Refusal To Exit Car Doesn T Justify Warrantless Search
California’s Second Appellate District ruled this week that a suspect’s reluctance to leave his car does not trigger probable cause for a warrantless search. Officers Currie and Prodigalidad stopped Vernon Evans after they observed him commit traffic violations. They claimed that Evans appeared nervous. That nervousness, and the fact that the stop occurred at night in gang territory, prompted Currie to ask Evans to step out of the car. When Evans refused to comply with a command to exit his car, officers broke the vehicle’s window, tased and pepper-sprayed him, forcibly removed him from the car, and arrested him for interfering with a police investigation....