Oklahoma City and Oklahoma generally take drug crimes very seriously. The penalties are high for most drug related crimes, but never are they more serious than in a trafficking charge. If you’ve been charged with trafficking any drug, including marijuana, you need to call a drug crime lawyer right away. The faster a lawyer gets started on your case, the better and stronger your defense will be.
What Are the Legal Defenses Against an Oklahoma City Marijuana Trafficking Charge?
Bear in mind that these cases are unique. Every case requires a personalized defense by a lawyer who knows the local drug laws and courts and has plenty of experience in dealing with them. Sometimes these defenses can be combined, or sometimes one defense needs to be pressed. Sometimes there may be a defense that you and your lawyer know should be valid, but another defense will actually work best. The important thing is to build a strategic case based on the evidence, how you were treated, and the strength of the prosecution’s case. That’s what your lawyer is here to do for you.
Insufficient Evidence
A trafficking charge can be brought against you if you have 25 pounds or more of marijuana. The important thing to know here is that the 25 pounds automatically triggers this charge. The prosecution does not have to prove that you planned to sell it. They don’t have to find money, baggies, or other drug paraphernalia or depend on the testimony of a witness. The very fact that you had 25 pounds or more is enough for this charge to stick.
Therefore, the important thing to do here is to challenge the evidence itself. The prosecution must show that there were 25 pounds of marijuana or more, and also that it belonged to you. If your lawyer can show that there’s not enough evidence to prove that the drugs are yours, that would be a good defense that may enable you to have the charges lowered or even dropped.
Illegally or Improperly Obtained or Stored Evidence
Here, your lawyer will try to get the evidence itself excluded. No matter how strong the case, if the prosecution can’t actually present the marijuana itself in court, then they really have no case. There are a couple of ways that your lawyer may be able to get this excluded, starting with showing that it was obtained illegally or was not properly stored so that the chain of evidence isn’t clear or is compromised in some way.
For example, if the police searched your home without a warrant and with no probable cause, or if the probable cause they’re giving can be challenged in court, this may mean that none of the drugs can actually be used as evidence against you. The same is true if the drugs were not stored in the manner required by law at any point, from the moment they were taken to the moment they show up in the courtroom.
Police Error
Sometimes, a valid defense is to show that the police made some kind of error in the process of arresting you. This could be an error related to how they treated you or how they treated the evidence. For example, if the police did not read you your rights or if they did read you your rights, you asked for a lawyer, and then they continued to question you, your lawyer may be able to use this in your defense. If the police did not handle the evidence correctly, then it’s possible to cast doubt on the entire case.
This means your lawyer will need to look carefully at everything the police did. Your lawyer will be able to subpoena things like police body cam footage as well as written records. You might also be able to get help from the testimony of witnesses who were in the area at the time, so be sure to talk to your lawyer about everything that happened and who was there.
Casting Doubt on the Narrative
If your case does go to court and the charges are not dropped or changed, then your lawyer will also seek every opportunity to cast doubt on the narrative that the prosecution is building. Remember that it is the prosecution’s responsibility to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that everything they are saying is what really happened. This is actually quite a high bar. Your lawyer does not have to actually prove that you are innocent or that you did not do what you were accused of (it’s often not possible to prove a negative). All your lawyer has to do is throw doubt on the prosecution’s interpretation.
It’s important to remember this as you talk with your lawyer about your defense. For people who are innocent, it can be very frustrating to even contemplate the idea of not asserting that innocence as a defense, instead of simply casting doubt. But it’s actually harder to prove innocence than it is to throw reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case in some situations, and, depending on your circumstances, the latter might just be a much more effective defense for you. Trust your lawyer’s experience in this.
Plea Bargaining and Reduced Charges
In some cases, the best defense will be a plea bargain to get the charges reduced. If there’s not a lot of good evidence, but there is enough evidence to put you at risk, your lawyer may be able to talk to the prosecution about making a deal. If they lower the charges against you, and you then plead guilty to something less serious, then not only are the penalties lower for you, but the prosecution doesn’t have to worry about not being able to make their case in court. Your lawyer may be able to show them that trying to go to court on a trafficking charge is rolling the dice, and they may not get lucky.
Again, it all depends on your specific case, and you will want to talk to your lawyer about the best options for you. Remember that the prosecution is not on your side. They will happily take advantage of you if they can. They know that you likely don’t understand the law and are not experienced in negotiations, so make sure you don’t ever accept a plea deal unless your lawyer has gone over it carefully and can assure you that it’s in your best interests and reasonable for the circumstances.
Contact a Drug Crime Lawyer Now
If you’ve been charged with trafficking marijuana or any other illegal substance, or if a loved one has been charged in this way, contact us at Cannon & Associates in Oklahoma City right away to talk about your case. We’re Oklahoma’s Fierce Advocates® in family and criminal law, and we have extensive experience defending people against drug crime charges, including trafficking charges.
We take your case seriously, and you are not just a number to us. Our entire team strategizes weekly on every case to ensure the best minds are always thinking through every case we handle, and we are proactive in our communication, so you can have peace of mind.