While it’s wise to treat the police with respect, you need to realize that they are as prone to mistakes in their work as anyone else. Unfortunately, police mistakes can have serious repercussions for other people.
Fortunately, discovering police mistakes could help you if the police arrest and charge you with a crime. Here are a few.
They did not have enough reason to stop you
If the police arrested you for possessing drugs or for drunk driving, why did they stop you as opposed to anyone else? The law requires officers to have reasonable cause to believe you have committed a crime to stop you.
If they did not see you handing over money in an alleyway, surreptitiously smoking something with a friend or driving in a strange manner or with a faulty vehicle, then question what their reason was.
They did not have enough reason to search or test you
To search you or test you, they need an even more compelling reason, known as probable cause, to convince them that you likely committed a crime. So, if you were not speaking in a slurred manner or smelling of weed or alcohol, what was their justification?
They did not handle and store the evidence they took correctly
Maybe the police found something they thought to be illegal drugs on you. Perhaps they took a blood sample to test for alcohol or drugs. If they and their colleagues did not catalog every movement of that piece of evidence from collection to court, you could ask a judge to declare it inadmissible since the police cannot categorically show it is the same item the police took from you.
Those are just a handful of the many police mistakes that could help your defense. It’s wise to seek legal guidance to determine whether these or others occurred.
