One LUCKY MF'er!!

Yes I DO have cocaine, but I AM NOT a violator of traffic laws!


















From The New York Law Journal: February, 9, 2006.

In PEOPLE V. WAYNE RICE, Defendant was charged with Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree. Initially, his car was stopped for failing to signal a change of lanes. When the police saw a folding knife clipped to his pants pocket he was arrested. Following a strip search in a police station house, cocaine was recovered from a plastic package in his underwear. He challenged the lawfulness of the police conduct leading to the search. In particular, he challenged the stop of his vehicle and the reasonableness of the subsequent strip search at the precint. Because the search was the product of an unauthorized traffic stop, his motion to suppress evidence was GRANTED!

The car Mr. Rice was driving was allegedly stopped for changing lanes without signaling. However, the Vehicle and Traffic Law DOES NOT REQURE the operator of a motor vehicle to SIGNAL every lane change. While it is a violation of the VTL to make an unsafe lane change, and appropriate signaling is required when needed to make a lane change safely, where a lane change can be made with "reasonable safety" without signaling, it is not a violation of the VTL to move from one lane to another without signaling.

In this case, because the police did not have an objective reason to believe that the lane change was unsafe, they did not have an objective reason to stop the car, notwithstanding the failure to signal.


Mr. Rice's comments after the decision was rendered. "Ya damn straight, now can I get my yayo back?" (Ok, I made that part up, but I bet thats what he was thinking!)