Depending on the charge, there are multiple ways in which a drug charge can be successfully defended and dropped by a qualified Fredericksburg drug attorney. The process of dropping a drug charge will be different depending on whether or not it is simple possession or possession with intent to distribute. Call a Fredericksburg drug lawyer for more information on possession and possession with intent to distribute.
With simple possession charges, the first way in which a charge can be dropped is by assessing whether or not the drug is what it is believed to be. If it is marijuana, cocaine, or some other drug, then it must be proved to be that substance. To gauge to narcotic, it is sent to labs and tested. There are times that the results show something different than what the officer initially thought the drugs were. When there is evidence of the narcotic not being what it is believed to be, the Fredericksburg drug charge can be dropped.
The second way in which a drug charge can be dropped in Fredericksburg is by assessing whether or not the drug was actually possessed by the individual. There are two types of possession: actual possession and constructive possession.
Actual possession means that the drugs are in the person’s pocket, in their hand, or generally on their person.
In a constructive possession, the Commonwealth must prove that the person had a drug, but it was not physically on them. One can argue that if the drug is not on the person, they may not have anything to do with it. The person may not have dominion or control over it or the requisite knowledge that it is a drug. For example, if a person, without any knowledge of the substance, is handed a pen with drugs hidden inside of the pen, they can drop a drug charge in Fredericksburg because they did not have any criminal understanding or intention of the drug being in the pen. That is constructive possession.
There are a lot of legal nuances in dropping a drug charge with respect to actual and constructive possession.
It is a similar situation with possession with intent to distribute. The Fredericksburg drug lawyer must figure out whether or not there was an intent to distribute or whether there was an act of distribution of the drug that occurred. If not, the drug charge could be dropped. This requires delving into different constitutional elements that appear in the drug case – challenging the search, challenging the seizure, challenging the stop, challenging the statements, or challenging the admission that can be made.
There are multiple layers of defenses that have to be applied both constitutionally and factually in order to protect somebody’s interest when dealing with a drug charge.
There are two major mistakes that law enforcement officers can make in Fredericksburg: mistaking a drug for something that it is not and making a constitutional mistake. In other words, an officer would believe that probable cause exists when it does not or have reasonable suspicion to stop somebody when no reasonable suspicion exists. A lawyer can take advantage of these mistakes in order to drop a Fredericksburg drug charge.
If you are involved in police interaction relating to a drug offense, believe you are being investigated and subsequently arrested, you should hire a Fredericksburg drug attorney in order to save yourself from harsh convictions following a drug charge.
A Fredericksburg attorney can help you with dropping a drug charge. By scrutinizing evidence involving actual and constructive possession, a drug lawyer can offer legal advice on how to drop charges relating to narcotic cases.
Northern Virginia Criminal Defense Group
