Drug possession charges can land you in serious hot water, with potential jail time attached to most offenses. If you are being charged with having or using drugs, our lawyers can help you fight your case by using some common defense strategies, plus defenses tailored to your specific case.
The first major way we will attack drug possession charges is by challenging the police’s evidence that led them to search you and arrest you in the first place. If there were any illegal searches or seizures, getting that evidence “suppressed” might break the case against you. Moreover, we can attack the allegations of “possession” on legal grounds, and potentially use a few more specific arguments tied to the facts of your case and potential defenses available for your situation.
For a free review of your case, contact Overson Law’s Salt Lake City drug possession defense lawyers today by calling (801) 758-2287.
Challenging Illegal Searches and Seizures for Drug Possession Charges in Utah
Police need to do everything by the book when investigating a drug crime, or else the evidence they obtain might be unusable in court. The “exclusionary rule” is a rule that allows defendants to have a court “suppress” – i.e., block – evidence that was obtained illegally, preventing the police from benefitting for violating your rights.
There are a few major ways that police often get evidence legally, and some potential problems with each method that could allow our Utah drug possession lawyers to get evidence suppressed and challenge charges:
Consent Searches
Police can search you or your property if you give them permission to do so. However, police often are not very clear on when they are asking and when they are telling, leading to potential confusion regarding searches. It is also possible that someone not authorized to give permission for a search did so, such as a guest at your house. Additionally, a search is not truly consensual if the officer threatens you with violence to get you to say yes.
Reasonable Suspicion for Stops and Pat-Downs
For an officer to stop you and investigate you for a potential crime, they need “reasonable suspicion. If they did not have this, then they cannot start talking to you about potential drug possession randomly on the street. If they did or they stopped you for your race or how you were dressed, everything obtained from the illegal stop is illegal.
Reasonable suspicion is also needed for a pat-down, and that usually must be limited to a pat-down for officer safety. This makes sure you are not armed, but if police feel drugs and can immediately identify them as drugs, they might be able to investigate further.
Probable Cause
Police cannot perform a “search” – which is more than just a pat-down – without enough evidence of a crime to constitute “probable cause.” This means they need some hard facts that show you were committing a crime.
This is the standard needed for a search, an arrest, criminal charges, and a warrant.
Warrant Requirement
Police need a warrant to search you, meaning they have to go get a judge to sign off on where they will be searching and what they will be looking for. Warrant searches are also limited to just the areas that drugs might be – though that is a wide range of areas when it comes to drugs to places drugs could be hidden.
Warrants are not needed if there is some exception, such as if the police think you are destroying evidence. They can also rely on the “plain view doctrine” (and related “plain touch” or “plain smell” doctrines) to look into areas they can see and, if they spot evidence of a crime, move in to search further. For example, if they see drugs on your table through your window or they feel pills in your pocket during a pat-down, they can often search further.
Challenging the “Possession” Element of Drug Possession Charges in Utah
For any drug possession charge, the knowing possession of drugs is a core element. If you did not know they were there or did not know they were drugs, then you cannot have possessed them, legally speaking. However, more than just the “knowledge” issue can be challenged.
Many possession charges are based on “constructive possession” rather than “actual possession.” If you have drugs on your person, that is actual possession, and it is hard not to know that something is there when you are holding it or it is in your pocket or backpack. However, if something is in your house or your car or somewhere else you have access to, that would be “constructive possession,” which is easier to challenge.
For constructive possession to stick, they need to prove you knew the drugs were there and that you had access to that place. A lockbox inside your roommate’s closet might be where they keep their drugs – and you might know that – but you did not have access to it if you did not know the combination or have the key. Similarly, if drugs were found in your trunk after falling out of your friend’s backpack, you might have no idea they were even there and should not be charged.
Other Defenses for Drug Possession Charges in Utah
Having a prescription should allow you to have your drugs legally, but if they were outside the prescription bottle, that might lead to an arrest that we can clear up quite quickly in some cases.
One common drug possession issue is charges for “possession with the intent to distribute” (i.e., possession for sale/delivery) rather than “simple possession” (i.e., for personal use). Police need additional evidence to show that the drugs were intended for sale or transfer, and we can challenge those elements, potentially knocking the charges down to simple possession. For example, police often look for guns or money with the drugs or storage in individual amounts ready for sale. If the circumstances show the drugs were for personal use, this might challenge those elements of your case.
Drugs in your system are also “possessed” and can be the basis for charges. However, if you were involuntarily drugged, that should not lead to criminal charges for you, the victim.
Call Our Drug Possession Defense Lawyers in Utah Today
For a free review of your case, call the Salt Lake City drug possession attorneys at Overson Law by dialing (801) 758-2287.
