Drug Crimes Defense

Drug crimes carry both criminal penalties such as fines, jail time, probation and community service, as well as the collateral consequence of losing your driver’s license, or possibly becoming ineligible for other governmental benefits. Simply having a bar of your friend’s Xanax in your possession can lead to a permanent criminal history, the loss of your driving privileges for 180 days, and forfeiting any prescription drug benefits you may obtain through governmental programs. The criminal penalties for drugs such as methamphetamines, cocaine, or heroin become significantly more severe depending upon the quantity involved.

In some parts of Texas, law enforcement has a tendency to arrest everyone in a car if they suspect that there is marijuana – remember, it is hemp until a lab says differently – or any other illegal drug. However, just because they arrest you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that does not mean that you actually possessed the contraband. The bad news is that you now must defend yourself against this serious charge unless you attain the help of a skilled criminal defense lawyer. It is important to remember that merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time is not a crime.

The really heartbreaking cases to defend are when you loan your car to your best friend, because you were too tired to go out last night.  They return it smelling weed, and a few other party favors that fell under the seat and don’t tell you.  You get pulled over speeding while driving to Whataburger, the officer smells the “burnt odor of marijuana”, gets you out of the car, and during their probable cause search find a baggie with less than a gram of meth, or maybe some pills that field test as fentanyl.  Your good deed just turned into your biggest nightmare as you are arrested, charged with felony possession, and get to spend some length of time in the jail – during which you are forced to change out of your clothes, and placed with however many folks are in the pod you are assigned to after sitting around waiting to see the magistrate.  Welcome to you just lost up to two days, and possibly your job because you did not show up for work.

I cannot stress how important it is to NOT acknowledge anything that law enforcement says about what was found, and what the field test results show.  It does not matter if you thought you were buying meth, coke, heroin, or something else.  You do NOT know what it is until a certified laboratory identifies it after testing it in a controlled environment.  This is really important if the officer says it is fentanyl because the roadside kits more often than not show a false positive when compared to the actual laboratory results.  In such a situation, when asked what it is, simply say you don’t know and are invoking your Fifth Amendment Rights.  They will keep asking, and you just keep repeating that phrase.  While you will enjoy a tax payer funded ride to jail, you have NOT jeopardized any potential defense to the charges that will be filed.

Because drug crimes carry such a range of punishment, and the facts surrounding the stop, detention and arrest, are extremely important, you need the assistance of an experienced criminal defense lawyer to help you. Depending upon the specific facts of your case, there may be options worth pursuing to minimize any long-term effects that a drug case would have such as participating in the Pre-Trial Intervention Program, or Williamson County DWI/Drug Court, or Veteran’s Court.