Drug possession charges are viewed by some individuals as minor. Regardless, they can carry considerable penalties upon conviction. Anyone who is facing these charges has the option of presenting a defense to the court. A strategic defense can help you minimize the penalties you face if you are found guilty of the charges against you.
It is important for you to understand what constitutes drug possession so that you know how to best mount your defense. In the most basic sense, this charge means that there were drugs in an area that you controlled. They don’t have to be on your person in order for you to be charged.
One of the most common defense options that you may use in this case is to claim that the drugs belonged to someone else. To succeed, the substance would need to have been discovered in an area where other people had access. This defense usually works better if there were actually other people around you when the drugs were found. For example, if you are at a party and police officers find drugs in a drawer in the end table, this defense might work as a lot of people had access to that table.
Another defense strategy doesn’t claim that you didn’t have the drugs. Instead, the defense attorney asks the prosecution to produce the drugs in court. If the prosecution can’t do this, there is a chance that the case will be dismissed. Along this same line is asking that the prosecution produce the crime lab analysis of the drugs to show that the substance is definitively what the state claims it to be.
It is sometimes possible combine multiple defense strategies. Just remember that this needs to be customized and not just an attempt to make a one-size-fits-all option work for your case.
