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Can a cop search my person, car, home, or cell phone without probable cause? I'd say my discussing of murder is a pretty big fricking probable cause.

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He can search your car or person simply on the claim that he thought he smelled marijuana. So that gives him license to search at any time.

If the cop actually smelled marijuana coming from your car as the cop walked by your car then it is probable cause that gives the cop the legal authority to search your car.

I'll give you a personal example of when a cop abuses his authority to search your car.

One morning about 9 AM my brother and I were sitting in our car and our friend's 9 year old son was hanging out in the back seat.

My brother and I rarely drink alcohol but that morning we were celebrating something so after we drank our usual cup of coffee we bought a couple of beers and put them in our coffee cups so it would look like we were just drinking coffee.

A few minutes later, a cop walked past our car on the driver side so we were glad we had put the beer in our coffee cups.

A minute later, the cop came up to the window on the passenger side of the car, literally stuck his head inside our car and demanded we give him our coffee cups.

We obeyed his order and he took the cover off of my brother's cup then smelled what was inside of it.

Of course he smelled the beer so he gave us both citations for drinking alcohol inside of our car which is illegal to do in California.

We accepted the citations but we told the cop that we were going to fight the citations because he had no probable cause to suspect we were drinking alcohol and not coffee.

When we went to court, we argued that the cop had no probable cause to stick his head inside of our car and smell our coffee cups. The judge agreed with us and dismissed the charges.