Virginia Court of Appeals says probable cause alone isn’t enough for warrantless search

After a Culpeper deputy searched a woman who concealed drugs in her pants during a traffic stop, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled law enforcement must have more than probable cause to suspect someone is carrying contraband in order to search that person without a warrant.

“Under the Fourth Amendment, probable cause of contraband is the standard to obtain a warrant, not the standard to search a person without one,” wrote Judge Lisa M. Lorish in an opinion issued Wednesday.

However, she continued, “The number of exceptions to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement makes this an exceedingly difficult analysis, and we sympathize with the trial judge here.”

The July 5 ruling reverses a Culpeper County Circuit Court decision that the drugs found in the search could be included in the trial of Renee Parady, one of three people stopped by Culpeper Sheriff’s Deputy Dustin Tharp in the early hours of Jan. 28, 2021. Parady had asked the court to block the use of the drugs as evidence on the grounds that they had been obtained through an unconstitutional warrantless search.