Marijuana.com

fuzzyninja

Alright, about two weekends ago me and two friends were drinking beer and smoking joints in his garage on his own property. I left around 3am and around 7:30am his house was raided. Apparently they were watching his house because my car was out front (and I don't have any criminal history, the cop just knows I smoke weed.)

The reason they got the warrant was because he saw my friends smoking weed and heard them talking about acid and he "heard something about a QP." (They were just talking about tripping one time and about someone who had a QP at a party a while ago.)

Well, they searched the entire house for two hours and didn't end up finding anything.

I have a few questions:
Was this even a good enough reason to raid a house?
Why wouldn't the cop come on the property and charge them with the marijuana when supposedly he saw them smoking it?
How did the cop see and hear all of this when they were in the garage? (he would have to have illegally entered the property to "spy" on them.)

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green medicine

A few kids smoking weed in a garage seems a bit overblown to justify a raid. There were probably hundreds of kids doing the exact same thing all across your city/county at the same time. Do you live in a small town where the cops are bored?

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fuzzyninja

Yes, actually I did live in a very small city. Sadly, I think the entire city government is pretty corrupt. I'm just glad I live in St. Paul now...

Yayo420

As long as a judge gives the warrant no matter what the circumstances they can search whenever they please. The only time it would be unlawful is if there was no warrant and no obvious probable cause. Atleast in Canada thats the laws.

A friend of mines house was raided because there was a bong and a bud buster clearly visable through the front window, somebody called the cops , the cops came and seen the bong so they had enough reason to enter and search. Pretty stupid but thats just the way it is.

troublemaker_42

moved to legal issues

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Jake

if they let you get away with marijuana possession, as in, they could have arrested you for it right there, it probably means that they thought that you had some more serious crimes to atone for and didn't want to put you away until they could get enough evidence. The evidence of being some big dealer who goes through a QP a day wasn't found...

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chadwick

they were either bored, hated pot, or thought you were a major pot dealer

so they tailed you and got a judge to give them a warrant with a warrant they can do what ever they please, but we should wait to here phuzz's input

and for now on whatch your back cause the pigs are watching it to

KingDub

That's not necessarily true. If the warrant was unjustifiably issued, a judge can rule to dismiss it during criminal proceedings. In that case, the evidence, if any, the cops found with that warrant would have to be thrown out. So, if fuzzyninja had been caught, the judge could have ruled that the warrant was issued unlawfully. That doesn't mean he would. Though it sounds like the raid was BS, a judge might take the cop's word for it. The cop would have to prove that what he saw was marijuana being smoked, however, and seeing someone smoke a joint from afar really doesn't mean anything. It could just as easily be a hand-rolled cigarette, which would look exactly like a joint.

If what ninja says is true, it sounds like a very iffy case. But I'm not a lawyer.

phuzz01

Unless the OP has a copy of the search warrant affidavit that the police created, the fact is that he really doesn't know WHAT info the police had to justify the search. He may guess what the police knew, or he may know what they police told him that they knew. But in reality, the police may have had other intelligence or information that they used to get a search warrant.

By the way, KingDub is correct that if a search warrant is issued without probable cause, it can be challenged and suppressed in court. Then, any evidence gained via that search warrant would be inadmissable. However, judges are extremely careful when reviewing search warrants because they don't want to look stupid later when the warrant that they authorized gets tossed out. So generally, they only sign search warrants when there is clear probable cause. Also, judges don't usually like to suppress warrants that they or their colleagues have signed. So it is pretty rare for search warrants to get suppressed later.

KingDub

True. I didn't think about that.

Edit: In any case, didn't your friend ask to see the warrant when they searched his house? Seems like it would be the prudent thing to do.