can, and roll with it, do what he says and try to minimize the damage to your life.

You can sue the cops, but it'll be expensive and probably not worth it even if you could win.

[Dream of the iris]

I would also like to point out that more than likely you won't get expelled as long as your gpa is at least a 3.0 or better and you haven't gotten in any trouble before such as skipping class or a previous marijuana charge. I was caught in a really bad situation once at my school. I had a little less than a half ounce of mid and about an eighth of nug plus 12 counts of paraphinellia. On top of that the town that my school was at had issues with this one student who got drunk and somehow got this local dude into a coma. Well like every tragic event when drugs are incorporated into it they blew it waaay out of proportion and completely blamed the drugs. So now my whole campus got super strick about drugs with this zero tolorance agenda. Needless to say because I was on the Dean's list with a 3.8 gpa, a member of the Sierra Club and never missed a class nor gotten in trouble once previously I got away. Not scott free of course. Had to do 50 hours of community service, random drug testing for a year, and go through a stupid drug treatment program. The dude at the drug treatment program even laughed at me when I came in saying I was here for Marijuana use. He was expecting a Heroine or coke addict like his usual patients.