The most difficult aspect is typically navigating around a person’s statements. Most people are honest and when they are asked questions, they answer them truthfully. Navigating around a person’s incriminating statement is typically the most difficult from an attorney’s perspective. Most people confess or answer the questions by the police officer, whether it’s because of intimidation or they just believe that it’s the right thing to do. They admit to certain things that you should never admit to. Getting around those issues is normally the most difficult but it’s not impossible and that’s why we have attorneys, to fight through bad stops, fight through bad searches and seizures, fight through Miranda violations, and fight through people’s statements to try to get them suppressed so that they cannot be used against a person later.
Can You Share Some Recent Case Studies of Drug Cases That You Have Handled?
I can give you an example. It’s a very common type of marijuana case. I had a client who was being charged with possession of marijuana and he was pulled over for a valid reason, speeding, and the police officer indicated that he smelled marijuana inside the car.
My client did the exact right thing and did what I recommend all my clients to do. He just remained silent. The police officer searched the car based on the odor of marijuana and he found marijuana inside the vehicle. He asked the driver of the vehicle, who was my client, if he knew anything about the marijuana. My client indicated that he respectfully did not want to answer the police officer’s questions and the police officer wrote him up for a possession of marijuana.
The reason why he did the right thing was because later on, when it came time for trial, the prosecutor tried to argue that because it was his vehicle and because the marijuana was found inside the vehicle that it can be presumed that it was his marijuana and he was in possession of marijuana. As I indicated, the law is very clear on this issue that just mere possession inside the vehicle that you were the owner or occupant of is not enough to prove that you’re in possession of it, and the court agreed.
The court found my client not guilty of the charge because they could not prove that he was in possession of the marijuana. It’s issues like that and having a knowledge of the law to know that just finding the marijuana inside the car is not enough goes a long way towards preparing the best possible defense for a person.
I’ll give you another example. I also recently had a trial for a person who was being charged with possession of marijuana; it was found inside the center console. However, this client did admit that the marijuana was his and when the officer smelled the marijuana, this person showed the cop exactly where it was in the car and said that it was his. Now, there was a good stop of the vehicle, there was a good search of the car, and he made statements. We had this client do community service prior to the court date and we also had him get a substance abuse evaluation.