Open Intox in Vehicle Charge After Parking

I live in Michigan and my fiance and I were driving home late last night I had been drinking so he drove. We have a loner vehicle from a dealership and a cop followed us for about 4 miles when we pulled into our apartment complex the continued to follow. We got out of the car they never turned their lights on and just walked up to us and asked why we had a loner vehicle. We had been up all day and night then they proceded to as/k if my fiance was on drugs because his eyes were bloodshot. The did a sobriety test on him and a breathalyzer which he passed both. Then they were looking in the car in the back seat their was a bottle of cranberry juice and a half bottle of vodka in a paper bag behind my seat and they charged him with open intox. Do we have any rights violated here?

maybe. did you give them permission to search the car? If not, did they claim any justification for being able to search the car? Did the bag with the bottle in it appear to be a bag with a bottle of booze in it? Was it visible from outside of the car?

From experience, had that bag been in the trunk, you would have been fine....

What are you stating happened? That the police shone their flashlights through the back window, saw the bag and booze, and could see that the vodka bottle wasn't full?

For an open container charge in Michigan....mine was in Lansing. I did not have a lawyer. Just appeared, and was given a Diversion Program. Fines, 40 hours community service. I think it was on my record for 3 years, but is now off, so I think there was unsupervised probation on it too. Mine was a first offense. It was just considered a traffic misdemeanor.

They stopped you for just having a loaner vehicle? Doubtful that this is reasonable grounds to detain you for questioning. You should not have talked to the police.