Ocean City Possession With Intent To Distribute Lawyer
Possession with intent to distribute means that all the same elements of possession are there, but that the person possessed it with the intent to distribute the substance to other people. That distinction is important, because it’s the difference between being charged with a misdemeanor and facing a fine and potentially some light jail time, or being charged with a felony and facing up to 20 years in jail. For this reason, if you are charged with possessing a substance with the intent of selling it, an Ocean City possession with intent to distribute lawyer is available to assist you in building a defense. An experienced drug attorney in Ocean City can look at a variety of factors ranging from what police seized to the amount of substance available to help minimize the harm of your offense.
How This Offense is Typically Charged
Possession with intent to distribute is charged in a lot of different ways. The most obvious one is when a person is found to be in possession of a large amount of something, for example, having multiple baggies of marijuana or having a gallon-sized bag of marijuana. Those could be instances where a person could be charged with possession with intent to distribute, because the first thing that the state is going to argue is that what the person possessed was much more than they would have for their own personal use. The state would argue that because of the amount or the way it was packaged, in multiple packages, that was indicative of the person’s intent to sell it or even give it away. Even if the person possessed a lot of it, intended to not charge anybody, and was going to give it away, that still would be possession with intent to distribute, because distribution does not require that it be a sale.
Other Ways PWID is Charged
Possession with intent to distribute can also be charged in cases when the defendant perhaps did not possess a large amount of the drug, but possessed a great deal of money in small bills. The argument is sometimes made that the money is indicative of the fact that the person has been selling it. Also, if the defendant is found to have information on his or her phone, for example, text messages that show that the person has been in contact with other people or people have been in contact with them about making a purchase, all of that can be used to indicate that it is possession with intent to distribute.
Another way that Ocean City possession with intent to distribute attorneys see people charged with possession with intent to distribute is when there is evidence of packaging in the area where they are found. For example, if the police come into a house they may see that there are scales being used for weighing a drug and baggies or other packaging material indicating that a large amount of drugs is being broken off into smaller amounts to distribute. Also, there may be some sort of cutting agent that is being used to take a drug in its purest form and adding substances to it that dilutes the effectiveness of the drug, but it allows the distributor to spread it out into more baggies and sell it that way. So, cutting agents and other materials that are used to cut a drug and allow the person to distribute it to more people could be evidence of possession with intent to distribute.
Building a Defense
There are a number of different things an Ocean City drug lawyer can examine to help build a defense for a possession with intent charge. The first is constitutional issues and whether any of the defendants constitutional rights were violated over the course of the arrest or investigation. For example, the Fourth Amendment comes into play in almost every interaction that a person has with police. It may not rise to the level of the stop, but if it does, you need to what Fourth Amendment safeguards are provided to the person at the time that they are interacting with the police, and did the police violate the person’s Fourth Amendment rights when seizing evidence that the state wants to use against them.
An experienced defense attorney will also know what arguments to make for a motion to suppress the evidence If the defense attorney is successful, the evidence will be suppressed and the state can’t go forward. They would not be able to prosecute the defendant because the judge excludes the drugs from being used as evidence. There has to be a very detailed Fourth Amendment analysis made every time somebody is charged with a drug possession case, and determining whether there are Fourth Amendment arguments that need to be made to protect that person and possibly get the evidence excluded.
Importance of Hiring An Attorney
It is important to consult with an Ocean City possession with intent attorney because a person can face a huge amount of time in prison for this offense. If they have any prior convictions for drug related offenses, they’re looking at even being considered a subsequent offender, in which case they could be looking at mandatory minimum sentences with no parole. It’s very important to have an attorney to help navigate through what is happening in the court system.
Attorneys understand the different kinds of defenses that can be raised. For example, an experienced attorney knows how to argue if a case is actually a case of misdemeanor possession versus a felony possession case. Also, an attorney knows how to best present a defense of the fact that the defendant was not in possession of drugs in a constructive possession case and drugs were found somewhere other than on the defendant’s person. That experience and understanding of the law is what an attorney brings to the table that a person walking into court by themselves has no concept of, especially of all those different defenses and the nuances between one law and another.