I was in a small town in west texas one night, and got a flat on my way back to lubbock. I had 2 people in my car asleep while I was changing the tire. I had a cop pull up behind me while I was changing it, and waited for me to finish. Then he asks me to take a breathilizer. In texas, if you don't blow, you automatically get your liscense suspended. I blew a .075(hadn't had a drink in several hours), legal limit is .08. I'm sober enough to effing drive, but I got a public intoxication ticket. I get arrested, the officer wakes up my passengers, also arrests them for public intox. Then he procedes to search my car, which was legal. He finds a baggie that had sticks and seeds, that didn't even look like weed anymore because it was so old. Anyways I didn't know it was in there(i forgot) but he ended up chargig all 3 of us with posession of marijuana also, after I told him it was mine, and also when I was being arraigned I told them it was all mine. My friends had to come up with another $150 a piece for the POM bond, we all got 1 year probation, and no matter how many times I claimed it, these crooked cops in west texas wouldn't budge. It was in my center console, under somce cd's and my insurance card and a bunch of shit. How are 2 sleeping people going to hide that w/o him seeing them move? Anyways after finding the sticks and seeds, the officer searched my car pretty hard-core. My back interior panel on the drivers side looks like a dam flashlight was used to bash it in, my air vents and defroster vents were cracked off, and the officer lost my keys while impounding my car. I told him I left them in the ignition while I was changing the tire, but the mysteriously dissappeared.
Was a public intox legal in this case? Or the charging 3 people with posession of the same bag? And was there anything I could do about them destroying the inside of my car searching?(no drug dog was ever called, so it was all a guess as to where he should look/break shit)