Except in this case the cop would've been actively looking for anything suspicious in the car, while the driver would've been focused on the road most of the time he was in the car.
How often do you look at the passenger's floor as a driver?
As for the excuse, that might be the first thing to expect, but that doesn't automatically make him a liar. The onus is on the law to establish that it's not grandma's. Plus, grandma actually did have a prescription for the narcotic, so even if the excuse might sound shady, it's certainly plausible.
To put it in a different perspective, if I were driving around with empty beer cans in my car, I would expect problems if I got pulled over by the police. Nobody in their right mind would accept the "I didn't know it was there" excuse in that case, and I don't see why pills would be any different.
I agree 100% that the truth should have come out in court and that the end result (if true) was ridiculous. All I'm saying is that from the cop's perspective the evidence on the scene looked sketchy and he did his job.
What's the problem with empty beer cans? Don't you Americans have breathalizers to know if a person was under the influence while driving that you need to fuck people over for being untidy?
How often do you look at the passenger's floor as a driver?
As for the excuse, that might be the first thing to expect, but that doesn't automatically make him a liar. The onus is on the law to establish that it's not grandma's. Plus, grandma actually did have a prescription for the narcotic, so even if the excuse might sound shady, it's certainly plausible.