Expert: Jack Toomey - 9/19/2004

Question
  A couple of friends and I were sitting around thinking of wrongful arrest senarios and this one stumped us. Please, see if you can help.  Say you are parked outside a movie theatre, whatching a movie and someone hits your car. When the police show up, they look in the car to see if there is driver identification in there.  The cops open the glove box and find a small bag of narcotics.  When you come out the theatre, you are arrested for possesion. Our question is was there probable cause to open the glove box?(The window was broken in the wreck, so they just leaned through that.)  Would it matter if it was on private property? And, would aresst be lawful? Since you were in the movie you could not give consent to search the vehicle.
    I appreciate your opinion, and taking time to answer my question.
                               -Brian

Answer
   Why wouldn't the police just get a listing on your tag number instead of looking inside the glove compartment?  I don't see any reason for the police to look inside the car when the car has license tags and the information is readily available by radio.  However......if the police did what you said they did I would think that the defendants attorney would try to supress the evidence based on the fact that there was no need to enter the car since they could have easily gotten the info via radio.  So this probably wouldn't happen.