Drunk driving deaths soar in Kansas.

Can passenger challenge PC for traffic stop?

Here's an interesting case that isn't necessarily Kansas law, but likely will be soon. It's a Fourth Circuit case. The car's stop for DUI was successfully challenged, so the pat down of the passenger that revealed drugs was also challenged, even though some case law out there says the passenger lacks standing. Not anymore. Car stop illegal, passenger search illegal. Good call.

Helpful ruling on breath tests and motions in limine

In State v. Smith, the court ruled that just because a breath test is not subject to suppression due to it being illegally obtained as lacking probable cause, doesn't mean it can't be suppressed in a sense if proper procedures weren't followed. This could have a profound impact on breath failure jury trials. If procedures weren't followed to the letter, a last minute motion in limine might keep it away from the jury.

Kansas finally adopts Supreme Court's expanded protections against unwarranted vehicle searches.

A couple of years ago the U.S. Supreme Court drastically curtailed the ability of police to search vehicles of arrestees absent sufficient probable cause. That case, Arizona v. Gant, has resulted in a return to the constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures that our Founding Fathers had in mind when drafting the Bill of Rights. In Kansas, Gant was first applied in the seminal case State v. Henning, but many prosecutors have limited its application claiming it's to be narrowly construed to searches incident to arrests and not inventory searches, and by claiming the good faith exception (the officer thought it was okay, so what's the problem?) saved many such searches.

Today prosecutors throughout Kansas aren't very happy. State v. Oram slaps down all the above arguments. Simply put, absent PC to believe a crime has been or is being committed (such as a smell of marijuana), they cannot search the vehicle of a suspect who is cuffed and secure in a patrol vehicle. No good faith or any other exception will permit inventory searches or searches incident to arrest.