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I got pulled over for a dim headlight during the daytime... Is there law about how bright headlight has to be?
Anonymous2 views1 answers
I live in South Carolina. Driving my friends car, cop pulls me over. Asks for license I gave it. He says "right off the bat you have an arrestable offence your license is expired. I pulled you cause your headlight is out." says wait here ok called my friend, the owner of the car. He comes to the spot with license cop tells him he cant take the car cause not on registration but is on the insurance. Tells us he also giving the registered owner a ticket for allowing a driver with expired license use of her car. I get Driving with expired ticket and a driving an unsafe vehicle a 237$ ticket Friend told me it works but its dim. ok so he is going to tow the car and just started searching it with out ever asking me if he can.(Legal?) what do I do about this ? please help
Matthew Oberlin WilliamsCriminal Defense AttorneyCleveland, OH ·
You should hire an attorney. The equipment violation may not be enough for a stop during the daytime given the equipment involved is a headlight. If the stop is bad, this may all go away. This will depend upon the exact facts and the law in your jurisdiction as well as your attorney's ability to convince the court this stop was nonsense.
You don't say if anything illegal or suspicious was uncovered in the search, but the validity of the search will rest upon the validity of the stop. If the stop was good, the officer could impound the car leading to what is known as an inventory search. This little piece of BS is a legal excuse to search a car. The logic goes that since the police are taking possession of the vehicle they need to inventory the property to avoid any dispute later about things being taken from the car. It is really just an excuse to search without a warrant, consent, or probable cause, but the courts have upheld it so there we are.
If the stop is upheld, you both have a problem.
