Legal Question in Criminal Law in Wisconsin

Re: Supreme court ruling...

I am afraid that if a person is charged with Driving After Revocation, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail, they are taken into cuistody and the vehicle is impounded. Since the vehicle is impounded, the officers may perform an "inventory search" to determine what items may be in the vehicle.

There are, however, many other potential challenges to a Driving After Revocation. Officers must follow very specific steps as part of the arrest. If any one step is missing, the case may be dismissed. One of the critical issues is that the officer must have reasonable suspicion to believe a specific crime has been committed in order to stop a person. If that reasonable suspicion is lacking the stop and the ticket may be invalid. Before any search can be made, there must be sufficient evidence to support Probable Cause to arrest and charge. When the search occurs can be critical to the analysis.

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Re: Supreme court ruling...

Arizona v. Gant, decided April 21st of 2009, roughly defines the same factual parameters within which I successfully had a ton of cocaine and marijuana suppressed a while ago in the Racine County Circuit Court. My client was a passenger in the co-defendant's car when a Racine County Sheriff's Deputy pulled it over. My client and the co-defendant were told to step out of the car. While standing far away from the vehicle, the deputy searched it and the trunk for "safety" reasons. Under existing law, it required a warrant for him to go into locked compartments of the vehicle. The judge suppressed everything the deputy found, and the case was dismissed. Now, with this case, it's far more clear that that situation requires suppression of any contraband found, arguably even in unlocked areas of the vehicle. This ruling would prevent a police search of the vehicle for an expired/revoked/suspended DL, provided the defendant is out of the vehicle and clearly cannot access anything in it, and provided no contraband is in clear sight of the officer at the time of the arrest. I have read the published decision, but I see nothing in it that makes this ruling retroactive (my opinion might change as I reread through it). I would not hesitate, however, to argue this case as a defense to a recent traffic stop prior to April 21, 2009 where the facts make it otherwise applicable.