Drug Possession With Intent to Deliver
The straightforward part about drug cases is proving that illegal drugs were present. If a police officer finds a baggie of Xanax pills in the center console of your car, it is hard to argue that the baggie was never there, that you were not driving the car, or that there were no pills in the baggie when the police stopped you. Defense arguments such as, “My client had an empty baggie in the center console of his car, and the police planted Xanax pills in it after they arrested him” sound desperate and are unlikely to make jurors less trusting of the prosecution’s interpretation of events. There is room for interpretation, however, about why the confiscated items were in your car. Maybe you kept your Xanax in a baggie instead of a prescription bottle because you drive Uber, and if a passenger with keen eyesight happened to ride in the front seat or in the middle of the backseat, from which the center console would be visible, you would not want them reading your last name and date of birth off of a prescription bottle, the better to steal your identity with. You might also be able to argue that you keep your Xanax in your car instead of your house because you don’t trust your housemates to keep their hands off your pills, because you are too broke to afford a safe, which is one of the reasons that you are driving Uber. Drug paraphernalia is, by nature, a matter of interpretation. Yes, there is a plastic spoon on the passenger seat of your car, but perhaps you went on a first date that involved eating sundaes in your car, and not only was your date so shallow that she refused to go on a second date with someone whose idea of a date is Dairy Queen, but she was also so inconsiderate that she left her ice cream spoon behind when she stormed off. Large stashes of drugs, by contrast, are harder to explain away, no matter how verbally dexterous you are. Here, our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains the ways that you can fight charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.
Why Is Possession With Intent to Deliver So Much Worse Than Simple Possession?
The charge of drug possession indicates that you illegally possessed a controlled substance. This charge usually applies when the amount of the controlled substance was small, and it appears that the defendant intended to consume the drug. In other words, the only dangers to others that are involved in drug possession are that the defendant might behave dangerously while under the influence of the drug, such as by assaulting someone or driving while impaired, or that a child might find the drug and accidentally ingest it. Drug possession can be a misdemeanor or a felony. If you get charged with drug possession, and you do not have any prior criminal convictions on your record, the chances are good that you can get accepted in a drug court program. Drug court is a pretrial intervention program, where you enter a provisional plea of no contest and then complete a year of probation, drug testing, and substance abuse counseling.
By contrast, drug possession with intent to deliver is always a felony, and unless you get the world’s sweetest plea deal, it involves prison time. The charge implies that there is evidence that you planned to sell the drug, or else to transport it to someone else who would sell it.
How Do You Prove Intent?
Intent is a state of mind, and it is virtually impossible to tell what someone else intended to do. Therefore, to prove that someone intended to sell the drugs in his or her possession, prosecutors look at the circumstances. Often, the quantity of drugs is the most compelling evidence. Ten counterfeit Xanax pills might be just enough to get you through a tough week, but 10,000 tends to suggest something similar. Sometimes prosecutors also cite communications between the defendant and presumptive buyers about drug transactions, or else they show exhibits of drug paraphernalia, weapons, or amounts of cash greater than what people normally carry. You might be able to establish reasonable doubt by arguing that one can plausibly interpret the text message exchanges to be about something other than drug sales.
Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys
A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you seek justice if you were charged with drug possession with intent to deliver. Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.
Source:
leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0800-0899/0893/Sections/0893.13.html
