Our Flagstaff Lawyers Use Criminal Discovery Rules as a Defense if You’re Charged With Drug Transportation During a Whisper Traffic Stop
You could face years or decades in prison and pay a hefty fine if you are convicted of drug trafficking in Flagstaff or Northern Arizona. You would also face the long-term consequences of having a permanent criminal record that could limit your ability to find a job and housing after you serve your sentence. 
At Griffen & Stevens, PLLC, our experienced Flagstaff criminal defense lawyers will use every defense available to help fight the charges you face. We will challenge the evidence against you, especially if the police obtained it in a traffic whisper stop. Our lawyers explain these stops and the types of possible defenses.
What Is a Traffic Whisper Stop?
Drug trafficking, referred to as the transportation of dangerous or narcotic drugs for sale in Arizona, is aggressively prosecuted and punished harshly in the Grand Canyon State. One way the police charge people with this crime is by finding evidence of drugs in their car when making a traffic stop.
A traffic whisper stop occurs after a federal or other law enforcement agency passes on or “whispers” information to a local police department about a suspect possibly engaged in drug activity traveling in a vehicle in their jurisdiction. Their tip would be based on information an informant provided to them and may include the vehicle’s license plate. A police officer would watch or search for the car and try to find an independent reason to stop the driver.
Because the officer is not supposed to use the tip as a reason to make the traffic stop, the police try to construct legitimate reasons for doing so that don’t include the information they were given for searching the vehicle for drugs. The officer would feign surprise when they found the illegal drugs.
If drugs are found, the police could arrest the individual for drug trafficking, drug possession, or another drug offense. Traffic whisper stops can be utilized when law enforcement receives a tip about other Arizona crimes being committed, but it is most frequently used in drug offense cases.
Why Police Officers Don’t Disclose the Tip That Drives the Traffic Whisper Stop
If you were arrested for drug trafficking based on evidence collected during a traffic whisper stop, the police would likely justify the stop without providing information about the tip they received. You may wonder why they want to keep this information secret.
They could have many reasons for hiding their tip. The police may not have enough information from the tip to justify stopping you; or because the tip is part of a larger criminal investigation; or the information was provided to them inappropriately.
How We Can Defend You if You Were Arrested in an AZ Whisper Traffic Stop
You have a constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. The police must also have probable cause to stop you. At Griffen & Stevens, PLLC, our criminal defense attorneys know that your constitutional rights may have been violated if you were arrested for drug transportation based on evidence found during a whisper traffic stop.
How can we use this in your defense? First, our legal team could use Arizona’s Rules of Criminal Procedure regarding disclosure of information to criminal defendants. Under Ariz. R. Crim. P. 15.1(b)(11), the prosecutor must disclose whether your case involves the use of an informant along with that person’s identity unless their identity can be kept secret under Arz. R. Crim. P. 15.4(b)(2). This rule provides that the informant’s identity can remain hidden if both of the following applies:
- The disclosure would result in serious risk to the informant or their operations.
- The failure to disclose would not infringe on the defendant’s constitutional rights.
We can use these court rules to compel the prosecution to disclose the tip and the informant’s identity. Once we have this information and investigate the whisper traffic stop circumstances, we can argue that the police did not have probable cause to stop you.
Our criminal defense lawyers may be able to file a motion to suppress any evidence collected that is being used to convict you based on the violation of your constitutional rights. Using this defense strategy, we may be able to get the criminal case dismissed or enter into a favorable plea bargain where you face much less serious charges and punishments.