Molina v. State

Can police officers pick up and use as evidence heroin powder that they have seen scattered on a public street from a speeding automobile by occupants fleeing police arrest? The commonsense answer would seem to be that they can. Not so, argue the defendants, for picking up the powder from the street constitutes a search and seizure incident to an arrest. As such, the validity of the search depends upon the legality of the arrest, and here, the argument continues, arrest was illegal because (1) the officers lacked probable cause for the arrest; and (2) if they had probable cause, they were…