Traffic Stop From Private Property

**norcalsam** · 06-23-2005, 12:50 AM

I have recieved a ticket in California for failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. Commonly known as a California stop. The officer was parked on private property at the time he wittnessed the infraction. Is this a cause to fight the ticket?

**aaron** · 06-23-2005, 08:05 AM

No.

**DaveBis** · 08-31-2005, 01:49 AM

If it were me I would argue that the cop didn't have permission to be on private property, and that since no exigent circumstances existed for him to be there, he was therefore trespassing absent permission.

The burden will now shift to him to prove otherwise. In that absence, I would move to dismiss the entire matter as all his evidence and testimony would have been collected as a result of his illegal trespassing and therefore inadmissable under the fruit of the poison tree doctrine.

**aaron** · 08-31-2005, 08:41 AM

Except... it wouldn't work. Because you don't have standing to complain of the trespass by the police on somebody else's property (assuming there even was a trespass), and even if you did it wouldn't change what the officer observed.

This is not a situation where the police violated the warrant requirement, and an effort is made to suppress the fruits of their search.

**DaveBis** · 08-31-2005, 07:53 PM

But I have seen lots of evidence supressed under the fruit of the poison tree doctrine when police were conducting illegal searches of other people and stumbled upon evidence implicating others.

As to my agreement that it wouldn't change what the office observed, that shouldn't change anything......if a police officer violates someones civil rights under color of authority, ALL evidence subsequently collected, even accurate evidence can be excluded, even though he observed it. Otherwise there would be no such thing as motions to supress.