Sherida Felders admits she was speeding as she traveled on Interstate 15 in November, but says the search by a Utah Highway Patrol officer of her Jeep Commander for drugs was based on racial profiling.
A lawsuit filed by Felders and her two teenage passengers, all blacks, over their alleged 2½-hour roadside detention raises the question of when police can lawfully search a vehicle without a warrant.
Two Salt Lake City attorneys who are not involved in the case said law-enforcement officers must have a reason to believe a crime has occurred before they can do more than issue a ticket.
Civil-rights lawyer Brian Barnard said a stop has to be justified in the first place, meaning officers must have a reasonable suspicion that a driver is committing a traffic offense. Once the initial purpose for a stop is concluded -- for example, a traffic citation has been written -- the motorist must be allowed to depart unless the officer has probable cause to suspect other illegal activity, such as spotting a gun inside the car, he said.
"Police cannot stop or search people based on a hunch or intuition," he said.
If an officer sees an illegal item in plain view, such as marijuana or an open container of liquor in the passenger compartment, the officer can seize the item, Barnard said. But absent some illegal conduct or circumstances, that would not justify a search of the entire vehicle without a warrant, he said.
A vehicle can be searched with permission of the driver, but the consent must be freely given.
"Telling the person, 'We'll wait here at the side of the road with you in handcuffs in the winter snow for two hours until I can get a warrant or you can voluntarily consent' does not result in voluntary consent," Barnard said.
Clayton Simms, a criminal defense attorney, said police must focus on the crime that led to the stop in the first place. If other evidence surfaces after a stop, such as the smell of alcohol on the driver's breath, officers can put the motorist through sobriety tests, he said.
"You can't just stop a person for Activity A and then start searching the car for Crime B unless you have evidence of that," Simms said.
He said whether a stop exceeds its scope depends on a number of factors, such as the reason for stopping the driver, the length of the detention, the extent of the search and the number of officers involved.
San Diego grandmother Sherida Felders claims in a federal lawsuit that she and her two passengers were victims of racial profiling by a Utah Highway Patrol trooper. Her SUV with California plates was searched for drugs after Felders was pulled over on Interstate 15 near Cedar City for speeding.
Felders, who says she doesn't drink or use drugs, refused to give consent for a search. Felders believes her vehicle was searched because "I'm black and I'm driving an SUV with rims on it."
Attorney Robert Sykes, who represents Felders, has acknowledged that Interstate 15 is a popular route for drug smugglers, but said there was no reason to believe his client was one of them. He said the trooper did not have a warrant or Felders' permission to search the vehicle and no emergency circumstances existed -- such as destruction of evidence or danger to the public -- to justify a warrantless search.
A UHP spokesman says the agency is reviewing the allegations and had started an internal investigation before the lawsuit was filed. No drugs were found in the Nov. 20 search.
